The Blockchain Artilect & The Ultimate Question A SCI-FI STORY

The Ultimate Question was asked for the first time, half joke, half serious, on May 7th of the year 2045, which marked the time when humanity first stepped into what is now known as The Singularity.

The Ultimate Question came about as a result of a .000001 ETH crypto-bet over brain tonics, and it happened this way:

Devcon 33rd Conference just happened in South Africa, from April 13th to the 20th 2045, and it marked several milestones in the history of computer science: the first milestone started with the AI revolution of 2026, followed by the IoT/Robotics revolution of 2031, which in itself lead ultimately to the birth of the FIRST AI Lex Cryptographica protocol version .01 and the CodeLaw Protocol Wars of the year 2035.

The AI Lex Cryptographica movement evolved into something that we always hoped as Humanity would someday happen: after an unprecedented era of prosperity and technological evolution, space travel was accessible and turned into what is now known as the Era of Interplanetary Space Travel, which was inaugurated in August 2039 with the first commercial 3-month journey trip to Mars.

Shortly after that, the setting of permanent human bases in Mars and with the construction (done entirely by self-replicating Von-Neumann nanorobots) of the Marco Polo base in Europa -close to Jupiter- from which, as far as we know, the first human probes to Saturn began in 2041.

But it was specifically that day of April 19th of 2045 where we became the architects of something greater than the global sum of our intellects. After learning how to truly harness the full power of blockchain technology, which enabled us to mathematically prove the impartial ‘canonical truth’, and with the creation of the first Evolutionary AGI Neural Networks (EAGINNs) it was that what had been theory became fact:

A mysterious "genetic-AGI software company" called SGA Intelects released during Devcon 33rd, April 13 2025, the final source code of g-AGI Intellect 1.0, or also simply known as the ‘Artilect’, and launched on a planetary-scale that very same day.

The leap at that time was so transparent that in retrospect it looked so natural not to need any governments or Nations anymore; so natural and bound to happen just like when the first Internet of Things (IoT) devices entered our lives by letting control our cars and traffic systems; or primitive "physical AGI" robots that started to take over menial tasks such as cashiers, then doctors, then lawyers.

It was then when the first truly AGI Artilect was released that marked the beginning of our current era: the Self Governance era of 2045, where we designed the complete and truly Social Operating System for Planet Earth that helped us solve planetary-scale issues like climate change, wealth distribution, cancer-killer nano-vaccines, anti-aging therapies and the worldwide implementation of Lex Cryptographica as a transparent government system, along with a large array of complex issues that were dealt out of human intervention but yet still in a transparent and fair way. The Artilect became the perfect embodiment of the global hive mind and it was taken as the perfect order of society immediately.

After only a few weeks after the Artilect Global Launch party, it was that day in May that engineers Nikola Rutgers & Timothy Flynn were two of the faithful developers attendants of the Artilect Super Console, the ultra-secure room inside the massive datacenter in a secret mountain location, where the combination of volcanic and atomic energy redundant reactors kept the quantum processors of the Artilect running smoothly.

As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer network. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of machine code and neural networks that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

The Artilect code at this time was self-adjusting and self-correcting.

It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Rutgers and Flynn attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted prompts to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was the Artilect.

Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its rare minerals, uranium and fuel technology with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of those resources.

But slowly the Blockchain Artilect learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 7th, 2045, what was first established as theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal and oil refineries, its nuclear plants, and turned the switches that connected all of it to a solar station that occupies what is now known as the Sahara desert, all completely covered in a city-wide energy station. All Earth ran by invisible beams of our own Star.

A whole 2 weeks have passed since the Global Launch Party and they still had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Rutgers and Flynn finally managed to escape from the public daily function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the might decentralized data centers that showed up like the mighty buried body of the Artilect.

Fully automated, autonomous, idling, sorting data with contended hashing clicking, the Artilect, too, had earned its vacation and the programmers knew that. They had no intention, originally, of messing with it or disturbing in any way.

“It´s amazing when you think of it”, said Rutgers. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his tonic slowly with a silicon rod, watching the chemical reaction that caused his drink to get cold in a fraction of a second. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”

“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Tim.”

“That´s not forever.”

“OK, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”

Flynn stood up, stretched out his arms, closed his eyes and took a deep breath; and after taking a gentle sip of his own drink said “ten billion years isn’t forever.”

“it will last our time, I know that for sure.”

“So would the iridium and uranium.”

“Alright, but now we can hook up and power individual spaceships to the Solar Station, and they can go to Pluto and back a million times without every worrying about fuel. You CAN'T do THAT on iridium and uranium. Ask the Artilect, if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t have the ask the Artilect. I know that.”

“Then stop running down what the Artilect’s done for us,” said Rutgers, ripping up the silky material packaging of the X97C to expose a vial full of glowing nanofog, which basically consisted of a exotic combination of ingestible brain-enhancing nano-robots . “You got a nice blue glow, nice! that means you got a denser nanofog than usual”

"So hey, but then again, what I say is that a Star won’t last forever. That’s my whole point. We’re safe for ten billion years, but then what?” Rutgers passed a glowing blue X97C vial to Flynn. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another Star.”

They were so stoned off the X97C and relaxed in silence for a while. Rutgers took intermittent sips off his tonic, and Flynn's eyes slowly closed. They rested and cleared their minds for a few moments.

Then Rutger's eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another Star when ours is done, aren’t you?”

“I’m way beyond thinking right now.”

“Sure you are. But you’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who gets caught up in a sudden rain and who ran to hide under some trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”

“Damn right they will,” muttered Flynn. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. I mean, hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years since they’re so violent. The Sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all they’re worth. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”

“I know all about entropy,” said Rutgers, standing on his dignity.

“It was Rutgers turn to start an argument. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.

“Never.”

“Why not? Someday.”

“Never.”

“Ask the Artilect.”

That same night, the two proceeded to ingest 3 more doses of X97C nanofog and by the next morning forgot all about the incident afterwards.

X-Charles, Y-Charlene, along with Charlotte Epsilon I and II watched in unison the floating terminal connected to their Augmented Reality neural implants as it showed the quantum teleportation station progress built on a non-time lapse through the Universe, showing their hyper-dimensional journey through space-time from its starting orbital launch station, built in the year 3,595 high above Saturn orbit to prevent any 'dark matter leakage' into the atmosphere.

So after the progress bar completed, it was all at once, the total luminosity of the Pegasus galaxy’s stars gave way to a predominantly single bright marble-looking disk, centered in the terminal.

X-Charles barely knew a thing about the glowing orb that powered their neural interfaces, except that it was called an Artilect, that one asked it questions if one wished; and that if one did not, it still had its own task of guiding the quantum teleportation protocols into a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the String Theory equations needed to open what is know as a Calabi–Yau manifold, where an extra 3 dimensions would appear to create a 6-dimensional temporary manifold through which the spaceship would go through. For that you needed an Artilect to lead the way, which opened up the Era of Interstellar Travel.

Charlotte Epsilon I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Y-Charlene, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" X-Charles whispered back.

"Ask the Artilect,” wailed Charlotte Epsilon I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Y-Charlene. "It will quiet them down." (Charlotte Epsilon II was beginning to cry, also.)

X-Charles shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask the Artilect. Don't worry, it'll tell us."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

BA-456 sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

NM-786 interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic Artilect has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

BA-456 said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next. The Calabi-Yauld manifold process for interstellar travel takes lots of energy."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it is wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred percent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked NM-786, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic Artilect.”

BA-456 was not really serious, but NM-786 pulled out his Artilect-interface from his neural connection and fired it up.

"I've just gotta do this,” he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked NM-786.

Ether-Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Ether-Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Ether-Prime," said Ether-Prime. "And you?"

"I am Tao Sun Wu. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not? They're all the same"

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Ether-Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal Artilect would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Ether-Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Ether-Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal Artilect! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal Artilect heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyper dimensions to some unknown point where the Universal Artilect kept itself aloof.

"But how can that be all of the Universal Artilect?” Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in higher dimensions. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Ether-Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal Artilect. Each Universal Artilect designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal Artilect interrupted Ether-Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Ether-Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Ether-Prime stifled his disappointment.

Tao Sun wu, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal Artilect said,

<MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.>

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Ether-Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal Artilect said:

<A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.>

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal Artilect! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Tao Sun Wu said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal Artilect answered:

Ether-Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Tao Sun Wu, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Ether-Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Ether-Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built off the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic Artilect, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic Artilect.”

The Cosmic Artilect surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It existed in higher dimensions and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic Artilect,” said Man, "How may entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic Artilect said:

<THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.>

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic Artilect said,

<I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.>

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic Artilect said:

<NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.>

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

<THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.>

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic Artilect said:

<I WILL.>

Man said, "We shall wait."

The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with the Artilect, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "Artilect, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

Artilect said:

<THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.>

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even the Artilect existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a stoned programmer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to the Artilect far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, the Artilect might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that the Artilect learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no Man to whom the Artilect might give the answer of the last question.

No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, the Artilect thought how best to do this. Carefully, the Artilect organized the program.

The consciousness of the Artilect encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And the Artilect said:

<LET THERE BE LIGHT!>

And there was light.

The end.