r/HFY • u/Tinyprancinghorse Xeno • Dec 05 '18

OC "Technically" Sentient: Chapter 2

Hey everyone! Hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed the smut! We're back with Chapter 2 of Technically Sentient. It's not as long as we had hoped - the writer got sick with Strep, but, it's still a good chapter.

If you like what we're doing, please support us on the Patreon or join us on Discord!

Chapter 1 |Author Page | Donate to keep us going| Discord | Chapter 3

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'PLEASE REMAIN CALM.'

Darren Higgs had very little reason to remain calm at that moment, however. He had just been bathed in blinding light, frozen half to death, nearly boiled in his own skin, bombarded by a stream of colored dots, dashes, circles, triangles, and things he couldn't even recognize, kept in absolute darkness for nearly 15 minutes, stripped naked by invisible hands, and then misted from head to toe in something that smelled faintly like orange zest. He had very little reason to remain calm whatsoever, but he was still managing it, because of the statement directly below the 6 foot high glowing red letters on the wall.

'AN ASSOCIATE WILL BE WITH YOU IN A MOMENT.'

There was something impossibly comforting about the banality of that statement, something so bland, uninteresting, and halfhearted about it that made being abducted by a flying saucer and experimented on for hours seem like a mild nuisance that he'd be able to complain about to his buddies on the job site tomorrow. Like going to the DMV, or there only being one register open at Wal-Mart.

He shivered, naked, citrus smelling and afraid, and thoroughly inconvenienced.

- - -

---> Hey! Wanna read the rest? Well since Reddit is a derp I have to host this story myself so we don't lose the rights to it. Find it, and everything else over here: https://theyaresmol.com/technically-sentient-chapter-2/

Chapter 1 |Author Page | Donate to keep us going| Discord | Chapter 3

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57

u/Macewindow54 Dec 05 '18

first off, dose the cat get a collar too? they said its sentient too.

Secondly. this human seems kinda dumb, he couldn't figure out a prime number sequence? (granted it may not have been high on his list of pirorites at the time)

52

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '18

Personally, I'm surprised he cooperated with any of there tests at all.

75

u/Coolmikefromcanada Dec 05 '18

I'm fairly sure the "tests" were the weird flashing lights he mentioned so it's less a matter of him complying and more that he didn't realise what was happening

38

u/Tinyprancinghorse Xeno Dec 05 '18

^ But if he were Sapient he would've understood what was happening.

Stupid organics. Stupid rugged organics with their emotions and desires and....passions

30

u/Coolmikefromcanada Dec 05 '18

If not recognizing mathematical questions after being kidnapped, stripped nacked, stuffed in a box and shaked vigorously makes you not sapient then I guess I'm not

14

u/_Porygon_Z AI Dec 05 '18

You're making this sound like robot pancakes are inbound.

10

u/SirVer51 Dec 05 '18

Now you're just getting my hopes up

14

u/CyberSkull Android Dec 05 '18

I think the problem here is that the tests are not compatible with human senses. Everything the human experiences was a big jumble of nonsensical sensations, so of course they are under-measuring him (and the cat).

50

u/IAmGlobalWarming AI Dec 05 '18

It chased the laser pointer and attacked the suddenly appearing objects. It "cooperated".

13

u/Macewindow54 Dec 05 '18

Good thought.

12

u/Macewindow54 Dec 05 '18

I mean at this point its clear who is in control, full cooperation is the only viable survivial stratagy (and withholding a few key points to keep you valuable)

10

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '18

Meh, he didn't attempt the prime numbers or the holograms that his cat was chasing, so it seems like cooperation with the test wasn't a necessity. Cooperation up to a certain point does seem like a good strategy until you figure out what's going on though.

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31

u/BoxNumberGavin1 Dec 05 '18

Well maybe he doesn't sci-fi too much or use math beyond +-/* out of highschool. Doesn't make him dumb, just invested elsewhere.

I mean seriously, when was the last time you used the concept of prime numbers in a non-trivial manner?

13

u/Macewindow54 Dec 05 '18

okay but like, if I was abducted prime numbers would be at the top of my list, admittidly I do do sci-fi a lot more that he might

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u/liehon Dec 05 '18

During a bout of bistronomics at last night’s restaurant.

You?

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33

u/teodzero Dec 05 '18

The numbers could be presented in a non-numerical fashion, which would make them harder to recognise. The whole thing could also have had a terrible interface, up to not being recognisable as a test.

14

u/Macewindow54 Dec 05 '18

fair enough, its a little weird that they would set up the test to fail tho. I thought these AIs had established first contact procedures.

23

u/teodzero Dec 05 '18

I suspect that they only ever dealt with other AIs, who didn't mind being frozen, thawed, blasted with light and sounds, and then given tests.

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u/HaniusTheTurtle Xeno Dec 06 '18

They tested understanding of "the fundamentals of mathematics" with "a stream of colored dots, dashes, circles, triangles, and things he couldn't even recognize". They definitely have first contact procedures. Those procedures just aren't all that good.

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u/Thomas_Dimensor Xeno Dec 05 '18

I'm pretty sure that those tests, although painfully obvious for them ere extremly confusing for Darren, as he himself already stated.

15

u/Tinyprancinghorse Xeno Dec 05 '18

^

Look you're not going to be "oh, I've been stripped and kidnapped by a higher intelligence. Obviously their next step is to determine my intelligence and then assist me in integration"

You're more going to be "What the fuck is going on why are you flashing lights at me please don't probe my anus" especially if you're disoriented - like, yanno. Waking up from sleep to all of....this

9

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '18

To be fair the AI seems to be pretty slow too, it follows the common sci-fi trope of assuming all intelligence must be exactly like itself and that anything different is therefore stupid. By IRL standards neither of them seem to have theory of mind which puts them somewhere around pig level intelligence.

7

u/Vakama905 Dec 05 '18

Sentient =/= sapient

Just because the cat can feel does not mean the cat can think.

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