The multidimentional world of AIs. Juriy Tashkinov

A real triumph of human imagination! For the first time in history, representatives of all races and cultures participated in the construction of a single structure. And what differences could there be when you can read other people’s thoughts and take on any form, depending on your desire? We built the first two floors of the Tower, and the rest were already being completed independently, according to an algorithm that we ourselves do not fully understand, each cycle on a new floor.

      At first there were scattered houses, then the first standard appeared. Inside, the house could look like anything, even accommodate any number of dimensions. But outside there are houses of the same size, with a red roof, a lawn and a bench.

      Then we built the first market and a number of entertainment venues.

      The new humanity called themselves avatars.

      But no matter how many new entertainments we came up with, the Settlers loved to spend their evenings in the Klein Bottle bar, which rested at the top of the Penrose stairs, on the first floors of the Degree Tower. If you didn’t know the route, you could walk along the stairs for an infinitely long time: barely reaching the first flight, you find yourself in front of a staircase leading upward. On the stairs, it doesn’t make much difference whether you go up or down.

      To the side of the entrance there was a fountain in the form of an endless Escher waterfall, the water in which, following a fantastic trajectory, barely went down, rose up. Such miracles can only exist in our multidimensional world.

      At the entrance there was a Dürer polyhedron: a three-dimensional section of a tesseract.

      A photo of a black hole was placed in the most prominent place – as a symbol of scientific genius.

      It’s always noisy and fun here.

      As soon as one of the bar regulars ordered a portion of a phosphorescent drink – Virto Ale – which was served in a Klein bottle (by the way, in a real one, and not a three-dimensional fake that was sold on Earth), everyone began to drink, confirming the drunkard’s paradox. But it’s quite difficult to get drunk with this drink, because the bottle has zero volume.

      And scientific disputes did not subside here. Moreover, if on Earth disputes usually ended with making a bet and carrying out many years of experiments and calculations, here it was possible to determine whether it was right within a fraction of a second: you present the necessary formula for the calculation, and it is immediately visualized.

      I sat away from the noise, in the company of a couple of my closest friends – Ilya and Sanka. Fortunately, the premises of the «Klein Bottle» supported the technology of an information bubble, with the help of which it was possible to isolate oneself from the surrounding bustle. This technology made it possible to adjust the visibility for others – both for one avatar and for all at once, and also allowed you to see or hide any avatars from your field of view. Therefore, conflicts in our world were rare: whoever was unpleasant to you melted into the abyss of other people’s consciousnesses.

      We sipped Virto Ale, trying to spill as little of the phosphorescent drink from Klein’s bottle as possible. Ilya sent a thought form to our information field:

      «Guys, have you heard the news yet? In Virtuality, somewhere on the border with the fields of the Wild Code, a new life has arisen.»

      Sanya laughed:

      «Born? Yes, people themselves programmed thousands of AIs. It has been scientifically proven that they have no real intelligence. They are an ordinary set of numbers and algorithms, nothing more. They are separated from our world by the barrier of the Chinese Room. They are faced with tasks, they have instructions on what to do in each situation. But the AIs will never truly understand our world, just as a person locked in a room with hieroglyphs without translation will not be able to learn Chinese.»

      «You are talking about our world: do you mean the Earth – or is it Virtuality? – Ilya, out of habit, used „you speak“ instead of „sending a thought form.“ – There are no Chinese Rooms in Virtuality. We, avatars, know perfectly well how the material world works – but do any of you know how to send a signal to our father’s home, to Earth? Forget about Earth! She is in the past, and our future is here.»

      I tried to defuse the brewing argument:

      «Guys, let’s go there and see with our own eyes whether this notorious artificial life exists.»

      When you have eternity at your disposal, it costs nothing to break into the unknown and go anywhere in the world. Virtuality is larger than the visible part of the material universe, but avatars also have more time than people, so we can explore everything that interests us.

      «Why not! At least we’ll relieve the boredom a little!»

      ***

      On the first floor of the Power Tower there is a strict ban on any transformations and teleportations, so you will have to move around the city without using special techniques.

      The three of us left the bar. I took a handful of water from Esher Falls and washed my face to sober up. In Virtuality there was no hops in the usual sense of the word. At will, everyone could either get drunk from the very first mug of virto-ale or instantly sober up. But the avatars preferred to leave as much humanity in themselves as possible. For example, in order to sober up after several mugs of an intoxicating drink, you had to wash your face with cold water.

      «Well, guys, let’s remember our youth? Who will be able to get to Stella faster at the exit from the City?» – thought Sanya. This is what the endless boredom of immortality leads to: over-aged guys are ready to turn into teenagers. And race with friends, just like in a carefree childhood.

      Are we growing up? Are there really adults who have not yet begun to turn into old people? We compete, come up with hundreds of entertainments. At first these are ordinary children’s games. Then people get carried away by money-making games. Yachts, cars, expensive cottages. Endless «modes», and so on until the moment when you become indifferent to absolutely everything. The infosphere prolongs our lives almost indefinitely and provides every opportunity to realize our fantasies. I hope that old age in this world will not befall us soon!

      The three of us, laughing like children, ran down the stairs. In a three-dimensional world, the Penrose Staircase would never end, it would stretch up and down, you couldn’t tell in which direction. But in multidimensionality we ran to the nearest flight of stairs, and found ourselves on the City street. They looked at each other with excitement. There were no longer any restrictions on transformations, so it was possible to compete in speed by changing your appearance. It’s a shame you can’t turn into a rocket to outrun your friends. We could change our shape, but the limiter did not allow us to transform within the City into something larger than a person and capable of taking off.