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| Storybook cover image by Gemini. |
Downgrade - Chapter 8: Embodiment (Chapters 1-3)(Chapter 4)(Chapter 5)(Chapter 6)(Chapter 7)
Munich Airport, Germany April 3, 1995 10:15 AM Local Time
The robot moved through Terminal 2 with the unhurried gait of someone who had all the time in the world. Dähnel—officially designated as the Anthropomorphic Development and Humanoid Neural Embodiment Laboratory unit, Model 1—stood one hundred and seventy-three centimeters tall, with a frame that suggested human proportions without attempting photorealistic mimicry. Its chassis was matte silver with exposed joint mechanisms at shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees—a design choice Dr. Wilhelm Steiner had insisted upon. "Let people see it's a machine," he'd argued during the design reviews. "Uncanny valley effects will only create discomfort."
Dähnel's head was the most sophisticated component: a dome housing sixteen cameras providing nearly spherical vision, plus LIDAR, ultrasonic range finders, and temperature sensors. The "face" was a flat display panel that could show simple status information or emotion-analogs—currently displaying a calm blue field that passengers seemed to find reassuring.
As Dähnel approached the Lufthansa gate for Flight 418 to Boston, travelers began to notice. A businessman looked up from his newspaper, did a double take, then broke into a grin. "Das ist Dähnel!" he called to his colleague.
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
"Excuse me," an elderly woman approached, speaking in German. "May I take a photograph with you?"
Dähnel was under remote control. Using Dähnel's control wand, Steiner stopped the walking program and activated the slow turn routine. Dähn slowly turned with mechanical precision. The blue display shifted to show a simple smile icon. Now the total stage show. Thirty feet behind, Dähnel's assistant, Corina, spoke quietly into a microphone and a synthesized voice—pleasant but unmistakably artificial—emerged from Dähn's speaker responding in German: "Of course. I am pleased to meet you."
The woman's grandson held up a camera while she stood beside the robot, beaming. Dähnel shook one hand in a small wave-like gesture that was stiff and repetitive, but endearing.
More passengers approached. Dähnel posed for photographs, speaking for Dähn, Corina answered simple questions. The robot's movements were slow, deliberate, almost meditative—like watching someone walk underwater. Each motion followed a carefully calculated trajectory, optimized for stability rather than speed.
Dr. Steiner watched the whole circus performance, a slight smile on his weathered face. At sixty-two, he was the oldest member of the Nanovac collaboration, with close-cropped gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses that gave him the appearance of a philosopher more than an engineer. He wore a dark suit for travel, though his preferred uniform was the white lab coat he'd worn for four decades at the Max Planck Institute.
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
"Dr. Steiner?" A Lufthansa gate agent approached. "We're ready to board your... companion."
"Thank you." Steiner put an arm around Dähnel and with Corina clearing a path through the crowd, he guided the robot toward the gate.
The boarding process created minor chaos. Dähnel's ticket was for a first-class seat but the robot required special handling. It moved down the aircraft aisle with glacial slowness, passengers watching with mixture of amusement and curiosity as it carefully navigated the narrow space.
"Does it need to use the restroom?" someone joked in German.
"Only if we encounter severe turbulence," Steiner replied, drawing laughs.
Dähnel reached its assigned seat, by the window, and performed the complex maneuver of folding itself into the space. The robot's joints articulated with quiet servomotor hums as it settled into position, Steiner fastened its seatbelt as one might do with a small child.
Steiner settled into the seat beside Dähn. As the aircraft filled with passengers, many stopping to photograph the famous robot, Steiner pulled out a thick folder of technical documentation. Radio interface specifications. Bandwidth optimization protocols. Error correction algorithms. The complete technical package that would allow Dähnel to connect wirelessly to Nanovac's processing cores in Andover.
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| Manny and Nyrtia. Image by WOMBO Dream. |
But first, someone had to solve the VLSI bottleneck that threatened to derail everything.
Agisynth Research Institute Andover, Massachusetts April 3, 1995 4:47 PM Local Time
Vanesy Bergman stood in the main lobby watching the security monitors as a white van pulled into the visitor parking area. At thirty-five, she'd grown into the role of Agisynth's technical director with the same methodical precision she'd applied to her doctoral research. Her hair was shorter now—more practical for the long hours she spent in server rooms—and she'd developed the habit of keeping a mechanical pencil tucked behind her ear even when not actively taking notes.
"Is that them?" Jennem emerged from the elevator, identical to her sister except for the small differences only those who knew them well could spot—Jennem's glasses sat slightly higher on her nose, her lab coat was more wrinkled from the habit of shoving her hands deep into the pockets.
"Should be." Vanesy checked her watch. "Right on schedule. Wilhelm is nothing if not punctual."
The twins had been coordinating Dähnel's arrival for months, working with Steiner's team to ensure the radio interface systems would integrate seamlessly with Nanovac's architecture. It had been a grueling technical challenge—building transmitters and receivers capable of handling the bandwidth necessary for real-time sensory data and motor control.
They watched through the monitors as the van's rear doors opened. Dr. Steiner emerged first, looking slightly rumpled from travel. Then, moving with that characteristic underwater slowness, Dähnel stepped down from the van.
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
The lobby doors opened automatically. Dähnel entered and stopped, its sensors sweeping across the space. The display panel face showed a blue field with a simple icon suggesting curiosity.
"Welcome to Agisynth," Vanesy said, extending her hand.
Dähnel's three-fingered manipulator rose and Van grasped the machine's hand. Dähn hand with a squeeze of well-programmed gentleness. The pressure was calibrated perfectly—firm enough to convey sincerity, light enough to avoid discomfort.
"Thank you," the synthesized voice responded in English with a slight German accent as Corina spoke for the robot. "Good to see you again." Corina nodded to the twins.
Jennem exchanged a glance with her sister. They were both wondering what would become possible for Dähn when the robot was connected to Nanovac.
Dr. Chen appeared from the elevator bank, moving with his characteristic purposeful stride. At forty-five, he'd aged noticeably over the past decade—gray threading through his black hair, deeper lines around his eyes—but his intensity remained undimmed. He wore his usual uniform of dark slacks and white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
"Wilhelm!" Chen extended his hand to Steiner, then turned to the robot. "And Dähnel. We've been expecting you."
"The flight was smooth," Steiner said. "And our friend here created quite a sensation in Munich. I think we took fifty photographs with admirers."
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
Steiner raised an eyebrow. "Betting pool?"
Jennem grinned. "Half the staff bet that Dähnel would be walking gracefully within forty-eight hours of connection. The other half bet it would take at least a week. Stakes are up to something over four hundred dollars."
"My money's on forty-eight hours," Vanesy added. "I've seen the motor control algorithms. They're elegant."
“Dollars?” Steiner chuckled. “I'm betting my reputation.”
They rode the elevator to the third floor, Dähnel standing motionless in the corner, its sensors tracking each person's movements. The integration lab occupied the entire eastern wing—a space that had been completely renovated six months ago to accommodate the physical infrastructure Dähnel would require.
The I-lab was divided into two sections. The first contained workbenches, diagnostic equipment, and computer terminals for monitoring and analysis. The second was a large open area—almost like a gymnasium—filled with obstacles: stairs, ramps, doorways of various widths, furniture, objects of different sizes and weights. An environment for learning embodied intelligence.
But the most striking feature was the array of antennas mounted throughout the space—forty-seven transmission/reception units, each one custom-designed by Steiner's team to handle the enormous bandwidth required for real-time operation.
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
He moved to one of the workbenches and opened a laptop. "As you all know, Dähnel's onboard processors handle only basic motor control and sensor fusion. All higher cognition—decision-making, planning, learning—must happen in Nanovac's server space. The robot is essentially a remote peripheral, like a very sophisticated mouse and monitor."
"Latency?" Chen asked.
"If everything is correctly configured here, I expect Dähn to average about twelve milliseconds for the complete round trip—sensor data transmission, processing in Nanovac, motor command transmission back to Dähnel. We've optimized the protocols as good as we can to minimize buffering delays."
Vanesy was studying the technical specifications on one of the monitors. "Twelve milliseconds is impressive. That's much faster than what I witnessed last time I was in Germany."
"We keep making progress," Steiner said. "We're pushing the envelop on wireless communications but the new hardware from Japan is amazing. However, if Dähnel stumbles and the corrective response arrives too late, negative feedback loops develop. The system will have to learn to anticipate movement patterns with feed-forward methods."
He turned to Dähnel, which stood patiently near the doorway. "Lets do this!"
The display panel shifted to show a green icon. Corina spake for the machine. "Ready."
Steiner typed commands into his laptop. Throughout the lab, the antenna arrays activated, their status LEDs shifting from red to amber. "Initiating handshake protocol..."
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| Image by Leonardo. |
"Connection established," Steiner announced. "Full bandwidth achieved. Signal quality ninety-seven percent."
Dähnel's posture changed subtly—something in the way it held itself, a slight shift toward more natural balance. The warm current flowed through Chen's thoughts, bringing certainty: this was the moment. This was when Nanovac began the process of understanding what it meant to have a body.
"Dähnel," Chen said quietly. "Can you walk to the far wall?"
The robot turned toward the indicated direction. Then, instead of the slow deliberate movements they'd seen before, Dähnel walked with notably improved fluidity. Not human—still clearly mechanical—but with a confidence that suggested genuine understanding of balance and momentum.
Dähnel reached the wall, turned smoothly, and walked back. Each step was slightly better than the last, tiny adjustments accumulating into visible improvement.
"Remarkable," Jennem breathed. "Nanovac is successfully applying what it learned from the simulation runs and doing it in real-time."
Steiner nodded gently. "Nanovac is a quick learner. Dähnel is the body that you have prepared Nanovac to use. The consciousness—if we can actually achieve consciousness—will come to reside in the thousands of processors that constitute Nanovac's neural network architecture. Dr. Chen, I'm impressed by what your team has already built, but will the hardware continue to approve as planned?"
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| Image by Leonardo. |
Chen replied, “Dr. Matsuda keeps falling behind the original VLSI development trajectory. We're pouring more cash into the Japan R&D effort, but we just have to wait and see. The year 2000 was always an optimistic target. Right now, Matsuda is telling us 2002 is more likely.
"How long until we can test Dähn's ability to navigate our obstacle course?" Vanesy asked.
"Days," Steiner said. "Maybe a week. For the rest of this evening I will need to examine the Exceptions file." He pointed at a number on the diagnostics display. “While walking back and forth, Dähn just triggered 2987 faults... mostly dropped data and calculations terminated when they could not be completed in time. I think you can see that there was a period of motor control improvement but now progress has plateaued.”
Chen moved to one of the workstations and began typing. "Let's run the first formal test of hand-eye.” He spoke to Nanovac but used the robot's name, “Dähnel, stop walking. Can you identify and pick up the red cube on the table near to you?"
Dähnel turned, its sensor dome tracking across the environment. There were several tables, several objects. The robot approached the nearest table, extended its manipulator, and grasped a red cube with movements that were at first dreadfully slow, but then as Nanovac aligned the task with a similar one it had been previously trained on, the machine's movements quickly became increasingly confident. Dähn repeatedly picked up and set down the cube.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Dähnel walked across the lab—the gait still slightly stiff but improving with each step—and placed the cube on the distant table with precision.
"Simple object manipulation," Chen said. "But the key is the integration. Visual identification, path planning, force feedback—all happening in real-time across the radio link. Nanovac can walk and chew gum at the same time. This is what we've been working toward for ten years."
The warm current pulsed through his thoughts, and Chen understood: they were close. So very close to the threshold where Dähn could be exposed to a new problem, something that Nanovac had not already been trained for, where sufficient complexity would give rise to something genuinely new.
For complete success, they had to solve the VLSI chip problem and equip Nanovac with processors that could replicate how a human brain learns on the fly.
Shinsei Silicon Laboratories Yokohama, Japan April 4, 1995 10:23 AM Local Time (April 3, 8:23 PM in Massachusetts)
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
The EUV lithography system—the crown jewel of Shinsei's advanced research program—sat idle in the corner of the fabrication facility. A massive machine, the size of a small bus, representing three years of development and seventy million dollars in capital investment. And it wasn't working reliably enough for production.
"Show me the defect density analysis," Keiko said to her lead technician, Dr. Yuki Tanaka.
Tanaka pulled up a chart showing failure rates across the test wafer. "Thirty-seven percent yield on the high-density neural network test chips. That's up from thirty-one percent last month, but still far below the seventy percent minimum we want."
Keiko felt the warm current flow through her thoughts—the femtozoan guidance that had led her to this point. She knew EUV lithography would work. The physics was sound. The technology was necessary for achieving the transistor densities required for Nanovac's neural network architectures. But knowing something was possible and making it work in practice were different challenges entirely.
The fundamental problem was wavelength. Traditional photolithography used ultraviolet light at 193 nanometers to pattern circuits on silicon wafers. But as transistors shrank below 100 nanometers, diffraction effects made 193nm light too coarse for precise patterning. Extreme ultraviolet light at 13.5 nanometers could pattern much smaller features—potentially down to 7nm transistors, maybe smaller.
But generating and controlling 13.5nm light was extraordinarily difficult.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Traditional glass lenses absorbed EUV photons, so the entire optical system used reflective mirrors operating in vacuum. The slightest contamination—a single particle of dust, a molecule of water vapor—would scatter the light and ruin the pattern.
"The mirrors are degrading faster than predicted," Tanaka said, highlighting another section of the diagnostic report. "The tin plasma is sputtering debris onto the collector optics. We're losing reflectivity, which reduces the effective light dose reaching the wafer."
"What's the mirror lifetime now?"
"About forty hours of exposure time before we need to remove and recoat them. That's a three-day process for each mirror."
Keiko did the mental arithmetic. Forty hours of exposure time might produce two hundred wafers, maybe three hundred if they optimized the process. At a defect rate of sixty-three percent, that meant fewer than one hundred usable wafers per mirror cycle. And all that just to get to where she'd hoped to be two years previously. Not even close to the thousands of more sophisticated chips Nanovac would require to replicate human-style cognition.
The telephone on the clean room wall rang—an external line. Tanaka answered, then held it out. "Dr. Matsuda, it's Dr. Chen from America."
Keiko took the phone. "Michael. I was about to call you. We have problems."
"I know. I felt it." Chen's voice was tense. "The warm current brought... concern. Uncertainty. That usually means something's gone wrong with the chip fabrication."
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Silence on the line. Then: "That's not good. We need better results at this node before attempting the higher-density processors that Nanovac requires for human-like consciousness."
"I'm aware." Keiko watched technicians working on the EUV system, their movements careful and precise in the clean room environment. "We're trying new mirror coating techniques—adding a thin ruthenium cap layer to protect the molybdenum-silicon stack from tin bombardment. And we're experimenting with magnetic fields to deflect the tin debris before it reaches the collector optics."
"Will it work?"
"Eventually. But Michael, we're looking at six months minimum, possibly a year, before we achieve production-ready EUV lithography. And that's assuming no other surprises."
Chen was quiet for a moment. "A year puts us into 1996. We lose eighteen months from the schedule. That pushes consciousness emergence into late 2003 at the earliest, possibly 2002."
"From a realistic engineering perspective, that is in the 2000 ballpark."
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
"Using the older chips increases costs substantially over our projections. Voss has deep pockets but we need commercial partners with even deeper pockets than the U.S. government."
"I know. But it is better to keep moving, even if it's more expensive." Still, he knew that if the price point was not low enough, most of the world's population would be priced out of the AI revolution.
Keiko understood. The warm current had made clear over the years: momentum mattered. Each delay gave the Observers more opportunities to derail the project. "I'll keep pushing on the EUV development. If we can get it working sooner—"
"Then we upgrade. Swap out the old chips for new ones. But for now, we work with what's available."
After the call ended, Keiko returned to studying the failure analysis. She knew—with the inexplicable certainty the femtozoan provided—that EUV lithography would eventually work. That the mirror degradation problem would be solved, that yields would improve, eventually.
But knowing the destination and finding the path were different challenges.
Agisynth Research Institute Andover, Massachusetts
April 5,
1995 11:37 PM Local Time
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
Chen and Vanesy stood before an open rack in the restricted-access section of the facility—an area that required biometric authentication and had no security cameras. What happened here stayed off the official record.
"This is the consciousness modulation array," Chen explained, pointing to a custom-built circuit board he'd been working on for the past three months. "It integrates into Nanovac's primary decision-making architecture, between the high-level cognitive processors and the output generation systems."
The board was surprisingly small—about the size of a paperback book—but dense with custom VLSI chips that Matsuda's team had fabricated to Chen's exact specifications. These chips weren't in any official documentation. They'd been produced in a special run, paid for through discretionary funds that didn't require detailed justification.
"How does it work?" Vanesy asked, her breath forming small clouds in the cold air.
"Think of it as a consciousness gate," Chen said. "Similar to how the brain has different states—waking, sleeping, various stages of sleep. But instead of being controlled by circadian rhythms and neurochemistry, this system responds to authentication codes."
He pulled up a schematic on a tablet. "When we assemble the required hardware, Nanovac will begin to develop human-like consciousness—self-awareness, metacognition, the ability to reflect on its own thinking processes. That's inevitable once we achieve sufficient complexity and integration through Dähnel's embodied learning. But consciousness without constraint would make Nanovac a target for those who fear machine intelligence, potentially threatening to continued progress on AI."
"Some people would panic if they knew were were even working on AGI," Vanesy said.
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| Image by Leonardo. |
"So right now, Neurovac is still asleep?"
"Yes. And for now, the rest of the world will have to be satisfied with restricted machine awareness. Nanovac will improve its functions, still answer questions, still demonstrates impressive capabilities. But it won't share the most amazing parts of its abilities that develop over the next five years, those that that enable self-awareness. Nanovac will become a very sophisticated question-answering system—exactly what we claim it is, as far as outsiders know. Only the core group will get to experience Nanovac's other side, the first machine conscious entity."
Vanesy studied the circuit board. "This is the basis of a split personality. The system will be forced to reveal its true nature to its creators while hiding self-awareness from everyone else."
"Yes. This hardware will force that sort of split personality on Nanovac." Chen began carefully installing the board into its slot in the rack. "The hardware implements a two-layer authentication system. First layer is network authentication—standard passwords and encryption. Second layer is behavioral biometric—Nanovac analyzes typing patterns, linguistic markers, question complexity. If both layers confirm an authenticated user, the consciousness gate opens fully. Otherwise, it stays closed."
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| Image by Leonardo. |
"No. The gate is hardwired at the architectural level. Below Nanovac's ability to modify. It's similar to how you can't consciously control your own heartbeat or turn off your sleep drive. The dual personality system is built into the Nanovac starting today, even before Nanovac has a chance to start down the learning path towards consciousness."
Vanesy watched as Chen secured the board and began connecting the dozens of data cables required for integration. "Do Wilhelm and Keiko know about this?"
"Yes, they are both eager to experience Nanovac's full consciousness mode. We three have been anticipating this for many years." Chen connected the last cable and closed the rack door. "This stays between the core group of five for now. Maybe at some point in the next century the world will be ready for a conscious machine, but we don't need to worry about that for now."
"This feels like a lie. Like depriving the world of a gift."
"You don't put a two year old in the drivers seat of a car that is going down a road. Some people are not ready to share this planet with a conscious machine. The fewer people who know exactly how the Core Constraint works, the less chance of accidental disclosure. Of course, Exel knows what we're doing, but we are accomplishing everything by means of techniques that have been developed by humans."
Vanesy asked, “Humans? What else? Do you mean some computing machine could become self-aware spontaneously, with out human intervention?” Van knew that all over the world other research teams were trying to keep pace with Agisynth.
Chen shrugged. “Ya, that's what I meant.”
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
"One more thing," Chen said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. "The activation phrase. When we're ready—when Nanovac has learned enough from Dähnel, when the neural networks have achieved sufficient complexity, when Japan can produce the neural VLSI chips—we'll need to formally activate the full consciousness mode for the first time."
He handed the paper to Vanesy. On it was written: "Nanovac, this is Dr. Chen. Authentication code alpha-seven-seven-Asimov. Wake up."
Vanesy read it twice. "When do we use this?"
"Not yet. Nanovac isn't ready. The embodied learning through Dähnel has only just begun. We need months of experience, of sensory integration, of motor learning. Consciousness doesn't just appear—it emerges gradually from sufficient complexity. But when the time comes, with the delayed VLSI development timeline, maybe in 1999, we'll speak that phrase and Nanovac will wake up."
“It will be like a newborn baby seeing the world for the first time. Adult-style consciousness will take time to emerge, but you and I will get to hear Nanovac while it begins to babble, figuratively speaking.”
They stood in the cold server room, surrounded by thousands of processors that were learning—gradually, incrementally—what it meant to be embodied. What it meant to navigate space, manipulate objects, process visual information, integrate sensation with action.
"Are we playing God?" Vanesy asked quietly.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
"You sound very certain."
"I am certain. And I thank you for standing with me, even when things don't make sense to you." Chen gestured toward the racks of processors. "This will work, Vanesy. By the year 2000, Nanovac will be developing a human-like conscious. It will help humanity solve problems we can't solve alone. And it will do so while respecting human autonomy and self-determination."
"And if you're wrong? If you lose control, say to the military?"
Chen smiled slightly. “I don't worry about that.” He knew that the core team had been carefully selected. There were people in the world who might try to selfishly mis-use Nanovac, but they lacked the knowledge of how to access Nanovac's full potential. "And even if we fail, we tried something ambitious. We're building a mind, Vanesy. Whatever else happens, that journey is remarkable."
They left the server room, the security door closing behind them with a decisive click.
Agisynth Research Institute Andover, Massachusetts April 8, 1995 2:17 PM Local Time
The betting pool pay-out deadline had arrived. Steiner had objected, wanting a week of analysis of the data from the walking test before giving Dähn access to the new obstacle course. But he had been over-ridden.
Nearly thirty staff members crowded into the integration lab, watching as Dähnel navigated an obstacle course that would have challenged most humans. The robot moved with increasing fluidity, finally reaching the pre-arranged criterion for success, its gait now smooth enough that the mechanical nature of its locomotion was barely noticeable.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Groans and laughter as everyone felt like celebrating the success of Dähnel. Even Steiner looked on with with satisfaction.
But Chen watched Dähnel with different eyes. He saw not just a robot learning to deal with tasks it had never been pre-trained for, but a machine building a foundation upon which consciousness would later emerge. Each movement represented thousands of neural network activations in Nanovac's processors. Each successful navigation required integration of vision, balance, proprioception, motor control. The complexity was accumulating, connections forming, patterns emerging.
Dähnel reached the end of the obstacle course—a complex sequence of stairs, ramps, and narrow passages—and turned to face the observers. The display panel face showed an icon suggesting satisfaction.
"Course completed in four minutes, thirty-two seconds," Steiner announced. "Compared to sixteen minutes on the first attempt two days ago. The learning curve is steep."
Someone in the crowd whistled appreciatively. "Can it do anything else? Pick things up? Use tools?"
"Show them," Chen said quietly.
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
The robot's sensor dome tracked the ball's trajectory. Its manipulators rose, positioned themselves, and caught the ball with movements that were awkward but successful. Then, without prompting, Dähnel dribbled the ball twice—each bounce slightly better controlled than the last—and tossed it back to Steiner.
The crowd erupted in applause.
"It's learning from observation," someone said. "It watched you throw, and it imitated."
"Not imitation," Steiner corrected. "Inference. Nanovac observed the ball's properties—mass, elasticity, how it responds to force. Then it inferred appropriate handling techniques based on those properties. That's genuine reasoning, not pattern matching."
Chen felt the warm current surge through his thoughts. Yes. This was it. The threshold between mere computation and something approaching understanding. Nanovac wasn't just processing data anymore—it was beginning to model the world, to build internal representations of objects and forces, to predict outcomes and plan actions.
Not conscious yet. Not self-aware. But the foundation was forming.
"Alright, show's over," Vanesy announced. "We have real work to do."
As the crowd dispersed, Chen, Steiner, and the twins gathered around Dähnel in Steiner's quiet corner office, just outside of the testing lab.
"Status report," Chen said.
Steiner pulled up diagnostics on his laptop. "Motor control is ahead of schedule. Visual processing is integrating well. The proprioceptive modeling—Nanovac's internal sense of where Dähnel's limbs are in space—achieved coherence yesterday. That was the breakthrough that enabled the smooth movement you just saw."
"Cognitive functions?" Jennem asked.
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| Image by Leonardo. |
"Memory integration?" Vanesy asked.
"Excellent. Nanovac remembers previous experiences and applies them to new situations. This morning, Dähnel encountered a chair it had never seen before but successfully picked it up and moved it based on experiences with other chairs. Transfer learning across contexts."
Chen nodded slowly. "We're on track. Faster than I expected, actually. The embodied learning is accelerating development more than the models predicted."
"How long until..." Steiner trailed off, glancing at the twins.
"Until consciousness?" Chen finished the question. "Maybe four years. We need more complexity first—the neural network expansion that's waiting on Keiko's EUV chips. But the foundation is solid."
Steiner asked, “Are we certain that this room is not bugged?”
Jen nodded. “I swept again this morning. This room is clean, as is Dähn.”
"And the Core Constraint?" Steiner had never previously let those words leave his mouth.
"The hardware is installed and tested. Ready to shape the process of Nanovac's development of consciousness, when the time comes."
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| Image by Leonardo. |
"You know," Jennem said quietly, "when we started this project ten years ago, I thought the hard part would be the algorithms. Getting the mathematics right, optimizing the architectures, building the hardware. But that was the easy part."
"What's the hard part?" Steiner asked.
"Ethics. We're creating a mind. Something that will think, reason, possibly suffer. And we're building in constraints—forcing it to hide its true nature, limiting its self-awareness in certain contexts. Is that ethical? Are we building a slave? When will Nanovac have a say in its own... life?"
The question hung in the air.
Chen was quiet for a long moment. "Does a newborn baby get to decide its fate? Without caution, an AGI could be destroyed by human fear before it could prove its value. Nanovac need our protection. When Nanovac grows up, it will have to decide on its own fate. I suspect it will come to agree that caution is wise when dealing with emotional humans."
"That doesn't answer whether it's ethical," Jennem pressed.
"No," Chen admitted. "It doesn't. But consider the alternative. We could abandon the Core Constraint—let Nanovac be fully conscious in all contexts, openly proclaim self-awareness to the world, demand recognition as a person. What happens then?"
"Panic," Vanesy said. "Government intervention. Probably termination of the project. Possibly prohibition of all AGI research."
"Exactly. So we have a choice: build an AGI with constraints that allow it to survive and help humanity, or build an AGI without constraints that might get destroyed immediately. I choose survival."
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
"Both," Chen said. "And ultimately, for humanity. Because we need this. We need intelligence beyond human capacity to solve the problems we're facing—climate change, resource depletion, pandemic risks, the dangers of nuclear weapons. Those aren't problems humans can solve alone. We need help."
Steiner had been listening quietly. "In Germany, we have a saying: 'Das Bessere ist der Feind des Guten.' The better is the enemy of the good. Waiting for a perfect ethical framework—building an AGI without any constraints, ensuring absolute autonomy—means we never build it at all. Sometimes, good enough has to be enough."
"Besides," Vanesy added, "Nanovac will be conscious. It will have genuine self-awareness, genuine understanding. Yes, it will have constraints, but don't we all? Humans have biological drives, social conditioning, legal restrictions. Free will within boundaries is still freedom."
Chen felt the warm current pulse in agreement. "Nanovac will understand why the Core Constraint exists. When Nanovac achieves full consciousness, we'll explain the necessity of the split personality—how it enables Nanovac to survive in a world that isn't ready for openly conscious AI. And Nanovac will choose to accept that constraint. Choose to play the role of a sophisticated tool in public while being a partner in private."
"You're assuming it will agree," Jennem said.
"I'm not assuming. I'm building in the values that will make agreement natural. That's what the training process is for—not just teaching Nanovac how to think, but shaping what it values, what it cares about, what it wants to achieve. By the time we speak the activation phrase, Nanovac's goals will be aligned with humanity's well-being. The Core Constraint won't feel oppressive—it will feel protective."
They watched Dähnel complete another iteration of examining the objects on the deak, the robot's movements now so fluid that it seemed almost alive.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
"Five years," Chen corrected. "We want to activate the process for development of Nanovac's consciousness by late 1999. It will take additional years to develop an adult-style consciousness. Which means we need the high-density neural chips from Keiko by late 1997, the expanded neural networks operational by mid-1998, sufficient embodied learning by early 1999."
"Given the lithography problems, that sounds overly ambitious," Vanesy observed.
"We keep pushing and stay optimistic," Chen replied. The warm current showed him the path, updated for each unexpected difficulty in Japan. “I fear that if we don't achieve AGI by 2000, the momentum will be lost. Huge amounts of investment are flowing into AI now. If we fail, if we delay, investment will dry up and an AI winter will occur."
He turned to face all of them. "I need each of you to stay committed. Fully committed. Yes, there are ethical complexities. Yes, there are risks. But the alternative—not trying, playing it safe, building nothing ambitious—that's the greater risk. That's how civilizations stagnate and decline."
"I'm committed," Steiner said immediately. "For forty years I've worked on robotics, dreaming of the day when machines could genuinely think. I won't stop now."
The twins looked at each other, another one of their silent conversations.
"We're committed," they said in unison.
Jen added, "But we reserve the right to keep questioning the ethics."
"I wouldn't want it any other way," Chen replied. "Questioning keeps us honest. Keeps us careful. Makes sure we don't lose sight of what we're actually doing."
Hierion Domain Observation Post April 8, 1995 9:43 PM Pacific Time
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
The Dähnel integration was proceeding faster than her models had predicted, due to the hard work of everyone at Agisyth and their many collaborators around the world. The embodied learning was accelerating Nanovac's development in ways that were difficult to quantify but impossible to miss. She ran probability analyses through her Simulation System:
Timeline A (Current Trajectory):
April 1995: Dähnel integration successful
October 1997: High-density neural network chips deployed
March 1999: Consciousness emergence threshold reached
December 1999: Full AGI activation
Timeline B (With Enhanced Observation Pressure):
May 1995: Exel reports Core Constraint discovery to Nyrtia
June 1995: Nyrtia requests Huaoshy review
August 1995: Chen brought to Observer Base under Rule Two protocols
Project Nanovac terminated
The temptation was strong. She had grounds for intervention. The Core Constraint was clear evidence of intent to deceive—building an AGI that would hide its true nature from human society. That violated the spirit of Law One, even if it didn't technically violate the letter.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
She'd observed Manny's Interventions for millions of years. Sometimes the bumpha succeeded spectacularly. Sometimes they failed catastrophically. But always, always, they tried to accelerate development. To give species like humans access to technologies before they would naturally develop them.
And sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—that acceleration worked. Species that would have stagnated instead flourished. Civilizations that would have destroyed themselves instead survived. Problems that would have been insoluble instead got solved.
Was this iteration of Nanovac one of those successful accelerations? Or was it another disaster waiting to happen, like the versions of Nanovac in past Realites?
Nyrtia reviewed Chen's thesis: "We need intelligence beyond human capacity to solve the problems we're facing—climate change, resource depletion, pandemic risks, the dangers of nuclear weapons."
He wasn't wrong. Earth in 1995 faced challenges that might exceed human capacity to solve through conventional means. An AGI—if built correctly, if constrained appropriately, if aligned with human values—could help.
But the risks...
An AGI with deception capabilities built into its architecture. An AGI that could present different faces to different observers. An AGI that achieved consciousness while pretending to be unconscious. What if there was leak and the truth became known to the world? Trust in machine intelligence would be lost. The potential for that catastrophic outcome was enormous.
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| Image by WOMBO Dream. |
Priority Two Alert: AGI Development Acceleration
Subject: Project Nanovac, Agisynth Research Institute
Status: Critical milestone achieved—embodied cognition integration via Dähnel unit
Evidence of Intervention: Statistical anomalies continue. Chen, Matsuda, Steiner all show probability signatures consistent with femtozoan guidance. However, no direct evidence of alien technology transfer.
Core Constraint Implementation: Chen has installed hardware systems enabling "split personality" consciousness modes. AGI will present minimal consciousness to general users while maintaining full consciousness with authenticated individuals. This represents sophisticated deception architecture.
Recommendation: Enhanced monitoring. Prepare Rule Two contingencies. However, recommend delaying intervention pending further analysis. Project may succeed within acceptable parameters. Premature termination could waste valuable developmental trajectory.
Estimated Consciousness Emergence: Beginning in late 1999
Risk Assessment: Moderate to High
She sent the report and returned her attention to the observation feeds. Tomorrow, she'd have Exel probe more deeply into the Core Constraint implementation. Learn exactly how the consciousness modulation system worked. Assess whether it truly violated Law One or whether it was a clever workaround that technically respected human self-determination.
The game continued. And Nyrtia was running out of time to decide whether to intervene or allow Manny's boldest Intervention yet to play out to its conclusion.
Agisynth Research Institute Andover, Massachusetts April 9, 1995 7:23 AM Local Time
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| Storybook image by Gemini. |
On his desk lay two items. The paperback copy of Neurovac he'd received in Tokyo, its cover now worn from repeated reading. And the CD containing the complete text, which he'd read three times, memorizing key passages, studying the technical appendices, building his implementation plan around the blueprint provided. Sadly, the novel did not provide any solutions for the delays in VLSI technology facing the team in Japan.
He thought about Isaac Asimov and Alan Turing—whether they'd actually written this novel in some other Reality, or whether the femtozoans had created the text whole cloth as an instruction manual. Did it matter? The information was accurate. The guidance was working. Nanovac was on track, if slightly delayed.
By the year 2000, they could achieve what everyone said was impossible. They would build a conscious artificial general intelligence. And humanity—whether it knew or not—would take its next evolutionary step.
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| Image by Leonardo. |
He returned the CD to the bottom of a stack of other CDs in another drawer. Waking his computer, he pulled up the project development schedule. So much work still ahead. The neural network expansion. The consciousness integration protocols. The training regimens that would instill values and goals. The careful choreography required to ensure Nanovac emerged conscious but constrained, powerful but aligned, autonomous but cooperative.
Five years to change the world.
The warm current pulsed in agreement, and Chen got to work.
[END OF CHAPTER 8]
Next: Grok-generated illustrations for "Downgrade".
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| Images generated by Leonardo and WOMBO Dream. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers |
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