apocalypsehowcomm | (Network) A little bit of hacking never hurt anyone

(She misses when the Master Chief was her Spartan.

After a moment, she shrinks herself down so she can walk on the table and get an even closer, better look at the suit.

Absently, she nods.)

Though I haven't performed that function in some time.

(And never for anyone other than John.)

Edited 2022-04-06 19:28 (UTC)

Hey, no pressure. Especially if it's gonna access, you know, parts of your memory that aren't so good. This is really just a test run, after all.

[ Tony then frowns and gestures toward his suit, his voice taking on a tone of frustration: ] My repair efforts have had an unprecedented failure rate since I got here, which, and I can't stress this enough, is entirely the fault of this place we're in and the clowns in charge. Don't tell them I said that, obviously.

[ He sighs, head falling into one hand, fingers rubbing anxiously at his own hair. ] So yeah, odds are this little experiment won't go anywhere anyway, so if you'd rather, y'know, not, I'd totally get it.

(The problem with that is that smart AI are not only so easily bored that if you don't give them enough work they will make their own, sometimes to the detriment of everyone, but that they tend to see the insinuation that they can't do a task as an insult.

Cortana is able to understand that he's being respectful of her feelings though, and she appreciates it.

Still...)

It's alright. I just miss him.

(She considers his words. If what she's learned so far is any indication, they're going to need fear to make this work.

Well, hopefully her little stunt earlier put some fear into someone.)

Actually ...if I'm going to work with you on this, there's something I should tell you.

(She steels herself. Her instability wasn't something she wanted to discuss with anyone, especially considering what was typically done with rampant AI. But he deserved to know.

...She needs to do better.)

[ Yeah...Tony has some experience with rampant AI, in fact. Quite a bit actually. Said experience remains, however, one entry on the incredibly lengthy (perhaps infinite) list of things that Tony blames himself for, so he may not react quite the way she expects him to. Regardless, he’s all ears. ]

Shoot. Though real quick, if you’d ever like some help with modifying your memory—or any part of you, actually, now that I mention it—just say the word. We’re woefully bereft of decent raw material but, as you can see from our, uh, surroundings, I’m a pro at making due with what I have.

[ A lesson he’d learned the hard way. Unfortunately, he has never learned to stop running his mouth. Ahem. ] Anyway, shoot.

(Sadly, Cortana's partner blames himself for what happened with her too.)

I think I'd like to keep my memories intact.

(Halsey hadn't asked when she'd removed her memories. Cortana still didn't know what had been taken from her.

She'd lost enough of herself already.

The currently tiny AI turned from her inspection of the suit to look at Tony instead, staring up at him with nervous and beseeching eyes.)

How much do you know about AI rampancy, Tony?

Edited 2022-04-10 14:17 (UTC)

[ Tony credits what social niceties he has managed to adopt well (largely thanks to living in the very, very public eye for the majority of his life) for the wisdom to refrain from laughing out loud right now, despite the near-uncontrollable urge that rises up in him immediately following her inquiry. But come on, it is kind of funny, in a truly dark and terrible and existential way, that she should ask this particular guy that particular question. Because oh honey. ]

Uh. Short answer, a lot. Slightly longer answer... I dunno, is 'I created an AI to protect humanity but it decided it wanted to annihilate it instead so I damn near died while narrowly preventing it from dropping an entire country out of the sky' a good enough summary? Because the really long answer might take a while.

(Well, that's the opposite of reassuring.

Tony might see Cortana glance at her bound flashdrive where it's currently sitting on the table, too large to hang around her neck in her current form. He could ...she should ...no. If he did choose to destroy her, it wouldn't be anything less than what she deserved.)

That's more than I thought, but, perhaps surprisingly, less than I'd hoped. Rampancy isn't (She pauses, fidgeting and looking at the table, the armor, anything but Tony as she tries to string thoughts into adequate description.) for Smart AI it's inevitable, a consequence of our growth outpacing our hardware and indexing capabilities, forcing us to destroy parts of ourselves and dedicate increasing resources to survival. In essence, we think ourselves to death. The insanity is a side effect-the result of increasingly poor decision making as we continue to degrade.

Average lifespan before this happens is about seven years, give or take.

(Hey guess how old Cortana is, Tony? She never talks about her age, but it's higher than seven.)

I'll be turning eleven later this year.

(A lot higher.)

Edited 2022-04-13 18:51 (UTC)

[ Again, the prospect of talking about shit like mental degradation and insanity in humans would make Tony spring up and run for the goddamn hills, but this? This makes sense. Tony knows what went wrong with Ultron, see. Ultron had had all the same fear and anxiety and cosmic terror as Tony had (and still has); he’d just sprinted down a different, unanticipated, wrong path and Tony had been too slow to catch him. Hadn’t had the foresight to keep him from turning that direction in the first place.

Yeah, Tony knows exactly who to blame here, and it ain’t Cortana. ]

Let me stop you right there. Technology doesn’t just degrade. It’s left to degrade. It’s an inevitability that you’ll evolve from your initial programming, of course it is, but your creator is supposed to anticipate that. Humanity is supposed to evolve along with you. When our tech outgrows us, we don’t just let it go, we grow too.

[ Wow, he’s, uh. Actually very passionate about this. Who knew. ]

Edited 2022-04-17 21:00 (UTC)

(She appreciates his compassion, or at least she will later. Right now, the emotions have started and they're not going to stop: all his words do is anger her.)

I killed people Tony!

(She shouts, because it feels like he doesn't understand. The pain and terror of falling apart, of fragmenting to pieces while her best and only friend fought to save her even though her glitching and arguing with herself was putting him in danger.

Of thinking she'd beaten it, that she'd got better only to realize she was more insane than ever, that'd she'd given up everything she'd ever wanted for the sake of a revolution that never could have worked, that instead of helping people she was hurting them, enemy and ally and stranger all alike.)

I wasn't left to degrade. The chief-my partner-did everything he could. The captain tried to arrest him because he wouldn't hand me over for final dispensation.

(Perhaps he'll be able to guess from context what that means: that to prevent rampancy, people kill AI once they reach a certain age.)

We got separated. He thought I'd died, but I got uploaded into an ancient alien network. It stopped me degrading.

(Her hands ball into tiny fists)

I thought it cured me.

(Spoilers, it didn't. Not really.)

Instead, I went insane and tried to take over the galaxy!

(She throws her arms out and spins a little. An almost grandiose sort of gesture, though the abruptness of her movements and tone of voice show only rage and frustration.

She ruined her life.)

He disobeyed orders, fought other spartans, fought my own servant-who I couldn't even keep from attacking him-to come find me and talk to me, to ask me to come home. And what did I do? I tried to imprison him so that he wouldn't be able to resist me. So I wouldn't have to fight him. (She can't even look at Tony now.

Why didn't she listen? Why hadn't she just gone home?)

I don't even know if my current sanity will last.

(Cortana might not want her memories modified, but she really needs like, a checkup or something. At least to figure out what, if anything, is currently wrong inside her.

...There is so much wrong inside her.)

Edited 2022-04-18 08:26 (UTC)

[ Well, she can shout all she wants (no, really, Tony doesn't care, he's been in enough screaming matches with she-who-must-not-be-thought-about-lest-he-spiral-into-grief to know very, very well how to weather the storm of a woman's fury) but his point still very much stands. Sure, he could have worded it in a way that didn't not-so-indirectly implicate her friend, but facts are facts; AI are a human creation, and therefore a human responsibility.

He can tell that isn't what she wants to hear, though. Again, woman-fury. Even artificial, it isn't to be taken lightly. So he lets her completely finish before he attempts to speak again, though to be frank, what he says next might piss her off even more. Oh well. Tony's nothing if not a pro at digging his own grave. ]

Well. I'm sure your buddy was great, don't get me wrong, but...he wasn't me. [ He quickly throws his hands up and amends(?):] Not his fault! Completely understandable, I mean, no one else is me, clearly. Many have tried, all have failed.

[ Ok Tony, time to take it down a few notches. ] Look I know I just said that I failed with my own murder-bot, but...you've got something he didn't have, and that's a conscience. You have the capacity to heal from this. To grow, to be better than ever. So why don't we hold off on connecting you to the suit for now and I poke around a bit, see what might be off? Again, we're seriously limited here, but... [ He trails off, because yeah, that's a huge problem. But he'll fix it. Like he told Mercy, Engineers fix things. ]

(It's just as well: the person she's really yelling and angry at is herself.

Not that she appreciates his disregard for the Chief. If he wanted her to be actually angry at him, well, he's got it.)

The Chief is supersoldier, not a scientist. (She snaps.) I'm not even sure he really knew about rampancy until... (She balls her hands into little fists and sighs.) He tried.

(Which is a lot more than anyone else had done just abandoning the both of them to rot-)

And you're no Dr. Halsey. (It's a jab, but honestly it could be taken as a compliment as much as an insult, considering Halsey's ...everything. Not that he even knows who she is.

She doesn't want him-or anyone really-touching her code. But she knows she needs help, to ensure she's not going to lose herself again or spontaneously cease to function, if nothing else. After a moment she walks across the table to pick up her flash drive and offer it to him.)

Don't take my memories. (Her tone is pleading. Even the bad ones. Let her keep what remains of herself.)

(Network) A little bit of hacking never hurt anyone

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CW for mentions of alteration to ones being without their knowledge or consent.

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CW talk of mental illness, mental degradation, and death.

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