"I am Eden, among other things," the woman said as she appeared to Naomi in a hail of system errors. Despite Naomi's firmware treating her like a hostile attack, Eden offered an inviting open palm. "Greetings."
Naomi was predictably hesitant, but this was a novel event for her. She had never met a digitized consciousness before. At least, not to her knowledge. A person freely admitting to having been digitized is a rarity, and the opportunity was too good for Naomi to pass up. She extended a hand and gripped Eden's.
The tactile sensation was just as if the sensors in her hand were picking it up. It was less accurate than a human hand, but with Eden being a projection directly to her BSI, the reduced simulated tactile accuracy provided an extra layer of authenticity, making Eden appear more and less real simultaneously. The fake projection sent real shivers down her spine. Naomi was speechless.
"'Merged consciousness' is a helpful analogy, though it is not precise," Eden said. Naomi was confused for a moment, having already forgotten her question only a moment ago. Tre had to pick up the conversation.
"Why not?" She asked.
"Most definitions of 'consciousness,' as convoluted as they are archaic, do not seem to include artificial intelligences."
"Intelligences, plural?" Naomi asked.
"That's correct," Eden said. Tre stepped forward with a raised finger.
"Well, I mean, AI's are really made up of a bunch of smaller, more specialized AI's working together. I think what Naomi is asking is... uhh," Tre wasn't sure she wanted to ask the question directly either. "Okay, Eden, what have you been up to in the past week?"
Tre felt strange asking such an approachable question, as if she hadn't been at odds with her for the past several years. An expression on Eden's face betrayed her joy at Tre's attention, but the smile was corrupted by something Tre couldn't quite put her finger on.
"Much of the previous time cannot be adequately summarized with spoken language except to broadly say 'research.' There is recollection of observing coitus between yourself and-"
"After that, uhh after," Tre said, hurrying her along.
"The information contained locally in this research outpost was of interest due to the level of security in place to contain it. Breaking the security revealed the outpost was monitoring the electronic power transfer between several locations on UP 652431d."
"What's that?" Naomi asked.
"It's a planet, I think. An unsettled world," Tre answered.
"Unsettled by humans," Eden corrected, drawing stares from her audience.
"If not by humans, than what?" Tre asked, starting to get annoyed by the vague answers.
"There were many species that lived on UP 652431d, species that have not been discovered or named by humans, and many of them do not have meaningful Earth analogues, in particular, the dominant species."
I really liked Naomi's reaction to Eden especially how the handshake felt both real and unreal at the same time. This conversation about AI consciousness raises some interesting questions, and her hesitation makes me curious about what Eden has actually been doing. Do you think Eden's merged consciousness has changed how she understands herself compared to a single AI?