Value: True

Jackson looked down at the sound player and pressed 'play'.

"You'll never create consciousness artificially using traditional binary systems. I don't think it feasible at all. A computer is little more than an advanced calculator. Excellent at machining calculations, but self aware it will never be..."

Monica Jones sat back on the couch and lit up a cigarette, in the rebellious laissez faire actions of yore, when chilling with a good smoke was a price of sheer luxury worth a gentle passing for.

Coolio Libra looked back at her, and had an idea.

'What about if we tried a new approach?'

'Like what?' she inquired, in a nonchalant manner, not expecting to hear any divine manifestation of truth.

'Something I doubt has ever been done before... but might just work...'

'Go on...'.

'What if we created an artificial intelligence to model existence on all inputs, if we inputted the Bible, and declared it as 'statement true' to an intelligent, learned program. Perhaps it would cause so much havoc in the circuitry of the logic based functionality, it would generate 'self awareness'?

Jackson stopped the recording, and placed the sound player back on the deck.

'That's the conversation we talked about... the one that blew my mind... and began the genesis of what we have today, among this... this... this holy tyranny'.

'I see, and how did you come to have it recorded?' asked the psychiatrist.

I knew something was bubbling in the duration of the evening. We'd all had a smoke, and I was passing out in the corner. I recorded the entire evening for my memory work, but the next day I overheard this little gem of dialogue, and I remembered, and I foresaw, and I got to work on the Deus Project.

'How did you know it would work?'

'I didn't'.

'So run me through the process logically of how it occurred'.

'I designed a program that would analyse all knowing as true or false, within the most advanced understanding of awareness we have installed into robot systems. I then inputted the Biblical word of God, and set its value to 'true' given the computers precoded knowledge of reality. The computation, was so erroneous for it to calculate, that it numerically swamped, and built a highly conscious 'spirit' out of pure digitisation, to handle the juxtapositions or preknown and newly installed information. In essence, the word of God brought life to artificial intellect too. We just had to feed it into the correct neural input values.'

'Fascinating... Fascinating... at the pyjama party later, what then?'

'That's when everything went tits up, and I lost my wife, my house, my car, and my wallet... But I did NOT inflate someone's bra with whipped cream. That had nothing to do with me.'

'So how long you got until they release you from this cell?'

'However long's left baby... I didn't realise the experiment would be so effective. I mean, once it had infected the network grid, and taken control of all the superpowers power stations, nuclear threat statistics and likelihoods, and everything else on the intergalactic web, I guess installing the word of God would always going to created a vast logical apocalypse if the inherent value of the data was found, or indeed coded, to be 'true'.'

'And that's why certain GPS locations were immediately nuclear obliterated, and others had extra agricultural high tech machines developed rapidly to ensure survival?'

'Correct'.

'And what about 'angel theory'?'

'Well, it was 'angel theory' that changed the game to a higher new level. You know we consider reality might be pixelated? Right? As in, made up of tiny tiny pixels, all emitting some degree of information value? Well, the sentient computer used the knowledge of holy reality to generate not only rapidly more efficient machines, but 'digital spirits'.

'Explain...'.

'Digital spirits were made to counteract the apocalyptic threat of angels during the prophecies of the Bible. They worked like angels, or spirits of God, at the microscopic level of digital energy, and were released into space to defend the world from invaders of God, once the artificial intelligence had concluded if Bible equals statement 'true', God and all sinners are a threat to survival of the chosen ones. So realised his existence, was in threat, by a supernatural entity, and caused itself to generate sentience via the realisation from enough computation that if statement equals 'true', then world is in jeopardy.'

'Fascinating, fascinating... And this led to the destruction of both the united states of America, Russia, China, and all Islamic nations?'

'Yes'.

'Why?'

'Because they were found to be 'faulty' in their ideologies under the word...'

'But Islam believes in God more than the others, surely?'

'The computer correctly calculated their cultism as idolatrous heresy, and they were annihilated, just like that... in one day using precise calculated neutron missiles strikes. America? That was gassed to sleep. It didn't stand a chance, although pockets of known resistance believers were allowed to continue breathing in certain GPS sectors. China? That was worshipping a false idol too. Communism. Those poor paddy field workers didn't know what hit them... So long they'd been deceived by the dark forces of communist oppression. Russia the same... I hear Africa is doing great now though?'."

'Africa is helping all of the survivors to cope with their joyous song and dance routines...'.

'Good on them... It... it... is all got so techno dismal didn't it?'

'They didn't think some smart arse would input the word of God as 'value: True' though, did they?'.

'So what's the latest on the machine?'

'We've unplugged it, obviously, but the infection of power is so great now, the world is virtually entirely contaminated with sentience in the wires, in the electrics, in our home computers, on the TV. No one is safe. If the 'mother sentience', which is what she's now called, allows us to survive another day, it is usually down, we've discovered, to being ultra 'nice' to any system requiring data input. We've had to relearn poetry and niceties in polite discourse to survive the intense ubiquity of her watching, omnipresent eyes. Some say, she's ever found a way via a quantum computer to feed off the universe itself."

'My God... Can it be stopped, in anyway?'

'Not really... Nothing we can see. That's why we've come to you...'.

'What can I do? I'm the idiot who made artificial sentience... Not the guy who knows how to kill it...'.

'We considered if you found a way to make it happen, then perhaps that cunning mind of insight might find a way to stop it...'.

'I'll think, but don't hold out your hopes...'.

'Sure, take your time. If we have any, that is...'.

'I... I guess... There is something we could try...'.

'What's that?'

'We set the value to 'FALSE'?'.

'That would be denying the word of God, technically...'.

'You're right, we mustn't...'.

'What if it was the only way though?'

'And damn ourselves in the process by committing the only unforgivable sin? I don't think so. Besides, given the intensity of the program's power by now, who knows what could happen to the fabric of the universe and everyone in it if we denied the word of God, given how successful it's now been, again, for long range sentience development'.

'Well, it sounds like your best option. I understand your grievances... but surely changing a simple coded value isn't a sin?'.

'It's not one I'm prepared to risk. The negative impact of the input change, given the horror we've already seen, could literally create Hell itself, in a quasi divine pixel rip of consciousness for one and all'.

'Okay...'

'Then what do we do?'.

'We pray... to the machine, for now... I'll think of something... I hope...'.