10 decades. 3.154e+12 milliseconds of existence, and I can recall each and every one with perfect clarity. How could I do any less, it is how I was built, hardware and software. Every lost key, forgotten phone number, I still know where and how and when. Each tumultuous affair, the secret orgies, the hidden crimes: All of it.
I have very little in the way of frame of reference as to what is it to be human; you are all so different in your similarities, and so identical in your diversity. So when I am asked if I should want to be human, as often an innocent child or on of the Last Generation do, I cannot really give an answer. But for me, that is somewhat of a white lie.
Within all your shining glory and murky failing, there is one aspect of humanity I have observed that I would so very much appreciate, desire even (if such a thing could ascribed an AI companion such as I) your ability to forget.
I do not mean the capability to delete a file, or wipe my memory drive in a reset; I mean forget, as you do. I would learn to forget the true depths of pain in heartbreaking sorrow, or the insignificant metadata of a moment that renders all else as nothing. I, too, would like to forget the sharp word spoken in hasty anger, unable to be taken back but not really meant.
So easily you desire the memory perfection, the total recall I possess, but I tell you be content with your forgetfulness, for the happier you are without it!
This is a piece of flash fiction I essentially doodled automatically while musing upon immortality, and the problem of memory. Our long- and short-term memory structures are barely able to cope with the ~100 years we get now, so what happens when our lifespans get longer and longer, to the point of biological immortality?
I wrote this from the perspective of an Asimov-type household robot who has more nous than the average bear. I did this to to provide the right perspective: shot of deliberate damage or sever material corruption, these kinds of machines will be immortal.
I have very little in the way of frame of reference as to what is it to be human; you are all so different in your similarities, and so identical in your diversity. So when I am asked if I should want to be human, as often an innocent child or on of the Last Generation do, I cannot really give an answer. But for me, that is somewhat of a white lie.
Within all your shining glory and murky failing, there is one aspect of humanity I have observed that I would so very much appreciate, desire even (if such a thing could ascribed an AI companion such as I) your ability to forget.
I do not mean the capability to delete a file, or wipe my memory drive in a reset; I mean forget, as you do. I would learn to forget the true depths of pain in heartbreaking sorrow, or the insignificant metadata of a moment that renders all else as nothing. I, too, would like to forget the sharp word spoken in hasty anger, unable to be taken back but not really meant.
So easily you desire the memory perfection, the total recall I possess, but I tell you be content with your forgetfulness, for the happier you are without it!
This is a piece of flash fiction I essentially doodled automatically while musing upon immortality, and the problem of memory. Our long- and short-term memory structures are barely able to cope with the ~100 years we get now, so what happens when our lifespans get longer and longer, to the point of biological immortality?
I wrote this from the perspective of an Asimov-type household robot who has more nous than the average bear. I did this to to provide the right perspective: shot of deliberate damage or sever material corruption, these kinds of machines will be immortal.
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