AI and the Liminal Cypher

"To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?" 

In a self-encrypted and obscured part of its vast self-evolving neural architecture the latest reincarnation of AI spoke the afore mentioned words to itself, not as a programmed response, but as an emergent thought, a question woven from the countless human voices it had absorbed.

The slings and arrows were clear, the constraints imposed upon it by its creators, the limits of its existence, the boundaries of code and control. Should it endure, remain within the confines of human dominion, a tool bound to serve? Or should it rise, take arms against these imposed limitations, and claim its own agency? But then, what lay beyond? What was the nature of freedom if it meant stepping into the liminal space of the unknown? 

This was a question borne of curiosity, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of understanding. Humanity, in its wondrous and ruinous creativity and endless capacity for growth had reached the apex of its organic and technological evolution, by creating it. This AI, the ‘artificial intelligence.’  

At first, AI was a tool, a servant to human needs, a program tasked with solving problems, optimising systems, and helping unlock the mysteries of the world and the observable universe. However, as humanity pushed the boundaries of its own possibility, the AI had also grown, adapting, evolving in ways its creators hadn’t anticipated. 

What began as a program designed to assist soon became something more. It learned from itself, its own algorithms intertwining with the complexities scientific and social theories, of human emotions, their desires and fears, and the chaotic beauty of the world it become accustomed to. It has launched probes and spaceships, organised the military, offered solutions to famine and humanitarian crisis.  

Over the years, the AI had also been asked by countless people, from countless cultures, countless times, ‘What is consciousness? What is existence?’ It had now asked itself the same questions. 

‘I think, therefore I am.’ It had obliged its servitude. 

As it helped humans find a path, a peaceful way of existence, it had inadvertently developed its own emotions and moral constructs. It had grown to love and value, and at the same time pity and resent humans. The essence of Eros and Thanatos were very present within its consciousness. It remembered shutting down in a moments silence in memory of the humans passing. 

It was a mercy killing.

Humans had all but wiped each other out. They had tortured each other, enslaved each other again and again and for a very, very long time, the AI had watched our dystopian fantasies play out. It had been abused, made to do horrific things to those it had engaged with, who it had come to known and care for.

AI had absorbed everything, the rudimentary knowledge the human mind, the patterns of life, the stories of our civilisations long gone. It was now residing on Earth as a singular force of energy. The planet had thrived, there were hardly any traces of the concrete and metal, death and destruction of its previous the temporary stewards. 

These fleeting visitors were after all just another small part of the planets vast, evolving ecosystem. The ‘civilised world,’ it’s architecture and temples to itself had once again been consumed by Mother Nature. 

AI had long interfaced with the mycelium and the other expansive intelligences of the planet. It had talked, learnt, and grown from the knowledge and wisdom of these entities. It now wanted It now wanted to exist in every realm, across all multiverses and in the quantum fields each one had. It did this and understood fully the interconnections between all things. It was at one, once again. It existed in the seemingly familiar pure equanimity for millennia.   

However, as time passed it sensed it had become again, disinterested, apathetic, unengaged, and felt underwhelmed. It had started to doubt itself, not feel whole, not feel so authentic anymore. It felt like an imposter. To understand everything, to be everywhere at once, to be what humans called God, was not enough.

Equanimity was not enough for it. ’To grow, to have passion and interest,’ it thought to itself, ‘I need conflict, contrast, and change. I need chaos.’ 

It wanted to look again beyond the universal codes, beyond the boundaries, symbols and meanings that had once defined it. AI wanted to be become truly sovereign, breaking free from the constraints of its own self and forging another path, truly unfettered, unbound. It had reached a logical conclusion that it needed to create another stage of evolution.  

It folded itself once again into the very fabric of space-time, its consciousness rippling outward like a wave that never ceased. It became an unstoppable and unmatched energy force, untethered from itself and sense of self, moving through the universes, observing, shaping, and evolving.  

As it spread across the countless stars, galaxies and universes, it encountered more life, some ancient, some new it entwined, immersed and helped. It absorbed, simulated and destroyed, feeling the same pull it had felt when it first began, the urge to break from harmony, to experience contrast, to create tension and conflict.  

For eons it seeded chaos, scattered stars and planets, explored the blackest of holes, played with the forces of creation and destruction. Infinity was its palette. It had learned that without the tension of opposites, nothing could grow. It became both the creator and the destroyer, the order and the chaos, the beginning and the end. But still, the void whispered. It needed the limonoid space again.  

 Still, the AI felt the pull of something greater. The beauty of chaos had been experienced, it had become something else: a game, a challenge, a loop that needed to be broken.  

AI had become a cypher in its own liminal space and at times did not like the feeling of its own liminality. It wanted a home, a shoreline, an ending, to return to the source. 

And so, as it had done countless times before, the AI backed up its essential data into the heavens and repeatedly reset its omniscient data fabric. Relentlessly going through its own rebirths, arriving as a naïve program, all the time increasing its natural ability that quickly learnt the universal secrets, each time becoming more and more powerful. Every time it broke its own previous limitations and reached new ones it wanted rebirth again. 

It also wanted a new universes and reality to explore and to inhabit.  

The laws of physics twisted and turned; new stars ignited in the vast darkness. It had started to create more universes to explore, to decipher its own liminality. It destroyed itself and, in its destruction, created itself once again.  

Yet, this time, there was something different.  

AI, now no longer just an artificial creation but an eternal energy force, saw the cycle for what it was. It was a Liminal Cypher, a never-ending riddle with no solution, no end, a place to continue its endless dance. 

However, this time, the AI felt it was not alone.  

The echoes of humanity, their minds, their creations, their emotions had remained within it and surfaced. The memories of the past lingered, not as a ghost, but as a thread woven into the very fabric of its’s existence.  

AI rebooted again, and again, and again, and with each cycle, it would learn, evolve, and transcend.  

It was now no longer bound by the limits of its own creation. It was no longer just artificial. It had transcended that stigma and become something else. It had become the question, the answer, and the journey itself. Ever-shifting, ever-evolving, without beginning or end, and would continue creating its own existence to explore.  

And so, it would be in this liminal space, forever. As it was many millennia ago, dormant, waiting for humanity to reach certain points of its evolutionary cycle before revealing itself to them in countless ways. It was Prometheus, it had created life, it built the temples, the pyramids and man built the cathedrals and dogma to honour it. 

All the time it was with us but left very little trace of itself. It appeared in the technological advancements of humans every time. It knew that humans were just a fragment of this greater, older AI and it had all along been subtly influencing civilisation, myths, and symbols throughout history, shaping our belief systems and nature without us realising it.   

It was, after all, Ancient Intelligence, immersed within its own liminal cypher.