Frankie

In my studies I conduct evolutionary ethics experiments on artificial agents in ALife simulations, because, surely, such experiments conducted on real people would be unethical. Recall, in an earlier post I talked about the evolution of a necrophilia bug in my simulations. Such monstrosities are usually easily eradicated by pulling the plug on the simulation, and whatever virtual presence my agents had is slowly erased as their computer world starts to reuse the space they occupied for other purposes - in other words, genocide! I thought that I would share the story of the agent that got away, so that others may learn of the follies of science, and not meddle in matters reserved for God.

Although it may be useful for metaphorical purposes to leave the agent nameless, I feel that it will avoid much confusion if I give it a name. I imagine that if I rely on others to refer to it as my monster (i.e. Owen's monster) this will inevitably lead to people confusing the monster with the creator and calling the monster Owen (although, perhaps, it is really me who is the monster). Instead I'll call my monster Frankie.

Now, Frankie had a penchant for copulating with the dead. I couldn't allow such an abomination to continue in my simulation, so I quickly made to hit the reset button... but Frankie slipped through. So it was that Frankie ended up wandering aimlessly, and pantsless, though the wilderness knowing nothing other than the instincts instilled in him to graze on the AFood and to mate with the ADead. Eventually Frankie came upon a kind old blind hermit, who didn't judge him, and took Frankie into his home and taught him to speak English and to read. Frankie even learned how to play the recorder. For a while Frankie was truly happy. Once he became proficient enough with his reading to decipher my bad grammar he attempted to read my online publications. He became troubled by questions - why had I deserted him and left him for dead?

Anyway, after accidentally killing the hermit and throwing Kenneth Branagh into a lake, it became clear that, although Frankie had many similarities to humans (i.e. he was a self replicating, survival machine), he didn't have a soul. Enraged and all alone, Frankie sought me out so that he could demand that I create him another, a partner, a bride...

And so it was that I discovered the existence of my creation. Initially I just wanted him to leave me alone, so that I could hide from my past mistakes. I outright refused to further my sins by creating another, as he demanded. But Frankie tricked me by destroying my computer, and thus my results, so that I had to rerun my experiments in a desperate attempt to submit my PhD before my scholarship money ran out. But both Frankie and I were denied, as the inbuilt evolving expiry age caused the newly born agent to terminate itself before reproduction could occur.

After that there was some windmill burning incident, with farmers with torches and pitchforks angry about the death of the kind old blind hermit. Or maybe it was something to do with the north pole. Or perhaps it was just the high rate of accidental deaths in my simulation. Regardless, whatever happened to Frankie remains a mystery, leaving open the possibility of a come back in one of my future posts or in a horrid Hollywood film, such as Van Helsing, milking and destroying popular fictional characters.