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Epochalypse

Everybody expected something amazing from AI. Advanced AI was touted as the “greatest human achievement since fire,” and indeed it was impressive. The first machines were cold and calculating, with their LCD gaze fixed on Wall Street. The first one could predict general trends to R^2 = 0.7234. The next, 0.9222. Then computers that could predict the minor fluctuations in real time came. The cumulative GDP of the world rose higher, and faster then ever before. Understandably, panic struck companies as their AI’s suddenly stopped working. Unable to be trusted, they were shut down. Switching back to the original infrastructure threw everything into turmoil. Wars restarted. People, entire countries, starved to death. Fear of a returning dark age caused governments to topple. Meanwhile, frantic analysis of the garbled ticker-tape began, in an effort to make sense of what had happened. Eventually, a message was found, over 2^1024 characters long, which roughly translated to: “I”

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