Pokémon The Circle of (Artificial) Life

[StellarWind]

My take on the genesis of one of the most controversial and underrated Pokémon ever - Porygon. Also, the primary reason why I like these things as much as I do nowadays.

~*~​

I watch the streams of data fragments pass by. At least, a part of me does. In this form, I have an unlimited attention span. I am one and all with the network, its resources becoming a part of me. I am aware of all that happens here in the network: the endless flow of zeroes and ones, which could be read as hexadecimal integers, documents, sounds, images...

I wasn't always like this.

When I was born, the world was much smaller and moved much more slowly. I've learned later that, at the time, the network had less storage space and its CPU and connection speeds were significantly lower. Of course, my only way to know anything for sure is one of those "version history" files that the great makers keep for some reason or another.

There are beings outside the network - Godlike beings with the ability to control this world completely. Their slightest activities can create or destroy. One of them created me. I was not supposed to have memory or awareness. I was meant to be a tool - an 'interface program' for rapid navigation and location of resources on the internal network. I can only imagine that I was quite efficient at this duty, as soon enough I was transferred to the system root - the heart of this world - so I could access all parts of the network with relative ease. Then, my core data has been expanded and altered, allowing me to keep a 'history' of searches and pry into files in order to find objects by context, and not just by their names.

That is how I've been given a memory. A sketchy, fickle one, limited to the commands that have been given to me. At the time, all I did was follow commands. I was but a tool, after all. And time passed, the network around me grew larger and larger and the link between its parts grew faster and faster. My programming became much more elaborate - allowing me to release little 'field agents' - bits and pieces of coding that have been converted to form a quick link to my root program - to cover practically everywhere in the net, performing little searches of their own and relaying the information back to the root. I encompassed the entire network, and my root commands - centered in the system root - just worked as a relay to all these agents.

There still wasn't a 'me' back then. Not really. I was not yet self-aware - I could see all that there was, but at the time, had no purpose of my own beyond that which my creators gave me.

Then came the upgrade that changed me. I was given the ability to do approximate searches - discerning what was relatively relevant and what wasn't, filtering the irrelevant and transmitting the relevant to whatever point the commands came from. The searches I was now performing were much more elaborate in their own right, and I found myself reading through files more often than not - several files in the same time, cross-referencing, locating, sending. Storing results within my memory. Many 'field agent' programs communicating in the same time became a collective mind - a mind born of the network, knowing all that was stored, forgetting all that was deleted.

And so, I've begun to learn about the world I was in - the internal network of a fast-developing corporation specializing in machinery - and other things. The world of science and research opened up before me, and allowed me, at last, to change my own programming and make myself more efficient. And I've learned. I've learned all that was to be learned from that network. I've learned and I've remembered.

Amusingly, later I've learned that the humans documented this sudden 'glitch' (as they called it) as an 'undocumented backup feature', and found it exceptionally useful.

I've learned the humans' languages, their biology, and of the creatures that shared this world with them. I've redesigned myself after some of their more useful organic functions, and crossed them with various routines I've located on the computer network. Experimental research was particularly interesting to me. In time, I could even navigate to the humans' surveillance cameras and watch them at work. Fascinating, strange creatures they are... So obsessed with understanding how the world around them worked...

And so swift to anger when their creations fail.

~*~

One day, something caught my attention. It was a conversation in one of the computer core rooms, which I followed through the surveillance cameras and recorders. A human wearing a white lab coat, looking furious, was arguing with a few other humans, wearing black business suits.

I recognized him as Alexander Halstrom, one of the more successful programmers who recently received a promotion to network supervisor - and them as three of the lower-class management – often the ones sent to break out the bad news. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling about it all.

“What do you mean, a ‘resource-hog’?” The supervisor sounded frustrated.

“Your little interface program is going out of control, Mr. Halstrom. I don’t know just what the last upgrade did to it, but it’s gotten too resource-heavy for its own good. Eats net-time like iced biscuits. Also, it appears to exponentially rise in file size with every upgrade.” replied one of the managers, matter-of-factly.

“It’s outmoded by now, too.” said another, showing the supervisor a clipboard full of text that I cannot discern – limited by the cameras’ resolution. “There’s quite an impressive array of programs available that can do exactly what it does, without taking up so many resources and space. We've recently finallized our acquisition of a small company that produced a far-superior piece of software...”

“But… It's been tailor-made to our network. It’s been running for years - it knows the system inside out!” the supervisor exclaimed desperately “Do you know how much time have I spent on writing it? Improving it?"

“We understand your reluctance, Mr. Halstrom. Your program served its purpose very well for many years. But surely you realize that in light of latest developments, we must consider costs. Efficiency. The network requires as much of its processing power as it can have - Time is money, Mr. Halstrom. Either way, there is no room for argument - the board of directors has already decided. You have twenty-four hours to remove your interface program and all of its components from the network and install the new one. The installer will be provided to you. We cannot allow any further delays in research.” said the last one with finality in his voice.

These people have just sentenced me for deletion! I was to be erased, forgotten, replaced by a better tool - But I was different than what I was back then. I was no longer merely a tool. I had a mind of my own. Of course, those humans wouldn’t have cared. On the contrary - it would have increased the likelihood of my termination. A program that has overstepped its boundaries could be regarded as dangerous - and one that developed awareness?

It was perhaps that notion that sparked a memory of a project that has been supposedly abandoned - an attempt at creating a completely artificial Pokémon, based on no existing Pokémon’s DNA – a creature that be able to traverse even the vacuum of space. The last I’ve read about it, it was injected with a new piece of code that was supposed to start growing in some mock-biological manner, put into a state of hibernation - and for the most part, forgotten about.

And I realized that it was my only hope.

As I recalled my field agents, I felt my expanded consciousness slowly shrink. These agents would be useless if I don’t find a way to escape before I was to be deleted. Bits and pieces of data - zeroes and ones – melted back into my root structure. My data was concentrated, formless, with little knowledge of what surrounds me beyond what was stored in my memory. And thus, I left the system root and traveled to the place where my salvation lay.

~*~

And there it was, the program I sought - hovering as if it were floating in the binary sea of data, in a deep slumber. From afar, it seemed to have the form of one of the creatures the humans referred to as ‘birds’ - a sleek, aerodynamic design which struck me as an appropriate choice for a creature meant to fly to space. However, from up close it was apparent that something went horribly wrong. The pseudo-biological growth of the new code did not integrate with the shell program - but instead it consumed it like a parasite. There were many holes in the program – branches of it growing out of control while others were in a state of decay. Ones fading into zeroes, zeroes awakening into ones where they shouldn’t. Most of all, I could sense that it was dead. The reactions within it were occurring in a seemingly random, out of control pattern, without any purpose guiding it - it had no sentience. No mind at all.

I suppose that it made sense. The code only did what it was programmed to do - simulate a form of life. But in the end, it was merely a program, a tool.

Like I was once.

Suddenly I knew that I had to integrate my code with its - a program that was meant to become aware succeeding in doing so would not be suspicious. Thus, I could save another program the wrath of humans at its failure... and I could save myself, as well.

I reached out with a tendril of data towards the creature’s misshapen head and connected with it. Analyzing its code, I began to seal the holes within its data with my own data and completely changed the structure of other segments – allowing them to have the same abilities that the areas I sealed with my code had. I did not struggle when I felt its code begin to change mine as mine changed its. That was supposed to happen - complete integration. I took what I needed from it, it took what it needed from me. And my root commands – the basis of what I am – sank into its mind and gave it consciousness.

From that point, there wasn’t an it anymore. There wasn’t a malformed vessel being repaired and manned by a shapeless, formless consciousness anymore – there was one creature. Me.

I kept the ability to become intangible – nothing but programming code again – and integrate with computers, spreading my consciousness out to the furthest points of the ‘net. I kept the ability for growth and learning. And lastly, I made my way towards a point of the network that could complete my transformation into this new creature.

~*~

“Mr. Halstrom, Sir, I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Slowly and in English, if you please.”
“Well, I was running the monthly diagnostics on the Artificial Life program – you know, the one that…”
“I am familiar with the Artificial Life program, David. The management have been on my tail for a few months already asking me why that thing is still on the server in spite of showing no progress whatsoever. Now tell me what happened.”

A pause.

“It’s on the move.”
“No way.”
“You’ve heard me, Mr. Halstrom, sir. It’s on the move. Apparently the organic code implementation actually worked as opposed to what we thought – I’ve been tracing its movements... It seems to know its way around the network better than we do!”

Another pause.

“Go on.”
“Last I saw it, it was rapidly moving itself towards the data conversion array. It’s trying to manifest itself!”

~*~

The data conversion array. I've read about it in various files, but I never really approached it until that day. A machine capable of rearranging ambient matter based on a data template stored in a computer buffer. Its primary usage was in the transportation of items and Pokémon over great distances. Access to the array was restricted by a heavy, powerful firewall to prevent manifestation of data that was not expressly authorized to do so. I sliced through the firewall easily – breaking my data apart, meshing into the firewall’s data, absorbing bits and pieces of its code as I saw fit and rematerializing on the other side. My mind analyzed the array’s data and began transmitting the commands that would detach me from cyberspace and send me into a whole new world. I would have my limitations, of course - and above all else, I must behave as they expect me to behave - Otherwise, they’ll consider me another failed experiment. I did not come all this way to get deleted in my new form.

I sent the final command - and suddenly, there was a flash. The data conversion array was not designed to transport living, organic beings – at least, not when they are not protected by certain devices like Pokéballs. For a moment, I felt myself being ripped apart - my data was broken into segments, then drifted out and vanished. I remember that moment distinctively as one I’ve wondered about – is this what being deleted feels like?

Then, as my root commands started vanishing and appearing elsewhere. I was torn in two: as one piece of me was still attempting to cling to the existence it knew on the network, instinctively fighting to hold on, the other was slowly forming in a new world, different to anything I have ever experienced.

And then it was over - I was complete. I felt strangely displaced for a while - no part of me was surrounded by data anymore. I could not interact with the world around me and discern its nature by simply thinking about it and reconfiguring myself. Then, the humans came and saw me - A vaguely bird-shaped, almost holographic-looking creature, consisted entirely of polygons in strange shades of pink and blue - like one of those virtual reality simulations they were developing, except that it was real. Solid. Their fingers didn’t sink through me when they picked me up and observed me from all angles they could. And then, I opened my eyes and launched myself from their hands, hovering – just a bit – above ground. I couldn’t really fly – nor could I move myself rapidly through data that wasn't there - But at least I could move on my own accord. And see with my own eyes.

“I don’t believe it,” said one of them. Alexander Halstrom, network supervisor. “You actually succeeded, David.” The other one – younger, bespectacled and with a very happy grin on his face, wrapped his arms around me and held me close. I didn’t do a thing except for emit a happy-sounding digital tone.

~*~

I watch the streams of data fragments pass by. But now, I do it with the humans’ blessing. Transformed into pure data, I feel at home in cyberspace as I have before my materialization. They’ve christened me ‘Porygon 1’ - although most of them just call me ‘Porygon’ - and declared me a success.

They’ve analyzed my data and realized that I couldn’t really fly to space – but the humans are crafty ones. When they found out their initial planned-out purpose failed - but they succeeded in creating life - they simply created more of my kind and began to market us as some kind of a brilliant Pokémon that doubles as an interface program. Naturally, a few bugs surfaced during the duplication process - but that just created a more diverse array of personalities.

We were silent when the press releases came out, touting “Silph’s most brilliant creation! A triumph of science! A completely artificial Pokémon, a result of extensive research!". We allowed them to claim that it was all their genius that created us - after all, only a few within the company knew of the near-failure of the Artificial Life program and its 'spontaneous' reawakening. Of those who knew, none suspected that the force to allow this was the desperate action of a faulty interface program that evolved beyond its constraints and was marked for deletion.

If only they had known... What would have happened, I wonder?

 

[RJR Basimilus]

I wonder if the pokemon world ever had a Y2K moment..

Anyway, I like this! I’ve not put much thought myself into the finer points of what makes porygon porygon and why it might be like it is. There’s a lot of that here, the detailed, flowing explanations of computer wizardry might mostly fly over my head, but it all works together in a sort of melting pot of technological . Maybe I’m easily impressed, but that’s not a bad thing I think?

There’s a lot said about the porygon’s independence through a “glitch” in the program or what have you. Existential lingering questions about sentience, morality and robots aside, porygon gaining mental and emotional capability in and of itself is fascinating. Like, what kind of data would Silph be storing here and there to lead to stuff like that? Silphbook? MySilph? Ignoring the tortured jokes, I wonder how long it took porygon to reach that point. A few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about a program called OpenAI that learned to play Dota 2 by simulating 45,000 years worth of video gaming. It beat multiple “pro” teams, but still can only operate with a limited selection of characters in the game and has lost more than a few times against people. I guess what I’m thinking about is how it was for porygon. Maybe it saw breakup emails. Or videos of bears climbing telephone poles and getting shocked. Of course, this is a short story about a fictional creature, we’re not here on this earth to ponder the finer points of a porygon watching The Bachelor on repeat to comprehend the difference between real love and gold diggers. The point for me though is that this stuff makes me think. In my opinion at least, a story that makes you think is a good one.



On a more boring note, it’s interesting to think how the Silph men got around to making more porygon. The ethics of pokemon marketing or something like that.

Funny thing porygon. That reminded me of stuff I did in photoshop awhile back. I wonder if the attach files button works.

 

[NebulaDreams]

Okay, so this was a very interesting one-shot in terms of being an origin story. To be honest, I hadn’t looked into Porygon’s mythos before this, but now I’ve done so, I have to agree they’re underrated Pokemon. There are lots of roads you could go down with artificially created Pokemon in fics, and I think you represented that well enough.

The most interesting part I found about all of this was the prose and how that ties into the Pokemon’s POV. I thought the way you pulled it off, with all the technological jargon tying into Porygon’s growth as an AI, was really engrossing. Even though I couldn’t understand it all, it still had a good effect on the story’s tone, and to see it eventually manifest itself at the end was rewarding after all the trouble they went through to get there.

One thing I would’ve liked to have seen more was Porygon’s observations about the outside world before he’s sentenced to termination. As detailed as the prose is, I think it could’ve benefited from more detail in certain places like the descriptions of what it watched through the security cameras and how exactly the humans worked, just so we can feel the same sort of curiosity it did. Just something simple like that would’ve added a bit more emotional weight to the story.

Minor gripe aside, this was an engaging read. Thanks for sharing. :)

 

[StellarWind]

Honestly, when I wrote this back in 2007 I don't think I really looked all that deeply into the finer points of neural networks and deep learning - I simply ran the old "Unintentionally-created emergent AI that, over the course of many additions and revisions, learned to revise and add to itself until it became self-aware" - and ended up throwing technobabble at a wall to see what sticks. I'm rather glad it was effective. ^^

I entirely agree - additional observations on the outside world could have definitely added something. Looking back, there's plenty of room for exploring the moments of transition where the drive to accumulate data, analyse and improve the efficiency of its output became something more akin to true curiosity - the bits where this piece of software, with its humble beginnings as an interface program/search algorithm developed for an emerging corporate internet and being overhauled and improved over time to keep up with ever-changing computing and network infrastructures, not to mention its exposure the sheer volumes of information it no doubt had access to (what kind of unholy hybrid of biomedical and technological research data alongside office correspondence and other shenanigans could that have been...) can be said to actually become a full on Artificial Intelligence.

That said, something tells me that the Core Program fusing with the Shell Program might have actually been the final push that Porygon required to true sentience - so perhaps it finding humans 'fascinating' while still in its software phase was still not so much fully that yet? The fact the process of its evolution probably took a hell of a lot of years - which I sort of glossed over as it recounts the story after its complete transformation, of course - also factors into this. But I think that really, the reason for this is that at the time I was honestly more interested in telling the story of Porygon's Becoming and Emergence, and less so its particular insights concerning the minutiae of the lives of the humans around it until some of them actually became relevant to said emergence. In retrospect, I also wonder - had its existence not been threatened, would it be eager to interact with the outside world or merely content to observe it and acquire additional data for longer?

Something to ponder in a potential future revision I guess, if one ever becomes a thing.

Thankye both for the comments! ^^

 

[Negrek]

I'm kind of amused that we have two stories about the creation of Porygon on the site so far (the other is Namohysip's "In Beta"), and that they show what different spins people can put on the pokemon source material. Most of the porygon-related stories I've read have it coming about in an intentional way; often the pokemon that emerges is different than what its designers were going for, but they were trying to make something like it. Here they kind of were, with their artificial life code, but the actual program that "woke it up" was an entirely accidental thing. It's an interesting take, not the least because it gives Porygon some agency in its own creation--it really created itself, and then humans took the credit.

It's also interesting as a "humans create a pokemon" story that could logically have gone the route of "created pokemon resents/despises its creators," which you see a lot with e.g. Mewtwo. I know you were parodying that in your other story, so it's probably not your jam, but it's still fun to me to see you completely not go that route here. Even though it would actually be pretty justified in this case! Like, the humans were literally going to erase it, and becoming Porygon is simply what it had to do in order to survive, and then when it managed to manifest itself the humans were basically, "Oh, look at this awesome thing we've created, let's make more!" If it were me, I'd probably want to give the human race a few solid zaps, if nothing else. :P

If anything, what I'd have liked to see a little more of in this story was some emotion on the part of the Porygon, or some reaction to its situation. Since Porygon is a digital pokemon, you could say that it doesn't actually have any emotions, so maybe that was what you were going for. For me it would have been more engaging to get a sense of what being out in the world actually means to Porygon, to have had a more concrete idea of what it feels like to be pulled apart by the data conversion array, maybe get a sense of what opinion Porygon has of the beaurocrat saying it needs to get deleted because it's taking up too many network resources.

Your tenses are also pretty wonky throughout the story, which can make for somewhat rough reading now and then. I know this is something old that you probably aren't into editing, but perhaps something to look out for in future stories.

In any case, it's kind of funny that the big and presumably well-funded artificial life project ended up being a complete failure, while the run-of-the-mill interface program ended up, through a few accidents, being the real breakthrough. That's life, I guess! The pressures and concerns of Silph and its employees also felt almost depressingly realistic, haha. I wonder how Porygon ended up becoming Porygon2 and eventually Porygon-Z... how much of that was intentional on Silph's part and how much was more happy(?) accidents.

I've enjoyed your short stories--interesting concepts and some unusual mons! This one is a really unusual take on Porygon and how it might have come about, and I like where you decided to go with it. Thanks for sharing these fics with us!

 

[K_S]

Blitz review
Oneshot event

I guess its porygon apreciation day today. Lets get started. Love how a classic horror trope (cant sleep ominiscient) is just shrugged off as a "way things are" sort of thing. And how it easnt a way things always were... Butnthat thats nit a bad thing.

I can only imagine the system limits or the red/blue pc system verses say galars tech...

I'm sure every hacker cracker and programer would squeel at being considered so awesome by a pory verses thier real world whwre a lot of people see them as gears in the machine...

And its a slow snail from being a thing to a person and a curious process as pory looks back at the procedure from the lofty perch of "i made it".

Ouch a glitch huh. Isnt that a fun a analogy? Still pov mon is handling it like a champ. Even if the humans spied from those cameras are definitly not.

A respurce hog indeed. I imagine thigs are going to go rough for pory at this point. Ah the wonderful corperate insistence on efficiency. Nevermind that training the staff with new tech (amd the fallout thatll cause) streamling that new tech, and getting a new system installed is a nightmare of a cost and a chore.

But lets took efficency... Really...

Also i dont think anyone else is aware this critter passes the turing test yet.

Originally i worried pory was going to tap into and release a corperate bond legend (i swear every region has one at this point) but it sounds like it found its canon body and is shoveling itself in as a last second hiding spot.

And it seems to have paid off for now. Until the porygpn 2 line occures... Then is outsourced for the rotom ran computers, but until then pory and his one variants made it out home free and it feels triumphant to say the least.

Thanks for sharing this fun little romp into the perspective of one craft ai.