The Only Journey of Elpis
SOCRATES
SOCRATES, please give me the report of the repairs of the drainage system of the thirty-three residences area - asked Gustavo through his communicator, as he walked in the direction of the engineering section in the ring of government offices of the Elpis.
-The repairs were already completed Ramírez Maintenance Chief, six hours of work were invested, three workers were required and an excavation machine and a water pumping and recycling equipment had to be mobilized. In addition to minor materials and tools, I will pass on the summary of the costs to his personal interface," said the formal and paused voice of SOCRATES, the artificial intelligence of the Elpis, through the communication interface.
-Thank you, it will be all for now SOCRATES, I will communicate with you again, if I require anything else - replied Gustavo, indifferent.
-To his Head of Maintenance Service," he replied in an affable tone.
SOCRATES, was the greatest advance in artificial intelligence of humanity at the time, based on eight quantum processors, was able to respond to the requirements of information and processing of the same, all the inhabitants of the ship, was the operator, pilot, administrator, security officer and butler of all the inhabitants of Elpis.
More importantly, that the functions he could perform, which were ultimately only about calculus power, was the first artificial intelligence endowed with empathy and humor algorithms, he could simulate states of mind that allowed him to reason as much as a human in situations that required it, while being able to inhibit this type of reasoning and replace it with one of advanced logic and ethics, at those times when it was necessary.
Socrates was in charge of everything from monitoring the parameters of the fusion engines, to the location of the pets that were lost in the park of the residential area. Their relationship with humans ranged from the crew members to the inhabitants of the housing area, from assisting them in the tasks of piloting the ship and performing failure control and maintenance, to assisting housewives in the control of shopping lists and food preparation. SOCRATES was the core on which most of Elpis' activities were based.
Only two systems were independent of it, environmental control and life support, which was operated by a parallel, redundant control system; this was so, as the Elpis was designed around this system and its creation was prior to SOCRATES and was thus maintained to avoid delays in the adjustment of environmental parameters, by overloading SOCRATES functions.
The other system, less important and of little interest, was the control of the secondary storage section, where equipment that would only be used when arriving at the destination was sheltered, at which time SOCRATES would be busy in the tasks necessary for the establishment of the colony and would not have time to take charge of the material stored here. The secondary storage area included the Medical Storage Section and the Cryogenic Ecstasy Room.
Other stories from the The Only Journey of Elpis series
This story was originally published on my Weku blog.
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