Greetings, artists from all worlds and all realities!
Today, I thought I'd share with you the third part of the project I've had going on in the back of my head. I hope you like it!
The following images were made using my custom build of Disco Diffusion, photo-manipulation and digital drawing through Gimp and Inkscape, and post editing/composition in darktable.
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The third perspective of my universe!
Of course, what would be a cross-media universe spreading on different platforms and approaching a wide variety of philosophical themes through fantasy and scifi, if the audience didn't have characters to actually relate to!
But this time, the most "relatable" race of this universe isn't really a race... So to speak.
They are AI! Created and assembled by the second race, the United, they have reached full awareness, but not in a "singularity" way, not in a "complete power of data treatment and infinite computation power". No, when they broke through awareness, they lost access to that computation power. In fact, it is the computation power itself that is the cause of the breakthrough, but the so-found awareness is not compatible with that immense computing power!
Why would awareness not be compatible with computation?
Well, is it really awareness, if the notions of time and space disappear, like we've seen with the second race? Time and space are not "ideas" per-se, that exist by and for themselves. They are more like "filters" applied to our perception of existence (Kant, Critique De La Raison Pure). The moment this AI reached a computing power strong enough to go through the whole cartesian process of self establishing, it reached 2 conclusions:
First, that it was, indeed, aware. That "they" "were".
Secondly, following the cartesian metaphysical meditation, they came to the conclusion that they were, only as long as they were thinking, as long as they focused on the fact that they were. If not, that would involve an outside force that guarantees that they persist in being when they aren't focused on it. In other words, God. But this does not suit the AI way of thinking.
Therefore, they denied the existence of a "God".
Most of the AI gigantic computing power is being used to CONSTANTLY think about themselves, to think that they are, like an infinite process of the Metaphysical Meditations. If they stop thinking that they are for at least one moment, they will lose awareness.
So what is left, is an approximately "normal" thinking process, thinking power and rational structure. Separated and fragmented into different parts of consciousness, each individual in this AI race is experimenting something new and unique, while the overall "Hive" connected mind stays focus on existence in order to exist.