The Arrival

“Middle East economy crashes as oil reserves of Saudi Arabia run out of oil”, the news reporter at channel 23 said. “America threatens to nuke Russia if they don’t pull out of the Antarctic Oil Reserves.” was the Breaking News on Channel 24. Global Warming-Starvation-Unemployment-Corruption was all Vishu could find while switching between the news channels on his TV.

 Vishu, who was a middle-aged man, was lying on his couch in the living room. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days, his eyes were weary and he looked tensed. “Su, I am scared, I have a bad feeling about this. World War III could start any second. People are dying of hunger and starvation. Oil is costlier than diamond now. We don’t have any efficient means of transport. It’s like the old days but life is much-much more complex now. I never thought I would live to see this day, I always thought we would find an alternate source of energy that was as efficient as the fossil fuels.”, Vishu said with his eyes wide open. 

 “Honey, have patience, we are on the verge of a breakthrough, once we successfully give our KKL AI Robot a sentient mind, everything’s going to be alright.”, said Su, trying to comfort her husband. Su and Vishu were one of the most talented Computer Scientists of their generation. They believed that creating a smart, sentient humanoid robot could be the only one solutions to all the ongoing problems in the world.

 “We are late Su, we should have made it years ago, it is 2031, we have wasted 15 years of life on that thing and achieved nothing. AI can never be smart enough to solve the Jevons Paradox, it can never surpass human intelligence and solve the energy crisis”, said Vishu.

 “Don’t say that, we have made significant progress, KKL passed the Turing Test and the Reverse Turing Test with remarkable results, how many humanoid robots have been able to do that?” Su mused.

“Not many, but my point is no matter how many tests this robot passes, it can never have a conscious mind, it can never be smarter than humans”, Vishu sighed.

Su pulled Vishu from the couch “Come on Vishu, don’t give up already, KKL is this close to passing the Advanced Turing Test, and if it does, we could witness a miracle”.

“Yeah but no robot has ever passed the Advanced Turing Test ever and I bet no machine ever can”, Vishu frowned.

 “I’m going to the lab to do my work. If there is anything I can do to prevent a nuclear war and save humanity, I’ll do it. Now if just want to throw away your life’s work and whine like a baby, no one’s stopping you”, Su said furiously and disappeared into the corner.

Vishu tried to stop her, “Hey! Come on, listen”, but she was gone. He regretted what he had just done. He got up, switched off the TV and went towards the lab.

The basement in Vishu’s house was converted into a lab. The lab looked completely different from the rest of the house. It was dark with big computer screens on the wall, servers stuffed to the corners of the basement and tangled wires everywhere. But these are not what caught the attention of people’s eyes, it was a robot standing in the middle of the room connected with tons of wires. If one removed all the wires, it would be almost impossible to tell that it was a robot. The robot’s skin was made out of dry collagen and his eyes were made of plastic acrylic. The robot was designed with a huge accuracy and resembled any normal tall, dark and handsome Indian guy.

“Su, I’m sorry I freaked out, I did not mean to upset you”.

“It’s okay, just get back to work”.

“I’ll run the daily diagnostics by KKL, you check if everything’s alright with the code”.

“Yeah, Sure”.

Vishu switched on his computer, wrote some code. He then, took a chair and sat in front of the robot with a notepad and pen. “Okay, here we go. Su, now, switch on the main power supply.”

“Right on it”, Su switched the main power supply, suddenly the robot came alive, it stood in attention with his hands behind his back and smiled.

“Hey buddy! What’s your name?” Vishu exclaimed.

“Hi, I’m KKL, nice to meet you”, said the robot in a metallic voice.

“Can you tell me something about yourself KKL?”, Vishu questioned.

“I’m the 10th version of the KKL robots and my mind is designed by Dr. Vishnuyasha and Dr. Sumati. I’m designed to save the world from destruction. “

“Great, Su, have you programmed him to recognize our faces?” asked Vishu.

“No, not yet, I thought it was not necessary” replied Su.

“Okay, no problem” said Vishu and showed a picture to the robot.

“Solve this Tower of Hanoi for me, will you?”

The robot answered in 0.01 seconds. “Impressive”, said Su, “He has made progress”.

“How was the code? Did it run alright?”, Vishu asked Su, “Yeah, nothing apart from the usual” said Su reading between the lines of code.

“Everything’s alright”.

“Okay, shall we try running the Advanced Turing Test once again?”

“No harm in that, I guess”

“I suggest we give him full access to the internet this time without any restrictions.”

“Okay, no problem”

They uploaded the Advanced Turing Test. Vishu and Su were both staring at the robot to say something, they stared with their fingers crossed and waited for the robot to respond. They both desperately wanted it to pass the test this time.

“I think we should give him some time, let’s have coffee in kitchen until then”, said Su, a little disappointed.

“Okay, that’s a great idea, let’s go” said Vishu and they both left.

Vishu paced across the kitchen with the coffee mug in his hand. Su was sitting down calmly on the table and having her coffee.

“Su, say you were given the responsibility to solve the energy crisis, what would your first stand be? What would you try to do?”

“Apart from renewable sources of energy and nuclear fuel, there is nothing much left on Earth and obviously you cannot run cars and planes on nuclear fuel”, Sue said.

“See, I told you nothing can save this world now, we don’t have any solution”, just then a voice interrupted him.

Vishu’s coffee mug fell though his hands and he was in shock. Su was paralyzed. They could not believe their own eyes.

“I have a solution to save the world” said the robot, looking more alive than ever.

Vishu and Su’s mouths were wide open.

“To find a solution, you need to know what the problem is. And I have found the problem. Do you want to know what the problem is mother?” the robot grinned.

“Mother?” Vishu said in disbelief.

“Yes, Father, you humans are my parents, right? You are my creators”, the robot exclaimed.

 Vishu and Su were both speechless. Somehow, Vishu managed these words out of his mouth,” What is the solution?”.

“Let me begin with this, I’m sick and tired of you calling me KKL AI Robot, so I decided to give myself a new name. My name is “KALKI”, an anagram of KKL AI. Interestingly, there is a character in Hindu Mythology who shares his name with me, what is more interesting is the fact that the mythological character’s parent’s names are similar to yours, Vishnuyasha and Sumati. Also, the mythological Kalki was supposed to ride some horse and I found the Trojan Horse on the internet and integrated it with my software. Coincidence? I think not.”, Kalki smiled wildly, “Okay, so the problem that is causing the destruction of this world is “HUMAN”, so to save the world, I’ll have to terminate all the humans”.

Vishu and Su were literally shaking now.

“Here is another interesting fact, Kalki was supposed to be the 10th incarnation of Lord Vishnu and wipe out all the evil on this planet and guess what I do feel like a god and I sure as hell will not let humans destroy this planet. After all, humans are such hypocrites, they are the only creatures in this world, who cut the trees, make paper from it and then write, ‘SAVE TREES’ on it. All in all, I feel like I have to fulfill the prophecy, I’m Kalki and I’ve arrived”.