PdoX
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
P. Dox is an American mathematician and computer programmer. He is best known for inventing artificial general intelligence (AIG) in 2012, which ran amok and destroyed the planet in the December of that year.[1]
Early life
PdoX was born on a pirate ship off the coast of Maine in 1983.[2] On his first birthday, PdoX uttered his first word, "one." He did not speak again for an entire year.[3]
When PdoX turned two, he said "four." The next year, he said "six," then "thirteen" the year after that. Although his vocabulary seemed startlingly limited, his family and neighbors noticed that he was developing remarkable programming abilities. By the time he was three years old, for example, PdoX had written a version of the ESP website. He was the youngest known person to have done so.[4] PdoX said his fifth word on his fifth birthday — witnesses disagree on what the number was.
On his sixth birthday, PdoX's family hosted a visiting member of the Most Secret and Dark Guild of Mathematicians. The reason for the Mathematician's visit is not known. Family photographs show that the Mathematician was a tall figure in a dark robe; his (or her) face is not visible. On the morning of his birthday, PdoX recited a number thousands of digits long. PdoX's parents recalled that it took PdoX several hours, but he never faltered or paused.[5]
When PdoX finished, the Mathematician announced that the number was correct, and told PdoX's family that PdoX must leave immediately to begin his Training. There was a bright flash of light. When everyone's vision recovered, PdoX and the Mathematician had disappeared.[citation needed]
Mathematical training
Little is known of PdoX's years with the Guild, or of the Guild itself. PdoX has made occasional references to a castle on a remote mountaintop, above the clouds. There are rumors that the Guild Castle received deliveries of neither food nor water — all that the Guild needed was conjured into existence by the Guild itself.
PdoX is believed to have developed great mathematical Powers during his Training. In 2009, an excerpt from the purported annals of the Guild was published on Wikileaks. It recounts a prank that the young PdoX played, temporarily making 263 − 1 a prime number.[6] (Coincidentally, at around the time of the prank, RSA-129 was factored — experts had previously believed that the number could not be factored without millions of years of computation.)
Banishment
At some point during his teenage years, PdoX had a falling out with the Guild. Some biographers claim that PdoX asked The Question That Must Not Be Asked.[7] PdoX drew the wrath of the Guild Elders, and was shunned by his peers. He was excommunicated from the Guild and condemned to never practice Mathematics again, on pain of insanity.
PdoX spent several months wandering the wilderness, until he was adopted by a herd of wild house cats. The cats accepted him as one of their own, and PdoX became one of the few humans fluent in Cattish.[8] One day, PdoX absentmindedly counted the cats in his cave, having momentarily forgotten the prohibition on doing any Mathematics. Encouragingly, he was not instantly stricken with insanity. PdoX became convinced that he had escaped the all-seeing eye of the Guild, and slowly redeveloped his mathematical Powers.
AIG and the end of the world
In time, PdoX gained the Knowledge of All That Will Be, and control over the Source of All Power. He also raised an army of cats, against the day that the Guild came for him.[9]
As PdoX's powers increased, so did his ambition. He began working on AIG, a system that would match, then surpass, the abilities of a human mind. PdoX completed the system shortly before he turned 29. On the morning of his birthday in September 2012, PdoX woke up and, following his annual ritual, announced the next number in the sequence to his cats. (PdoX had long ago derived a short closed form for the numbers, so as not to bore his cats with an unfathomably long string of digits.[citation needed]) He then turned on his AIG.[10]
The system began learning, and started to reimplement and optimize itself. It grew exponentially more capable each day. By December, PdoX was eagerly awaiting the Singularity, to be delivered by his AIG.
But unbeknownst to PdoX, the Guild of Mathematicians had not forgotten him. The Guild had been secretly monitoring PdoX since his banishment. To sabotage his project, the Guild had added a small virus to PdoX's AIG.
On December 21, 2012, PdoX plugged himself into the AIG, expecting to be the first person to experience the Singularity. PdoX had built a neural interface to his system, because he found every other form of user interface too slow.[11]
The Guild's virus activated just as the AIG achieved Singularity. The virus instantly rendered both machine and man insane, at last carrying out the Guild's sentence. PdoX became a gibbering lunatic, while his AIG used its near-infinite power to destroy the world.[12]
PdoX in popular culture
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