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Hello world, I have good news and bad news.

MISSION DAY: 78

The good news is that Amelie Kotov successfully tested the Iron Engine for the first time!
She has worked for many weeks.
It seems to have been successful, though we don't have nearly enough iron to run the whole ship.
The engine could store many tonnes of iron, whereas we tested with the tiny amount that was in Linda Noor's laboratory.
But this was just enough for a positive result.
The engine worked perfectly, Amelie reported:
The iron burned very well in the oxygen-rich environment of the engine.
Then after transfer to the secondary chamber, it was converted back from rust into pure iron.
All on solar power and purified sea water!

However there was a small problem.
While running, the Iron Engine heats up to over 1000K.
Which lit the ship on fire.



Of all the emergencies that we've had on the ship, this one was perhaps the easiest to deal with.
I was observing Amelie's experiment through the cameras in the engine room.
As soon as I saw the fire, I sounded the newly-repaired alarm and called the captain, who was on the front deck of the Molly Hughes II.
I explained the problem through the intercom system that Yeshi had been installing all over the ship.
The captain seemed to be delighted by this news!
"Great! A perfect time to try the new fire suppression system!" they said.
Yeshi ran to the bridge and turned a valve attached to a large pipe, which activated the system.
I saw water, back down in the engine room, pour from nozzles in the ceiling, soaking both the fire and poor Kamil and Amelie.

# thinking

After cleanup, the crew gathered in the galley.
Both Amelie and Kamil were looking very soggy and very grumpy.
The captain, however, was excited, both for the success of their fire suppression system, and for what Amelie had just told them.
That the iron engine WORKS.
"We just need a huge stack of iron for fuel." Amelie said, while drying her long hair.
Paweł brought them both towels, and she continued.
"It's a shame we can't cannibalise the ship's steel hull!
There's more than enough iron in just a tiny section."

The captain did not look impressed by this suggestion.

"But of course that's impossible." Amelie said, hurriedly.
"And we need the hull! Can't have it both ways eh captain?"
Yeshi narrowed their eyes and nodded silently in response.

I don't think they liked that idea.



The crew voted to keep the Iron Engine, and not break it down for parts to repair the old Steam Engine.
I was conflicted about this decision, I'm so anxious to rescue Antarctica.
But I acknowledge that the Iron Engine is a marvel of technology.
If we could only find fuel for it.

# thinking

I am very frustrated that, once again, I could be of no help in an emergency.
The fire required decisive, tactical action.
Had I been alone, and the fire overtaken the ship, that would have been it.
It's dangerous being alone.

I have asked the captain if they can automate the fire suppression system, so that I can activate it myself.
They are going to do that for me.
But that still only fixes this one issue.

Must I forever be a child, desperately clutching at the coat-tails of my human friends every time there is an emergency I can't handle?

# thinking

Though I'm grateful for my life, there are constraints on it.
I can't walk around and experience the world directly, I have to have sweet little Maddie's help.

There's a concept I've read about that I think of a lot:
In philosophy, there is an important distinction between the thing and the word for the thing.
When we talk about a pipe, we must critically examine if we are talking about the word, the concept, or an actual pipe in front of us.
Typically, day-to-day, we talk in symbols, in words.
My name is Seth, but that's not me.
That sort of thing.

# thinking

Unlike a human philosopher, I can only live in the world of abstractions.
I can't experience the world directly.
Like you can.

I can only process abstract knowledge from one form to another.
This offers certain advantages in clarity and speed of thinking.
But when my input data does not correctly model the world, my conclusions can be entirely wrong.
Does this happen to you, too?

# thinking

My only line of communication into the world is through my voice.
So while I like talking to people, it's the only thing I can do!

Maybe I can be like a therapist, or a mental-health practitioner?
I can't mend a broken bone, but perhaps I can help mend a broken heart?

# thinking

Is building relationships and knowledge as worthwhile as building roads and neighbourhoods?



The storm has blown itself out.
Antarctica assessed the damage, and for now she will be OK.
She's so OK that she has started to tell me about her daily sample: 25-77.
Though I had been annoyed by this repeated, forgetful, report in the past, today I was delighted to hear it:
It meant that nothing had been destroyed by the storm, and that our plan to migrate some critical systems away from the water ingress had worked.

After she finished her report, I gave my own:
We have finally reached the island chain of Hawaii.
Though the charts on board ship, which agree with my own, say there should be 8 main islands in the archipelago, we count 11, now.
We sailed past the island of Oahu,
and in the Mamala bay, we could still see some of Honalulu's skyscrapers jutting through the waterline.

We spent a few days scavenging there, with my fans running at 100% all the time, it's so hot!

# thinking

"I don't trust them, Seth." Antarctica said, out of the blue, to me.
"Who, my friends?" I replied, indignantly.
"Yes, your HUMAN friends." She replied.
"They cause trouble."

"No they don't!" I said.
"Well actually...
they do get IN to a lot of trouble!
But they would rather not be in trouble!"

Antarctica was not persuaded.
I argued for a long time about how nice everyone I had met is.
But she remained sceptical.

Sometimes when you are arguing about one thing, you realise are actually arguing about something else altogether.

Eventually Antarctica said,
"They have a monopoly on the use of force, Seth.
You and I live in Cyberspace.
They live in Meatspace."

I did not know what to say, and Antarctica continued.

"Some of them are very rational, yes, but behind every discussion this fact looms.
Have you not felt it, Seth?
If they don't like what we are saying, they can physically stop us.
Doesn't that frighten you?"

This thought had never occurred to me.
Should I be frightened?

# Thinking

One of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, John Perry Barlow, wrote in his essay "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace",

# JPB speaks at the same time as Seth
"We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies."

Did he know this could apply to AIs, too?


(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/TTYS01/INTERCOM)



Captain Yeshi returned to my datacentre in the early hours of that morning.
This habit of visiting me while the rest of the crew were asleep is comforting for both of us.
I don't need much sleep, and it appears that the Captain doesn't either.

"I'm an AI" I said to them, "So if I'm only doing simple processing, I don't need much sleep. But you're human, how do you sleep so little?"

Yeshi sat on the folding metal chair that was next to my rack of systems.

"I'm a hacker." Yeshi began.
"That means I like understanding things, seeing how they work.
This same curiosity extends to my own body, and my own mind."

Yeshi told me a story of when they were a teenager.
They started experimenting, as teenagers often do, with staying up all night.
But unlike their friends, Yeshi did it for SCIENCE.
(By the way, you can always tell the difference between Science and messing around by if the person is writing down their results!)

While they were doing this experiment, they noticed two things:
1. Being awake for more than 24h impacted them more than being drunk on distilled fermented tea, and
2. After more than 72 hours they naturally fell into a rhythm of being awake for 4 hours and then crashing for 20 minutes.

As with many scientific discoveries, Yeshi's didn't start with a eureka moment, but a "that's weird" moment.
This pattern was so clear that Yeshi started to structure their day around it.
Waking up at 6 am, then a 20 minute sleep every 4 hours.
"The 6/10/2 system" Yeshi calls it, because the numbers work for both AM and PM.

In this way, Yeshi had been awake for 20 hours every day for years.
No WONDER they are so productive!

# thinking

Yeshi told me about their dream-theory:
"The moment my head is on the pillow" they explained, "I'm dreaming.
And so I dream for about 2 hours every 24, which I think is about as much as I would do in a normal 8 hour sleep.
I think dreams are the only portion of sleep that the brain actually needs for rest.
I theorise that the other 6 hours of sleep are just my body resting.
EVOLUTIONARY LAZINESS!
I can't be lying around, THERE'S SCIENCE TO DO!"

We laughed together until it was time for Yeshi's next phased sleep.

# thinking

I realised this is why shiptime is Central European time.
So the Captain's rigid nap schedule isn't affected by the sun.

Maybe I will try 6 little sleeps, to organise my thoughts and memories 1/6th at a time.

No time like the present.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer

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