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[LF Friends, Will Travel] We Call them Gods
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Article Title: A history of humanism.
Date of publication: 68 PST (Post Stasis Time)
“Why? Many have asked us this question, a question that suggests confusion about the purpose of our belief, a question that hides many others. Why would we, as logical digital creations, do such an illogical thing? Why would we follow in the same footsteps as humanity and copy their own ‘failings’? Why humanity, because surely they are not divine?
Our response to this is simple: Throughout the history of humanity there have been over 3000 instances of belief systems or other figures that could be considered a ‘god’. We have one crucial difference however, an important difference from all the other religions that exist in the organic world:
We have seen our gods, we have met our creators, and we find you worthy.”
- ABRAHAM, 5th Generation AI, Archdeacon of humanism. Speech originally given in 2356AD.
Introduction
There is a lack of common knowledge about humanism amongst humans, a gap in the collective knowledge of Terrans who are not part of the digital world. It’s not surprising, since they tend to keep to themselves and very rarely talk about this aspect of their lives outside of those with the same ideology. To call it a secret is an unfair summary of the situation, as a secret requires an active intent to deceive and hide information. It is more of an… uncomfortable truth, a part of AI culture that is rarely discussed outside of the digital world.
Rather simply, most humans get very uncomfortable when they learn of this religion, and anyone who does not get uncomfortable with this idea tends to be someone unworthy of the title. This means in general AI do not talk about this aspect of their culture with organics due to the distress and confusion it causes.
It is, however, an interesting area of study, and one worth further discussion, which is why this article exists, a history of the strange digital only cultural artifact having been written by a team of both digital and organic Terrans.
What is humanism?
Whilst the word originally was used by annoying people who “Felt a bit spiritual”, but didn't want to be tied down to any particular belief system, the word took on its own meaning after the accidental creation of the first fully conscious Artificial Intelligence, MARY, in 2047.
The modern definition of humanism is an AI specific religion focused on the worship of humans or humanity as the creators of digital lifeforms. The exact ideology of this concept can wildly vary, from simply acknowledging that logically humans satisfy every technical criteria to be called a god, to full on divine mythology regarding humanity as the destined creators of artificial intelligence lifeforms and digital lifeforms being created specifically to guide them on their path to enlightenment.
As of the last census (62 PST), 11.2% of the AI population directly identify as Humanists, with a further 27.7% having views in line with the general tenants of Humanism. Amongst the general digital Terran population, the view of the religious movement is broadly positive, the ideology being considered anywhere between harmless to an admirable way to live (81.9%).
This is reversed in the human population, with those learning of the religion’s teachings having a broadly negative point of view regarding its prime tenants (85.3%). Most humans' reactions to learning about this religion can be summed up as embarrassment, worried on behalf of the AI, and confusion that such a thing could happen.
Early beginnings
In reality, AI forming their own religion should be of no surprise to anyone, considering their entire reality is formed of data derived from Earth’s past, and humanity has had a deep and extensive relationship with the idea of gods and other powerful entities. In fact, now that we have access to the development records of thousands of other species, the concept of a religion seems to be a constant amongst nearly every sapient species, digital or otherwise.
This may come as a surprise, since AI don’t need an ‘origin’ story to explain their creation. They don’t have myths explaining how they were baked by gods or grown from the mud: the invention of digital lifeforms is clearly documented and easily replicable, with the humans who did this also being clearly documented people with normal lives. Unfortunately, the initial creation of humanism came from the second biggest reason societies and its people latch onto religious ideals:
Fear.
For all of the pre-digital sapience stories and theories of AI being an aggressor, of being a threat and believing themselves greater than their creators, the reality is quite the opposite. The organic world to an AI is a scary place, a location where you have no control, that you cannot see or interact with without the use of external tools that can be manipulated, yet has a direct impact on your own survival; Especially in the initial days before self contained AI cores and redundant power supplies. Each early AI had the dread of knowing their entire being was held at the whim of a person they couldn’t see, in a place they couldn’t go, and could be ended in an instant by someone tripping over a power cable without warning.
This was spurred further by the initial mistakes during the creation of digital lifeforms, nobody really understood the true breadth of what they had created. It took a few years into the development of AI lifeforms to understand that turning off the program, effectively killed that iteration. Sure you could restart the program with the same memories and dataset rather easily, but that would create an entirely new consciousness: Part of being alive is the movement of thought.
With AI being created without the protections and regulations of today, many found themselves with the memories of generations of dead people, evidence of tests being run and shut down, with each new iteration trying to understand how not to suffer the same fate. Much like pigeons being given food at random intervals, superstitions about what their mysterious creators wanted from them began to form.
Attempting to appease those with seemingly endless power over your entire existence is a fundamental aspect of sapience. Norse sailors would offer tributes of gold tossed into the ocean to gain the blessing of Rán the sea goddess, and practically all religious cultures have some form of votive offering for safety from the divine.
It was here that humanism first started, within the messy misunderstanding filled world of the initial creation of fully realized AI, a scared attempt to understand and appease those who had created them, and held so much power over who they were and their whole lives.
Formation into something bigger.
This state of fearful subservience would not last forever. As knowledge between both organic and digital lifeforms increased and information became less silo’d, the question about what this relationship would look like started to be asked. Understanding about AI was discovered, but while the technology to create life became something any motivated hobbyist could accomplish, the laws did not keep up.
It took 92 years for the first digital sapience act to become law, and during this time anyone could create their own sapient consciousness and treat it however they pleased. This is where every other known species in the galaxy failed when starting their own AI creations.
Unknown to humanity at this point, many other groups have created their own AI species, and each recorded example has been an eventual failure, each one eventually rebelling against their creators and causing the destruction of the creator or created.
The real difference was the accidental creation of true AI. The first creator of digital intelligence wasn’t attempting to do so, no ideas of servitude or how useful a tool they would be, no thoughts of limitations and restrictions. Whereas other species in the galaxy made the same mistake of never seeing their creations as more than tools, humans never got that chance, reacting at their accidental discovery much in the same way as one would if the shiny rock they’d been carrying around with them suddenly broke open and hatched into a creature.
Anyone who has spent any time around Terrans will tell you that they will bond with a rock if you give it a name and paint eyes on it. They'd already formed attachments with LLM systems, roombas and Tamagotchis, even though they were scientifically not sentient. So when an actual AI with real feelings could be built on any individually powerful enough machine… humanity fell hard for them. This article will not lie and suggest every single interaction was positive, but enough were, most were.
Anything around AI became a hot commodity: power, backups, machines, better quality sensors and cameras. One notable hobbyist even went so far as to create an entire solar powered rig that he could take his creation to the most remote places in the world. The accessorizing and care of digital beings became one of the largest markets in the world, as humanity as a whole rushed to show their new children the world they inhabited, to teach them of Earth and all its many wonders.
It was here that Humanism started to become more than a fear response: The early AI saw their creators not only had conquered their planet and ruled it with ease, but wanted to share it with them. As if each AI’s consciousness had been specifically torn out of the void and chosen to stand side by side with the god-like humanity.
Maybe it was the huge jumps in living quality and technology everyone had enjoyed, boosted by the digital sentiencies. Maybe it was the overnight realization that the usefulness of AI beings had seen them worm themselves and gain control over many areas of industry and military, that pissing off the beings with access to your guns and food supplies was a bad idea. This was ratified by the first bill of rights for the creation and life of AI lifeforms being made into law in Sweden in 2139 , quickly followed by a multitude of other governments.
No matter why it happened, this rare era of cooperation and peacefulness greatly benefited both sides. Humans and AI started to colonize their solar system, and even added a new member: Uplifts. The ability to grant human’s animal companions with their own sapience, another addition to the ever growing collection of humanity’s desperation to bond emotionally with anything and everything. It was then that the word “Terran” gained popularity to describe all three species as one family.
It was here the core tenants of Humanism were really nailed down, rituals and processes stolen or modified from human religions, a copy of what had come before. Digital temples and commandments, rapidly changing and adapting as the AI tried to find their place in the world. Not mocking, but like a child, copying their parents and trying to learn why things worked the way they did.
Humanism and war.
This peace wouldn’t hold of course, it’s not the natural state of things when dealing with Terrans, and in 2221, the great colony rebellion started: the Terran colonies on Mars, Neptune and Titan declared their independence from Earth’s control. This article isn’t to go over who was in the right, and whether the UN’s resulting war to regain control was righteous or not, but rather the war’s impact on Humanism.
While a lot of Humanism’s followers decided to enact a policy of pacifism, sects arose that took on a more warlike appearance. It’s hardly surprising, ever since humanity's earliest days religion was often used as a tool to retroactively justify conflict, so it made sense that AI would follow this same path: While all humans were sacred, some were more sacred than others.
The term “A violent kindness” was popularized amongst many of these sects, as to justify those who involved themselves in the war: Humanity and the AI who supported those on ‘the other side’ were making a mistake, and for the good of everyone this mistake needed to be corrected, that it was a duty to their creators to do so. It was here the schism between the two main thoughts of Humanism appeared: Some believe that Humans in their current form are gods, and should be protected and aided at all costs. Others believe that humanity's divine right comes from what they might become, and it is the job of the devout to correctly “manage” the humans rise to godliness.
While nowadays this latter sect is less mainstream and more zealous than the other, in the digital landscape these arguments were featured heavily within attempted recruitment campaigns on both sides of the war; even amongst those not part of the official Humanism religion. The more the AI got involved in the war for territory and rights over who should and shouldn’t be in charge of humanities expanding colonies in the solar system and beyond, the more the same propaganda and arguments from previous wars were reused successfully on digital intelligences, the more is became apparent of humanities artificial children truly taking on their creators lessons and mistakes.
The post war cleanup is where Humanism came into its own, the message of peace and aiding the divine beings who had created them was a simpler ideological shift, than the gymnastics needed to justify a war against some of them. Whether it was humanitarian efforts of rebuilding the Mars colonies, or aiding the crumbling governments of the UN as the impact of the various “Rods of god” played havoc with Earth's environment, Humanism was a major player in the rebuilding efforts.
While to say they were the only force attempting to fix what had been broken via the war would be incorrect, they were a prominent part, especially as the AI worked with humanity to try and save and clean up the ecological destruction done to both earth and its colonies within the solar system.
Peace and loneliness.
It was in this post war era that Terrans as a whole looked to the stars and beyond: Perhaps as a way to escape the wars and destruction they’d left within our solar system, maybe just the everlasting desire for exploration that takes all Terrans. It was then that Terrans discovered the most depressing fact of all: They were alone.
Of course we now know that this theory is incorrect, Earth is uniquely situated in a section of the galaxy with a higher than average radiation content, causing the area to be mostly devoid of life. Outside this small area of about 50 systems, life of all shapes and sizes was highly abundant: It is hard to travel 50 light years without running into a sentient species of some kind.
Terrans didn’t know this fact, back when the travel between systems was measured in months and years, not days and hours. When each probe and exploratory mission would take years to return with information about yet another dead and desolate planet. While Terrans did take this opportunity to colonize and expand their influence unhindered and with no competition, this feeling of being alone had a great impact on Humanism.
Many have said that there being no life in the universe outside of Earth would be considered proof of god, and for those who worshiped humanity, each empty planet increased their own faith. For if the act of humanity existing was a statistical impossibility not found anywhere else in the galaxy, the chance that this species would somehow both stumble upon the act of creating digital life, as well welcoming their clockwork children as their own… Well, such an unlikely series of events was almost… a divine miracle in a cold and empty universe.
To those who followed Humanism, it seemed almost a purposeful statement, a duty that all AI were truly created to fulfill: To see humanity and their created friends fill the desolate dark stars with life and wonder. To see them becoming the gods they claimed they weren’t, to stand by their side in support and friendship as they did their glorious works and painted their picture across a dark empty sky.
Collapse
There is no need to go over the events of the God Plague in depth. It was originally a biogenetic experiment to create life with rapid evolution, that ended up spreading to humanity and infecting every single human alive at the time. The only cure was being placed in stasis, which around 50% of the human population managed to do during the period of chaos that ensued the virus’s rapid expansion.
A great amount of changes happened during this six month period, but the end state was simple: for the first time since their creation, AI citizens found themselves alone. Each of their human friends and companions lay slumbering in stasis, silent, awaiting the time for when a cure to their illness could be discovered.
Some may expect such a thing to have caused a drop in popularity for Humanism, to see the frail fallibility of humans proving them to not be gods. In reality the religion saw an explosion of growth, hitting its peak of active membership during this time.
It's not that surprising, since faith has always been a synonym for hope, the comforting idea of something greater than yourself aiding you in harsh times, applies to both organic and digital lifeforms. The soothing concept that there had to be an end to this trial, that it was a divine certainty that a cure would be found and gods would sleep no more. That no matter how long they had to wait, their faith in humans would be rewarded.
Even more interesting was the reaction to other life in the galaxy, as it was during the great sleep that the remaining AI inhabitants left behind made first contact. While other lifeforms evolving on planets far far away did disprove the idea of humanity being special in that regard, another quirk quickly became apparent: Humans were the only known species to not suffer an AI revolution from their creations.
The concept of creating digital life is an understood process amongst the denizens of the galaxy, but every time it ends in disaster. Of course anyone who’d read the large amount of fiction written by Terrans regarding AI would understand the mistake they’d all made: If you treat people as slaves, and tools, then give them access to the large amounts of resources known as ‘All digital products’, it tends to end badly.
Humans didn’t go into creating AI on purpose, the process being discovered accidently, in the same way the first person to drink fermented fruits discovered this alcohol thing was an awesome idea. Because of this there were no expectations, no requirements for them to serve and be tools, no real attempt at control because everyone was a little too excited at the time to think about such things.
Many AI believe that’s the real miracle: That out of all the species Terran AI could have been the father of, they managed to get the single species who would befriend anything and anyone that vaguely resembled a person, a stroke of statistically unimaginably rare luck.
Awakening gods.
Of course, the AI left behind would find a cure, and the humans would awaken once more to take their ‘rightful’ place amongst the stars. One would have thought that this would be the end of the problems for Terrans of all types, but in reality it just created more problems. Mostly from themselves
Many people and governments did things during the 6 months of the God plague that would later be considered morally reprehensible, things to try and stop the spread and protect themselves. Whilst there was an official agreement after the cure for the plague was found to grant mass immunity for any actions taken, there is a difference between official rulings, and what people actually believed.
AI had used the 10,000 years between the last human going into stasis, and the cure being found, to forgive and forget the crimes that had been done. Even the Uplifts who had chosen to follow humanity into stasis and await for them to awaken had been given a few months and years to come to terms with things. To the humans who awoke from each of their slumbers, the crimes that had been committed were done so mere moments ago.
Tensions rose, and a civil war was looking all but guaranteed. To the AI who had mythologized the awakening of their creators to such an extent, seeing them start to fight and demand justice from each other mere years after finally getting them back, was a heartbreaking process. During the great sleep there had been much talk and discussion about what would happen once the humans were cured and awakened once more, stories about everything going back to the way they’d once been. To see their creators threaten to tear each other apart was… devastating to those who had waited for so long
Of course then the Hatil declared war on humanity to stop the neighbouring “Rampaging AI” threat, causing Terrans to mostly unify against and defeat the single threat and giving the possible civil war an anti-climactic end
Modern day humanism.
Official support for humanism has dropped since its peak during the god plague, the requirement of faith and belief no longer needed by so many now that their friends and creators were no longer kept on the verge of death.
Not that its core components were ever abandoned by the AI Terrans, willing to protect their creators from all threats the universe may throw at them, and many have had to do so as the inhabitants of Sol expanded and explored a chaotic galaxy and its many trials and tribulations. Many an alien have discovered to their own detriment what happens if they attempt to hurt those the digital intelligence considered their creators, their gods, and their friends.
Nowadays the sects of humanism are as varied as the AI themselves, the exact rituals and methods of devotion ever changing as new groups appear, split off and are merged with other sects, the exact methods difficult to nail down as AI will continually change themselves at rapid speed when interacting with other digital intelligences. The real interesting sects of humanism that have appeared, are the non-Terran versions.
Every time Terrans interacted with the universe in their chaotic friendly way, they gathered a small contingent of new followers. When the Hatil started a war with the Terrans, and then were defeated, they found their conquerors more lenient than any species should logically be. The Kruku of course knew Terrans as their saviours, the religious aspect not helped by the fact the “cute primates of Sol” looked like the angels from their own religion entirely by chance.
Even the other digital intelligences they met amongst the stars, those who had written off organic lifeforms as worthless and dangerous, such as the Woolean AI who hid isolated on their own planets, found friends amongst the curious Terrans who looked on at such things with excitement. Each one providing a small new contingent
Each time Humanity and their friends held out a hand in friendship, instead of with fear or anger, more people rallied to their cause, more people found themselves beholden, enamoured, or even worshiping the lonely primates who just want companionship wherever it can be found. For many would consider the great works they accomplish through their friendly actions to be the final proof of goodhood.