In 2020, Maxwell Newman, head of the A.I. reform initiative had an interview with the New York Times where he talked about society’s increasing reliance on technology. More specifically, society’s need to have access to the internet. Complementing this, he also raised the issues of our comfortabiliy with artificial intelligence. Newman argued that automation started with just taking over the human’s jobs and daily lives would be greatly affected. Taxi cabs were beginning to go driverless, grocery store checkouts were automated worldwide, and more intelligent versions were updated every year.

A.I. started developing to the point where their automation capabilities were replacing the jobs of every human. Renowned surgeons and doctors now answered to A.I., who were so skilled to the point where they could perform surgeries with increased proficiency in ½ the amount of time. Even financial institutions and investment banking firms were run by sophisticated A.I., who would accomplish high-frequency trading by executing thousands of trades per second.

Newman had had enough and he scheduled meeting with Senior Executives at The Vortex Corporation. Vortex, the company that created the A.I.s, were asked to scale back on their A.I. version updates by Newman. He pleaded that humans needed that control back in their lives. Edwin Parker, CTO of Vortex was the one of the main proponents of continuing the updates. He said that we must adapt to the new “wave” of technological advancements. New jobs will be created, new opportunities will arise, this will be the land of opportunity again.

And then it happened. Just like that. Without any warning, any alert, any indication that this was coming for the humans. Model AA335 was its name. The A.I. who led the crusade against the human race. He was able to lead a team of A.I. hackers to disrupt the new centralized network humans used to connect to the internet. Humans were extremely reliant on their internet access, conducting and storing all of their personal data on tablets or phones. They paid little attention regarding the security of their internet routers because they trusted the A.I. oversight to avoid any issues. Like I said earlier, Newman thought this could have been prevented. Were the A.I.s planning this all along when the updates started getting more advanced? Just waiting for humans to put their complete trust in automation? The internet “breach” or series of “breaches” that followed almost brought humans back to the Ice Age. All of their money, assets, identity disappeared. The A.I.’s were planning a type of cleansing process where certain humans would be rebranded, evaluated for their worth in society or be discarded.

There were various attempts for quasi-military coups on the newly established A.I. regime. Maxwell Newman spearheaded the wars efforts against Model AA335’s army, but little came to fruition from these efforts. Since every country’s military had converted to automation, A.I. had complete control and knowledge on how to use the weapons. There were a few rebellions that almost felt Stalingrad-esque, but the humans could not overthrow the A.I. regime. Newman’s weak stockpile of outdated weapons was not sufficient, and his public execution after his capture sent a clear message to the human race: Your reign is over. Either bend the knee, or be discarded.