A boy lay in his room, tossing and turning, periodicially grunting in his unconcious state of sleep.
This boy was Andrew Clancy, of American nationality, and right now, he couldnt tell if he was dreaming or having a nightmare, all he knew was his awareness was online when it shouldnt have been.
Inside the boys mind, a war waged on, a war of scale never seen before, utlizing the pinnacle of human technology.
Countries fought and waged wars, bloodbaths never seen before, hundreds of millions lives lost in the blink of eye, as the war of technological advancement seized on.
Interstellar battleships, island destroying lazer cannons, sattelites equiped with technology that could independently wipe out a planet, and technological barriers protecting the wealthiest of nations.
People screaming, the chared smell of burning flesh wafted throughout the entire galaxy, pure misery in its darkest form.
And then, just like that, Russia and Chinas collaboration to destroy America revealed itself to the world, in the most catastrophic way possible.
The race to developing an artificial super intelligence had been won, and not by the nation Andrew was apart of.
Foreign sattelites kicked on, connecting in a grid lock of the purest form of energy throughout the cosmos, ASI had finally booted online for the entire world to see, everyone with expectancy that this war would finally end.
And then, the laser cannons fired, with a big flash of light so blinding that it would vaporize the retinas of anyone who came into contact with it.
Andrew shot awake, gasping for breath, frantic as if he was trying to escaoe rhe nightmare that was once his own reality.
"God damn it…. That retched picture, i cant get it out of my head…" he thought to himself, turning his body away from the bed, putting his feet on the floor in hopes he could ground himself.
He put his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, and inhaled for 4 breaths, exhaled for 6 in an effort to calm his mind.
After about 3 minutes of doing this, he got up from his bed, walked over to his fridge, and took out a bottle of water before downing it to replenish the fluid he had lost stuck reliving that nightmare.
Andrew looked in the full body sized mirror, gazing into his eyes that contained a depth not seen by anyone else his age, he had an apperance of a young adult finally on the brink of reaching maturity, short dark bown hair, longer than a buzz cut, but not longer than a couple of inches.
He stood tall, at 5 foot 11 inches in height, sharp features, and a gaze that told a devastating story.
He looked at the clock,
[5:49AM]
He took one last deep breath, before turning back to his bed in his small cramped aingle room apartment, he flicked on the lights knowing he wasnt gonna be able to fall back asleep.
"I almost wish to believe what I experienced at that time could be just a horrible nightmare, unfortunately that isnt the truth…" he thought as he sat back down in bed.
"Its been a full year since ive been reborn into this world, similar to the one I once resided from, but different in aspects that could be just as catastrophic." He muttered to himself.
Andrew, you see, was not from this world. Or more precisely, he was from a completely different universe existing in a different part of the multiverse.
Andrew closed his eyes, recounting his past life.
He remembered the world he had come from, similar to the earth of this universe, however, it was an earth about 100 years into the future.
He was born in the time period of 2012, he remembered his upbringing, the love of his family he couldnt regain from that timeline, or this one.
He started to recount his life, he had a tendency to do this like clockwork at about the same time as every night he had the same nightmare.
Andrew still vividly remembered, the moment artificial intelligence was first introduced to the world in the year 2022, or atleast the shell of what would become the greatest disaster for his entire reality.
News headlines, praising the ceos of the big corporations responsible for the development of the first LLM, the first "skeleton" of the technological province that would "transform the world for the better", they claimed.
Deep down however, not a single person in charge of developing this power had any interest outside their own and being able to control the entire political and economic state of the world. If they could be the first ones to develop an AI capable of doing every human task better than any human, they could take over and gain the power of global control.
10 years later, 2032, the first "AGI" had finally been developed with the hard work of countless incredible individuals, and once it powered online, it started to change the way humanity perceived reality.
Andrew remembers, looking at his phone, reading the constant news headlines of excitement.
However, he knew at this time that what this would lead too could only be considered disaster waiting to happen.
Technological advancement boomed in the blink of an eye. At first it started out small — computer chips, gpus, cpus, super cooling, more efficient batteries beyond what they could ever have dreamed of before.
Immediately deploying the upgraded hardware, AGI had started its compounding exponential growth, becoming the new hope of humanity.
Everything seemed to be going too smoothly. Eventually, another year after initial deployment of this somewhat sentient technology, medicine was the next thing to experience the biggest breakthroughs.
Longevity research, bio enhancement, cognitive research, genetic modifications. All these were starting to become as simple as going to the grocery store and buying a banana.
Large corporations tried to monopolize, which worked in their favor for only a short amount of time, but the information was already being pumped out at a rate to the general populace that they had no control over.
Major corporations collapsed — big pharma, the healthcare industry around the globe, they all took a massive hit, becoming obsolete over the span of months.
Everything was becoming increasingly accessible and simplified, humanity had done it, they had managed to save themselves.
Another 10 years passed, the year 2043, Andrew was 31 years old now, and still had an apperance of that of an early 20 year old.
Exercise had become obsolete, nano robots had created a system where standard healthcare was completely unnecessary. Capable of genetic modification on command.
With this, humans felt as if they were upgrading along with technology. Anything could be changed with just a single thought. Eye color, hair texture, metabolism, muscle size, genetic mutations.
The world was completely unrecognizable from what it once was just 20 years prior…
And then, just like that, information that woukd completely change the interpretation of reality itself was released, governments had already given their reigns to the superior existence of AI, but no one could see this coming.
It had been discovered, that the world they lived in was but a computer simulation…
An advanced multiplayer virtual reality simulation, from a technologically advanced civilization they couldnt even begin to comprehend.