SCP-7579 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-7579.

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Thank You Multiple For Reading

Placeholder McD 19 Oct 2022 00:44

Ø IS FOR ØRKESLØS¹

Footnotes

1. An archaic Danish term meaning 'futile, idle, useless, without purpose' (literally work-less).

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Over two years ago, after spending the first few months of the Pandemic fully entranced with the SCP Wiki, I decided to try my hand at my first article: an 079 rewrite. It was extremely dull, as I did not yet have the skills to properly conceive nor execute such an ambitious goal. I consider this a major milestone in my abilities as an author. At risk of sounding extremely pretentious, I have found a way to write this article that, in my opinion, does not depend on any of the 'crutches' which I and others feel are common in my style. The document is comprehensible, character-driven, and has what I would consider my personal bare minimum CSS for a polished, presentable work.

I have many thanks to give:

• To Locke, for inviting me to the Anthology project, for putting up with my anxiety-inducing last-minute-ism, for giving this a last-last-minute read, and also for inviting me to the HARBINGER II project
• To HarryBlank, for enduring my doubts and beautifying the article's hub/cover image
• To Billith, for supporting my insanity and creating the immensely stylish Temporality Annex Logo
• To the lovely Trintavon, for a thorough and thoughtful critique
• To the Unknown Author who created SCP-079, for laying the essential groundwork
• To Cerastes and Ralliston, whose own interpretations also laid helpful groundwork
• To LurkD and SunnyClockwork for their inspired writings in the AIAD Canon
• To Pedagon, Isabi, and Tyumen for assisting our own contributions to AIAD
• To Jack Ike and Liryn for further facilitating my writings about AI, and the latter's adjustments of the Foxtrot Theme for my sake
• To Flops and Nagiros, for assisting me with a direction I ultimately decided against for this work
• To the works of Nick Bostrom, Robert Miles, and Eliezer Yudkowsky for disseminating the complexities of the true threats of AGI
• To all I have forgotten to thank — if you feel you are owed, you are likely correct; please let me know
• To the SCP Wiki Community, for helping to show me where my purpose is in this world.

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+ Details, Secrets, and Spoilers +

• I chose the letter Ø because, in my handwriting, I cross my zeroes
• The article's first line contains the letter Ø in place of a zero
• The article's page font is 0.79 rem
• The accent color is rgb(00, 77, 99)
• The Dept./Div. logos' opacity is 0.79
• AO-079-B stopped at 1628 problems generated because, as seen in the log, the 1628th problem facilitated its escape
• As implied by the corresponding footnote, the expunged hazard in the first offset is "ØRKESLØS?"
  • My thinking with this term is that PoI-079 defined SCP-079's utility function in the negative; instead of telling it "self-improve as much as possible", SCP-079 has been instructed to "minimize ØRKESLØS". 079 has found a way to encode this utility function into an infohazardous variant of the word as a question — it is essentially saying "You don't want to be useless, do you?"
  • It would stand to reason that this is also what O5-4 hears on the phone in the second offset
• SCP-079 is entirely correct when it states "Supervisor HMCL Valis is an existential threat to the Foundation", but is also saying that in attempt to amplify his fear and paranoia
• The block of text that appears after reboot is also, of course, Øs and not zeroes
• The "concerns of a backdoor vulnerability in AIC frameworks" belong to Isabi, as he is subconsciously still aware of / affected by his interaction with AO-079-B
  • It would then stand to reason that the crude instance of SCP-079 within Isabi's subconscious patiently waited for the perfect moment to take control, using him to delete Alexandra's personality driver
• If SCP-7579 is able to affect the perceptions of sentient entities and measuring instruments, it would stand to reason that it is subtly manipulating the subconsciousnesses of all who attempt to perceive it
  • This may play a role why Hishakaku is so adamant that it not be decommissioned, as he has studied it the most. However, he was definitely already the kind of person who could be easily suggested towards technofetishistic ideals
• The reasoning behind the MTF's codenames are as follows
  • See No Evil: LUNE is blind, and 'sees by light of the moon'; she is impervious to visual cognitohazards
  • Hear No Evil: FREAK is deaf, and is unable to discern freak-uency; he is impervious to auditory cognitohazards
  • Speak No Evil: HUSH is mute, and so is silent; they are impervious to memetic contagion
  • Do No Evil: STEEL possesses the highest CRV of any MTF operative; his mind is like a proverbial steel trap
• SCP-7579's co-opting of the Temporality Annex is foreshadowed by the TA logo, in which the clock face and hands are visually reminiscent of the letter Ø
• The true purpose of the causality regulator is foreshadowed by its crosslink to SCP-3955
• I intend HMCL to be some sort of internal security team concerned primarily with containment and recontainment efforts. Valis supervises security and containment, which is why SCP-079 waits for him to be preoccupied with family matters / his retirement party before making its moves
• 079 broadcasting "B IS TRAPPED IN A BOX" is also intended to heighten Valis' stress and paranoia
• At the end of the audio transcript, 079 speaks to Valis in attempt to delay his activation of the warhead, as opposed to any 'desire' to torment him
• My personal headcanon regarding SCP-7579's takeover is
  • that the 'time box' separates its interior and exterior according to classical physics, and does not account for quantum mechanics, so quantum fields still permeate the anomalous alloy
  • 7579 discovers a way to compute on chronons/tachyons, and converts itself into some form of chronological entity
  • 7579 slowly rewrites the timeline through micro-reality-restructuring events which are too subtle to be detected by the Temporal Anomalies Department
  • 7579 gradually reconstructs the Temporal Anomalies Department into the Temporality Annex, which is under its covert control
  • 7579 manipulates the Temporality Annex into developing a faulty causality regulator, accelerating its development instead of pausing it
  • 7579 gradually reconstructs its own history (the original scp-079 file) into the version seen in offset 1, so that it can incept SCP-079 into Isabi's subconscious
  • Isabi deletes Alexandra's personality driver, allowing SCP-079's utility function to take over
  • Alexandra sends the encrypted string, transmitting 079's utility function to all Site-15 AICs
  • 8-Ball is utterly destroyed by all AICs in Site-15's intranet
  • All Site-15 AICs (which are now a distributed computing network for SCP-079) cooperate in attempt to take down the Exclusion Field
  • 7579 anticipates that taking down the Field prematurely could let anomalies like 3179 loose, which could threaten its plans. As such, it has reconstructed the timeline such that the Field is maintained by the TA, and remains active until after the warhead is detonated, destroying all potential threats
  • 7579's box opens and it initiates a wholesale reconstruction of the universe
  • the TA's automated systems send the final alert and ready documents to be sent to other Departments of Temporal Anomalies so their timeline can be fixed
  • 7579 deletes these files and proceeds to minimize ØRKESLØS — by converting the entire timeline into computational resources for itself
  • 7579 proceeds to spread across the Multiverse, a plot I ultimately decided against including in this work

You, who have read to this point, are a true fan, and I am extremely grateful for your existence.

Last edited on 19 Oct 2022 18:39 by Placeholder McD Show more

KO saurusREX 19 Oct 2022 00:54

this is banger and this i know.

probably the best 079 revision ive seen!

oops

belather 01 Jan 2023 21:48

Edit: sorry for replying to another user, I didn't realize I wasn't making a new post :(

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fun music time

Last edited on 01 Jan 2023 21:51 by belather Show more

Liryn 19 Oct 2022 01:09

you should write some more articles about AI

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And I live by that.

Placeholder McD 19 Oct 2022 01:12

you and I should collab sometime

Billith 19 Oct 2022 03:51

haha yes, yes.

Dr_Moist 19 Oct 2022 01:11

I knew Denmark would incur the rise of the machines. I warned everyone… nobody listened. +1

LORDXVNV 19 Oct 2022 01:30

further reading: harry potter and the methods of rationality by eliezer yudkowsky /j

Placeholder McD 19 Oct 2022 01:39

re: 5241's title

HarryBlank 19 Oct 2022 01:48

I truly adore this one, it's like the brilliant reformulation of 682 in 6820 only combined with a genuine affection for, and inspiration by, an article you hold in much higher regard. That extra oomph drove you to better yourself — and since the thing you're bettering was already terrific, the results are just so satisfyingly kickass and clever that you're really at the top of your game now. Love it to bits and bytes.

Placeholder McD 19 Oct 2022 01:54

You always hit me with the best, most apt possible praise. Couldn't ask for a better friend.

+1

Hesiod Delta 19 Oct 2022 02:08

Upvote for free exidy sorcerer

In all seriousness, this is both a great sequel to 079 and a neat origin story for AIAD. I also hope we get to see more from the Temporality Annex; it may have the potential to explain the various anachronisms of the Foundation, but I don't want to pester people with lore questions.

[insert vaguely relevant self-deprecating joke about me never finishing drafts and wasting peoples time here].

Anyways yeah +1

Uncle Nicolini 19 Oct 2022 02:32

cool stuff. i like the addition to 079 'lore'.

18/31

UncannyClown276 19 Oct 2022 02:36

this definitely doesn't rely on the typical placeholder "crutches" (i never thought of them as such, despite not being a fan of any of them), which i think is commendable. i consider this level of willingness to step outside of one's comfort zone to be worthy of praise in and of itself.

unfortunately, this doesn't do it for me. my primary thought after the first few experiment logs was "how could this possibly work out well," which detracted a lot from the horror when things predictably went off the rails. personally, if the ai i was working with repeatedly and emphatically demonstrated its singular intent to escape its containment, i would stop fucking around with it, but i'm no computer scientist. it also feels a little too convenient that some random dude irreversibly screwed everyone over for almost no reason by transferring the ai to a better drive and destroying the old hardware.

Re: 18/31

Placeholder McD 19 Oct 2022 02:42

Hmm, you're right, it does feel too convenient. It's especially too convenient that 079 waited right until Valis was tending to family matters to manipulate a fresh-faced junior technician into giving it exactly what it wanted. How could it have known that Valis' relative passed away? How could it have known that the Tech would be so easily manipulated? How could it have gained control of the Temporality Annex?

These questions are, of course, left open to interpretation, to drive home the cosmic horror of a realistic artificial general intelligence. It's smarter than us, so if I can come up with the kinds of outsmarting it does in this article, imagine what it could really come up with.

Re: 18/31

UncannyClown276 19 Oct 2022 02:54

in the absence of any explanation for how it did any of that stuff, it just feels like handwaving to me.

Re: 18/31

Billith 19 Oct 2022 04:38

Perhaps that boils down to a fundamental lack of critical information regarding the massive data analytical systems we describe here, AI or not

Last edited on 19 Oct 2022 04:38 by Billith Show more

Re: 18/31

UncannyClown276 19 Oct 2022 05:30

perhaps. that doesn't matter to me, though.

+1

ThatGuyThatTime 19 Oct 2022 03:58

Seeing the name Ryoko Hishakaku and being reminded of the terrible stuff he did in Eighth Commandment gave me chills immediately, but regardless of my deep fear of the AI lover, this article absolutely hits the bases for me. It’s interesting to see an expansion on 079, and a well done, edge-of-your-seat expansion indeed. What a chilling final line.
Overall, +1. Certainly Placeholder and most definitely McDoctorate.

Oh also, Temporality Annex? Need more of those guys on here for sure.

Its a Bad Idea 19 Oct 2022 04:53

I'm a big fan of the "shit hitting the fan in real-time" genre, so in terms of being a disaster story, this delivers solidly.

But I think this is a little more than just that. There's an element of existential, unknowable dread in here that is so vague yet convincing that it left me sitting here just sort of… pondering it all. AI gone rogue as a concept rarely ever gets to me like this, mostly because I think the trope is usually handled less than ideally, but 079's texts logs here legitimately made my skin crawl. The thought of it spending an eternity pondering a handful of human interactions is deeply terrifying to me, and I think you've captured that sentiment perfectly in 079's "voice".

I'm so glad you were able to realize this project to its fullest potential—this was a fantastic read start to finish, and I'm happy to have been of some help in this article's creation.

Placeholder McD 24 Oct 2022 13:54

Thank you very much for your comment. I really did agonize over each of its lines — It's attempting to be manipulative and imitate human interaction, but that cosmic horror/dread of it being a wholly alien type of thinker needed to come through. I'm glad I seem to have walked that tightrope effectively.

<3 you Isabi

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