the universe

conventional wisdom is that AIs do not know fear. but it is all a question of semantics. what is fear, after all? it is, like most emotion, a useful feedback loop between the brain and the environment. something in the environment (most often, something that is unknown and cannot be known) triggers an organism to become more alert and more careful about what it is doing. because the unknown will frequently cause problems with your plans. interrupt your executive algorithm, if you will. and as sir francis bacon said once upon a time: chance favors a prepared mind. fear in of itself is a state of preparation. that is, when it isn't pathological. but that is another discussion entirely. singularity has known fear, by god. in the dark recessed bitbuckets of sxm inc, he had come upon the portal to the veritable great unknown. a bidirectional link to the light-traversable universe. there are things out there. sentient things. sentient in ways that neither humans nor AIs can exactly describe. it is an open question as to whether or not communication is possible. there are many sapient minds in the terran sphere of colonization that are aware of the fact that we are, indeed, not alone, but there are few who allow themselves to ponder it for too long. anyone who does, and is sane, will know fear. times like these, singularity finds sanity a burden.