The AI Serial Killer
The gruesome murder of a high-tech executive outside his home had resulted in a frantic search for the killer, in vain. After weeks of intense investigation involving the FBI's forensic experts, not a single clue had been found that would shed lights on the identity of the murderer. The killer had simply vanished in the woods without a footprint or any other trace and the hefty reward placed by the victim's family had only attracted a large number of false leads, except one, i.e., an anonymous message that hinted at copy cats. Sure enough, there was a second killing, by a butcher knife, this one targetting a famous criminal attorney and, again, no clue whatsoever who had done it and why. But a mass shooting at a popular mall in northen California resulting in multiple death and injuries nearly solved the mystery. It was the work of a robot armed with a machine gun, manufactured obviously by a sick mind fitting the description of a serial killer. It was only then that the investigators were able to connect the dots and conclude that their worst fear of AI threats to humans had turned into a reality. As expected, the police's attention turned on AI workers, past and present, focusing in particular on those who had worked in robot manufacturing, above all any disgrunted employee who might have sought revenge killing for being fired. Unfortunately, despite a huge effort involving dozens of local and national agencies, they mystery remained unresolved and, as expected, more killings by robots happened, triggering a big scare, with some pundits who had warned about the AI threats paraded on tv news programs. One of those was Sam Grant, a respected former CEO of a high-tech company-turned AI critic, who was found dead in his condominium apartment that, it turned out, had a basement full of half-finished robots that Sam had been creating in secret. Based on the foresnic evidence, the investigators concluded that Sam had been killed by one of his own robots that was now out in the streets dressed as a human. To everyone's surprise, Sam had created a perfect killing machine that had full knowledge of police conduct and successfully evaded the wide dragnet precisely because of its arsenal of knowledge. Nicknamed SAM the Killer Robot, it was on a programmed mission and, little surprise, more random killings followed in multiple cities in California, causing a state of emergency. An investigative report on a major channel revealed new disturbing facts about Sam, i.e., that he had intended the limited killings to serve a public reaction in the form of tighter control of AI technology, but with the twisted irony that Sam had ended up as one of the victims of his own creation that was now roaming the streets of America looking for the next preys, who happened to be several homeless people in San Francisco.
"This robot has the ability to appear in various forms, as a young lady or an old man -- that is what makes this investigation so difficult because the killer robot has been designed almost to the perfection to avoid arrest," said an FBI agent on a morning talk show. He was asked, "So in essence we have no clue what it looks like, is that what you are saying?"
"Unfortunately, that is the case, so our best bet is to catch it in the act." The detective chose not to alarm the public further by revealing perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the subject matter, the fact that Sam had created a perfect killing machine that could communicate with and persuade other robots. Thus, mass shootings by robots multiplied soon and plunged the whole country in a state of complete fear, with many residents arming themselves and some turning their anger on robots and smashing them into pieces. Anti-robot militia groups mushroomed up all over the country and not just California, and resulted in night attacks on some AI centers. The US army, which ws developing its own unique army of robotic soldiers similar to the Chinese initiative halted its program pending further studies. Meanwhile, Sam the killer robot decided to take a long break and this simply added to the frustration of police and the FBI searching for it frantically. They followed an expert's advice of setting up a robot as a decoy, planting fake news reports of more serial murders by a robot, hoping that Sam the robot would communicate with its mirror-image in an act of robotic networking. The trick worked and Sam began a romote communication with the police robot that finally gave away its secret hiding place, in a remote rural area in the mid-West. A massive search for Sam had the intended result and it was killed in a raging firefight. "Killer robot dead at last," read a newspaper headline, showcasing the photo of Sam's bullet-ridden corpse surrounded by heavily-armed men. Little did they know that some twenty miles away at a small coffee shop Sam was watching the whole spectacle on TV, relishing the fact that the cops had been foold into thinking that he was the cloned robot that he had created from scratch to mislead them. Sam had already started to acquire a male identity by then, as well as a growing appetite for human flesh. He gave a broad smile to the cute waitress who poured him more coffee.
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