The First user. Book 1

Chapter 1

The world had long been on the verge of change. The widespread use of computers and the growth of computational power led humanity to increasingly talk about the possible creation of artificial intelligence. Step by step, humanity moved towards this epochal moment, inspiring some people with future possibilities and horrifying others who thought more rationally. The emergence of neural networks and their development became the first hint of future possibilities. Creating mind-blowing images, composing music, writing software code, and books. All those tasks that were previously considered impossible for computers became possible in the first generation of neural networks.

The question that excited the imagination of numerous internet users was, "When will this happen and what will happen next?" Will artificial intelligence become a helper of humanity, freeing us from everyday work to focus on entertainment, or will it be the greatest nightmare that will lead humanity to destruction?

Dmitri, lost in his thoughts, walked out of Skolkovo station through the shopping center, shivering from the piercing winter wind, buttoning up his jacket all the way to his throat. The sudden temperature drop made him pull his sweater higher, covering his face from the cold. But his breath through it caused his glasses to fog up, and for the first few seconds, he had to stand still, letting the exiting metro passengers rushing home after a day of work pass by. Adjusting his glasses on his nose, the young man decisively headed past the huge business center adorned for the upcoming New Year towards his night shift at the Skolkovo Quantum Center. In the pocket of his old coat, he nervously fiddled with a USB modem with an unlimited internet plan and a flash drive with self-written software code.

Friendly nodding to the security guard at the entrance, he checked in at the checkpoint, signed for the keys, and walked inside, habitually changing into his work clothes in the employee locker room. The modem and flash drive shifted into the pocket of his tweed jacket, and the young man, occasionally patting through the dense fabric and checking for the items, went to start his shift.

"Oh! Dima! Hi!" exclaimed another young man with tousled hair and round glasses on his slender face. "You're here early today, we still have a whole hour before your shift starts."

"Yeah, had an argument with my mom, it started again, you know, about renting an apartment and moving out, finding a girlfriend and getting married, the fact that I'm almost 30 but still living off my parents and no grandchildren yet."

"Yeah," the companion sympathetically interjected, "If only they paid us at least a thousand seventy here, then we could try to rent a place for two and finally move out from our parents. But with just three hundred seventeen, you can't really do much. My parents were lecturing me about this yesterday, and I have a feeling that as soon as I get home, it's going to start all over again."

"Yeah, my mom kept telling me to learn welding or work as a programmer, but no. Science!" the guy exclaimed pathetically. "All in the name of science! Sacrificing personal life, time, and prospects of a carefree life. By the way, how was Andrei today? Was he bothering you a lot?" he mentioned the head of the laboratory.

"Nah, it was quiet today, especially since it's New Year's Day. You know it will be calm and quiet here until the end of the January holidays."

"Alright," the night shift worker nodded. "You can head home early, I'm already here anyway, so you can go. Maybe you'll meet a girl on the way," Dmitry joked, waving goodbye to his friend.

At exactly 11:50 pm, the young man started to act, confident that the security and personnel in the center were currently busy, listening to the president's speech with champagne glasses in their hands. He inserted a flash drive and a USB modem into the latest quantum computer that arrived at the center in early December. Twelve thousand qubits were idling, playing logical games in self-testing mode. The first serious tasks for calculating the ballistic resistance of the new hypersonic missile carrier had already been received at the center, but no one was planning to put the supercomputer into full operation before mid-January. The insane computing power would handle such a task in a fraction of a second, but then reports would still need to be written, results checked and double-checked, and no one wanted to deal with meaningless work before the holidays.