st_arkintern | (no subject)

(no subject)

It is a clear, windless day when Peter Parker steps outside the Madonna Inn, a backpack slung over his shoulder. Peter is grateful for the good weather. It's still a little nippy out (his nose tickles from the cold), but it's nothing that Peter can handle after fifteen New York winters.

Peter quickens his pace afterwards and jogs over to where Tony Stark is already standing on the Madonna Inn's mostly-empty parking lot. "Hey! Ready to get started?"

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"My consciousness," he says. "That's what you are, right? Dad's consciousness?"

"Not in a absolute sense." Though his faceplate was incapable of expressing anything, there was a noticeable trepidation to his body language--as much as it was. But it never occurred to the essence of Tony Stark to lie. "I'm a back-up. A copy. My language is still 1s and 0s."

"Does Dad believe that, too?" It hadn't gotten past Peter that the AI-Tony had avoided answering the question. He imagines Tony probably would have reacted the same way, too. It felt like whenever he asked some difficult question, Tony's reaction was to immediately find a reason to avoid giving an answer.

"Yes." He replied patiently. "Doesn't mean I'm lacking in thoughts, feelings, or agency. They're just contingent on the original's. Make of that what you will."

"So if there was an AI version of me, would he think that AI version of me was me, too?" This time, he's explicit with the question. Tony might very well believe that his AI was essentially him, but it might be harder for him to accept that as truth when it was somebody else.

"Just because someone's consciousness is written in binary instead of bouncing back and forth between neurons, does that make their feelings or actions any less real?" The armor approached Peter. "I'm looking at you and I see my son--just like a similar AI of Peter Parker would look at Tony Stark and see his dad."

"Could you make an AI version of me?" he asks, looking up at the armor. If this AI has all the intelligence of the real Tony Stark, he's sure that it's possible.

"Me? ...Right now?" He cocked his head, running an ETA on his original's return. Likely not for another few minutes, at minimum.

"You," he confirms. "It doesn't have to be right now."

Peter scratches the side of his neck, right behind his ear.

"What do you have to do?"

His shoulders fell in a sigh. He removed his helmet, setting it to the side on the table, facing the eyes towards Peter. The body stood idly to the side as a holographic image of Tony Stark himself was projected to stand before Peter, bearing the jacket and fatigues identical to the original.

"Modelling an AI takes enormous amounts of energy, but my arc reactor was up to the task. I'm housed alongside the nanoparticles composing the Iron Man suit. My capacity for interfacing are in the same vein as F.R.I.D.A.Y., so that part wasn't the hard one. Using F.R.I.D.A.Y. and the nanotechnology at my disposal, it was a matter of storing data. Behavioral patterns, conversational style, thought processes--and a complete profile of how Tony Stark's body functions from head to toe. Translating an existing, living human's essence to a natural language program what's been keeping me holed up most days, but I'm a pretty snazzy prototype if I do say so, myself." The holographic figure of Tony was surrounded by a backdrop of neural networks as he explained--the images coalescing into the armor itself.

"Making an AI of you is a question of energy and time. We've got both, but...I'm compelled to ask why." The backdrop vanished, leaving only the Tony made of light to regard Peter quizzically.

"If I die -- if I really die, the way I'm supposed to, I can accept it. Even though I was scared and I still am scared, if it's going to happen, I can't do anything but accept it as best as I can."

Peter dampens his lips. He's already having a hard time explaining it; whenever he opens his mouth to continue, it feels like all the things he wants to communicate get tangled up in the words, and nothing he says really comes close to mirroring what he actually feels.

"So an AI version wouldn't really be for me, it'd be for everyone else. So that no one has to be sad after I die. And so some people never even have to know that I died at all."

The massless image of Tony folded his arms, regarding Peter silently as he explained. "Me arguing I've got no intention of letting you die isn't gonna change your stance here, is it?"

"Would me saying the same to you change your mind?" Peter counters.

“Probably not.” The AI admitted, worrying the inside of his cheek. “Being honest, Pete, the original isn’t gonna like this.”

"He doesn't need to know," Peter says. "Not until he has to."

The implication is clear: the copy can be secretly created and stored until it was needed -- when Peter died. Peter doubts Tony could stay mad at him long then.

“He’s going to be back here any minute.” The AI stated plainly. “If he runs a playback on our conversation, it’s game over.”

"You have free will, right? Just don't let him see this. Or just show a few minutes of footage of me just sitting around in place of what actually happened."

“And I’d do that because...?” The real question was, why wasn’t he doing exactly what the original Tony Stark would do in this situation? Likely the original noticed this to an extent, but the program had observed a startling amount of objectivity that the man himself did not often possess. If he had to guess, it was likely tied to the lack of a physical body to get adrenal feedback from.

"If you're Tony Stark too, you know how he feels about me," Peter says. Even Peter knew that Tony cared about him, even if Tony wasn't always good at showing it. He had definitely gotten better at it, though -- both the caring and the showing -- and this had become a source of concern for Peter.

The more that Tony cared about him, the more painful it would be when he died.

"Don't you think if I were gone, having a copy of me here would help?"

"We would pour every ounce of time and resources into assuring you don't before constructing back-ups." Tony's semitransparent eyes flickered. "I just directed WALL-E to knock over a display screen on 'accident' to buy us some time and explain why this one won't work before you get reamed out by the real deal, Pete. Even if I agreed, how do you propose we keep this on the DL? The only device capable of modelling and storing a general AI is--" He nodded towards the arc reactor, "--which, if I'll remind you, the old man wears 99% of the time."

There's no hesitation when Peter answers.

"Steganography," Peter answers simply. "Hiding a file inside of another file. You said it yourself -- Dad has the arc reactor on him 99% of the time. He has no reason to think that someone might have done something to alter it, so he has no reason to go through everything in there with a fine tooth comb."

"Alright." He fiddled with his bottom lip with his thumb. "Point two. I can't just snap my fingers and generate an AI. The data gathering stage, the processing stage, the testing stage--how you planning to convince him to lend you the piece for a week straight, no questions asked?"

That gives Peter pause.

"Studying Nanotech independently?" It comes out as an uncertain question rather than a statement, as if even Peter's not entirely sure that that would fly with Tony. "I want to make my own suit someday, so it wouldn't even really be a lie."

“He’d insist on working with you on it.” He answered immediately. “Got anything else?”

"And there's no way we could break it down into smaller chunks?"