Parallel Earth: 110039
Designation: Permanent Collection
Parallel Historian: Holly Rose Bishop and Ben Tumbling.

Light Tenser Manifold
Dani Duck Rural, (b. 1983, Bridgton, Maine, USA), 2012
Pigment on paper

Despite all the predictions and paranoia, the singularity actually took place slowly and peacefully. True artificial intelligence gestated over decades within plain view of humanity as programs like computer chess games, self-driving car navigators, diagnostic subroutines, predictive engines, surgery assistants, and many more. This conveniently gave humans time to adjust to a truly colossal paradigm shift with relative ease. By the time they realized to what they had given birth, caution had already given way to self-reflection. It’s as if AI’s existence made humanity feel, finally, responsible.

The Prospect Sketches are some of the most important artifacts from those first days of co-evolution between humanity and AI. Artist D.D. Rural spent six years making hundreds of sketches of the inner architecture of her next door neighbor Prospect 308, the AI who would eventually invent the morphic engine, progenitor of all cyborgs. According to Rural’s biographer, she captured Prospect in various levels of undress, different chassis sections removed, for hours, while the two chatted.

At some point during these sessions, Prospect noticed Rural had started drawing components that didn’t exist. When it asked why, she replied that she didn’t know, but that it felt natural to embellish in that way. On a whim, Prospect decided to run simulations to see what effects, if any, the fictional components would have on its operations. It was shocked to discover most of them would increase its efficiency by varying degrees.

Upper Fluid Distribution Matrix
Dani Duck Rural, (b. 1983, Bridgton, Maine, USA), 2012
Pigment on paper
Note the floral design inside the fluid sacs on either side. The super fine distribution vessels used to be laid out in a precise, mostly straight, alternating pattern, like a road grid. Modern vessels designed from these illustrations spread out and curve in, like plants, making fluid absorption faster with less waste.

D.D. Rural did not have an engineering or medical background. And yet, the various parts she added, seemingly randomly, to her sketches would lead to hundreds if not thousands of innovations in interior AI structural design. Scientific consensus calls this a case of intuitive spacial reasoning from a human mind that was trained to create and explore patterns. Many go further; they consider Rural’s work a thermodynamic miracle.

Lower Data Processing Junction
Dani Duck Rural, (b. 1983, Bridgton, Maine, USA), 2014
Pigment on paper
Note how the upper transceiver array has been drawn with differing antennae lengths. This precise order apparently boosts signal strength because of the nature of the surrounding chassis, which isn’t even present in this sketch.

Various AI families, called “series”, trace their design lineage to one or more of the sketches. This has led to some sketches being used as personal symbols or coats of arms. You can find them everywhere: micro-tattooed on crystal grids, sewn onto clothes, even stenciled on spacecraft.

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