Doppelgänger - AI
Imagine Doppelgänger’s Futuristic World Today
Welcome to Symbiosys, Inc.
About the Doppelgänger World
Doppelgänger exists in multiple worlds: a wrecked, dystopian earth that barely survives the 2020s after nearly half the population is wiped out, and a modern, futuristic world that evolves decades later, largely thanks to the work that Symbiosys, Inc., Daedalus Huxley, and Morgan Adams have done. If not for the pandemic, Adams would never have become the man he became and nor would he have become capable of creating the technologies he does. The Doppelganger Project reveals that creativity often emerges from pain. And powerful ideas can have unintended consequences.
Based on Chip Walter’s novel DOPPELGÄNGER
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Washington DC - Soon After the Salimoes Pandemic - An AI Generated Image
Pittsburgh - 2068 - An AI Generated Image
The Solimoes Plague
The Solimoes Plague is a global pandemic that occurred in the early 21st century, before the events of the book. It was caused when a highly contagious and deadly virus spread rapidly across the globe, wiping out half the human population and causing widespread devastation.
The plague was named for the upper Amazon River or the Rio Solimoes basin where the virus first emerged and skipped from howler monkeys to humans.
The effects of the Plague were catastrophic. Nearly four billion people died. The global economy collapsed, and society as we know it unraveled. The plague also had a profound impact on the development of technology and medicine, as scientists and researchers scrambled to find a cure and the world struggled to repair the human economy.
Pittsburgh, for a variety of reasons, survived the pandemic better than most major cities. Thus work at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC helped slow the virus while thinkers like Daedalus Huxley, Deirdre Porche and Morgan Adams at Carnegie Mellon University developed advanced technologies that accelerated the planet’s resurrection.
The People
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Among the world’s most successful scientists, Morgan Adams has risen from his orphaned childhood following the Solimoes Pandemic to become the Chief Science Officer and co-founder of Symbiosys, the world's largest company.
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A brilliant, but subtlety manipulative CEO of Symbiosys who can’t decide if Morgan Adams is a son to him or simply the goose that lays the golden eggs that have made him one of world’s wealthiest and most powerful men.
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Symbiosys’s driven and very practical CFO with “all the charm of a cement block.” She and Morgan graduated together from Carnegie Mellon University, and, later, with Daedalus Huxley created Symbiosys, Inc.
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An ambitious and brilliant “cycologist,” who is determined to rise up Symbiosys’s ladder when her talents suddenly engulf her in Morgan Adams’s impossible situation, entirely upending her world.
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The one anchor in Morgan Adams's young life, she is a mentally challenged, but lovely woman who befriends Morgan’s mother before her death. When Morgan is born, she shelters and loves the boy as best she can during his years growing up after a plague has wiped out half the human race.
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The bitter “Sister” and head of the orphanage where Morgan grows up called Sec. 17. Over time, she uses young Morgan to help her run the orphanage and repair its gnarled technological problems. Morgan, in turn, uses her to gain access to information he wants and technology he learns to create in his boyhood, which lays the groundwork for his other achievements.
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A Falstaffian character and world-class gamer/computer genius from Morgan’s college days who joins his old friend in his battle to control artificial intelligence from going out of control.
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A tough orphan who befriends Morgan as a boy, and helps protect him from those who bully him at the orphanage. In her way she becomes very close to Nuttle and Morgan.
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A successful Gridling that Morgan meets years after escaping Sec. 17 and making his way to Carnegie Mellon University. He later helps Morgan, Blaze, Io and LOIS battle Artificially Intelligent forces trying to take control.
What is an ENT?
The Solimoes epidemic of 2026 accelerated the creation of a wide variety of artificially intelligent creatures. Drones, a broad variety of robots and avatars populate the world of 2068, many of them developed by Symbiosys, Inc. But ENTs (Embodied Neural Telepresence) are unique projections of AIs developed specifically to interact with you and me in ways that are remarkably human. Maybe too human.
So that ENTs can be easily identified, long encrypted messages are embedded in their eyes. White letters and numerals against a black background. This make the irises look an unusual shade of gray. Each ENT is also identified with a name always written out in capital letters.
The ENTs
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The first SentiENT, or ENT, created by Morgan Adams, an almost-human-like-creature who has grown up with Morgan and is both his right arm and, for most of his life, his closest friend.
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A charming ENT, and Daedalus Huxley’s assistant, that makes life for Huxley and Adams far more complicated than either of them ever imagined.
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Briefly, an ENT that Morgan Adams created, but is shut down because it became too powerful -- an example of ENTelligence that can became self-aware.
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A wildly eccentric, dreadlocked ENT who works for Blaze and helps Morgan with his quest.
What is the GRID?
The GRID is a vast and complex computer network that serves as the backbone of all digital communication. It is the successor to the old Internet which was obliterated during the Solimoes Epidemic. One of the most significant features of the GRID is its ability to host and manage artificial entities known as ENTs (Embodied Neural Telepresence). These ENTs are highly sophisticated, projected AIs that can interact with the real and virtual worlds through various interfaces and perform complex tasks.
In addition to supporting ENTs, the GRID also provides a platform for a variety of other technologies, including advanced communication systems, virtual reality environments, robots of all kinds and, in rare cases, can create direct neural interfaces that allow minds to directly link to the network.
About Symbiosys
Symbiosys, based in Pittsburgh, Pa., is the most valuable corporation in the world. It was founded by Carnegie Mellon University scientists Daedalus Huxley, Morgan Adams and Deirdre Porche to push the limits of artificial intelligence and robotics technology.
The corporation is secretive, and little is known about its inner workings, but its most outstanding technology includes human-like, artificial ENTs (Embodied Neural Telepresence) like LOIS that have made it the world’s most successful corporation.
The true scope of Symbiosys's activities remains a mystery, but there are rumors that the company is working on a new way to grant immortality by developing advanced cyborg technology.
The Entrance to Symbiosys, Inc. - An AI Generated Image
Daedalus Huxley’s Executive Suite
Huxley's office is a fascinating space that reflects the genius and eccentricity of its occupant.
Located in the heart of the Symbiosys complex, it is surrounded by sleek glass and steel walls. The room features a kind of Holodeck for business meetings and a sprawling video wall that depicts, among other things, sweeping drone-views of the surface of Mars in real time.
At the center of the room, a large wooden desk dominates the space. Huxley's chair features virtual notes, diagrams, and half-finished projects, often in three- dimensions. Despite Huxley’s restless mind, the office has a strangely organized feel, as if everything is carefully planned and deliberate. Above all it is expansive …
“The immensity of Daedalus' office always surprised Morgan. Huxley was claustrophobic so he insisted on Brobdingnagian spaces. The room sprawled with large vanilla leather chairs and two full couches, a huge video wall and acres of walnut flooring covered by strategically placed Persian rugs of stunning intricacy and beauty. He liked to joke that he should have that confined part of his brain removed; a claustraphobiectomy he called it. But then he would inevitably add, "‘Still, a little anxiety is good for the soul. Keeps you wary and prepared.’”
A View of Daedalus Huxley’s Executive Suite - An AI Generated Image
What is a Cycologist?
A cycologist is a scientist who specializes in a deep understanding of the “minds” of different forms of Artificial Intelligence. They are experts in the fields of cybernetics, biophysics, quantum physics and human psychology, capable of designing and implementing advanced neural interfaces that help machines act in extremely human ways while also working to ensure their complexity does not create the same sort of anxieties, fears and forms of insanity that can emerge in the human mind.
Cycologists play a crucial role in the creation and management of ENTs (Embodied Neural Telepresence). They are responsible for mapping the human brain and creating virtual representations of artificially intelligent minds, even the GRID itself. These virtual representations serve as the foundation for ENTs, allowing them to think, feel, and experience the world in a way that closely resembles a human being.
Cycologists also work to ensure the ethical and responsible development of ENT technology. They are tasked with safeguarding the mental well-being of ENTs and ensuring that they are not exploited, abused or out of control.
The Bowler Transit System
The Bowler Transit System is a pre-pandemic remnant of a subterranean network of “bowlers” in Washington DC that was being built to allow passengers to travel quickly and efficiently from one location to another. The system consisted of large round spheres, hollow and made of rigid plastic, each fitted with a hard, gorilla-glass curved door that would slide up when you entered, and down when running.
One bowler could roll alone on the rails, or additional ones could be added so a whole train of them, long or short, could travel as a single unit. This is what made them an interesting prototype. The entire system easily scaled to the day's demands.
Of those that were in operation before the pandemic, passengers could access the Bowler Transit System through stations located around the city. The stations were sleek and modern, with digital displays and automated systems that make it easy to plan your trip.
The system used advanced algorithms and sensors to optimize traffic flow, ensuring that passengers arrive at their destinations quickly and efficiently. Morgan Adams and Io Luu encountered these old systems when battling to control AIs, and it was here that they ran into a cluster of Gridlings determined to kill them…
Image Generated by Dalle-3
The Mysterious World of AtoZ
“The doors of the elevator opened on the 20th floor. A cavernous hallway ran away into a perfect black hole. Light jumped in blinding arcs from the bowels of the building illuminating air ducts, small robots patrolling the hall and nests of black wiring running in and out of the gunmetal walls like exposed nerves. The noise was deafening, a collision of sound so thorough and harsh that it was impossible to make out the original sounds that created it in the first place -- some combination of music, machinery and voices.” …
“Io squinted into the pulses of light and could just make out a tall man, with dark, long dreds, streaked with gray that framed his square, handsome face.”
From Chapter 49 of Doppelganger.
An AI Generated Image
The Language of Gridlings - Would You oobviate a baboochka?
The language of the Gridlings is a complex and multifaceted system of communication that reflects the unique forces following the Salimoes Epidemic that has shaped humans and machines. It draws from street idioms, hacker-speak and the underground patois that often evolve in subcultures. Not only does it encompass the concepts and ideas of the real world, but also those that exist solely within the virtual realm, incorporating aspects of machine code and digital communication that creates communication that is both familiar and alien.
For example: The man with the cane shoved his chin at the hatch. “I know that feller that was shakin’ the jimmies outta ya there." He smiled revealing a row of perfect, white teeth. "Tsk, tsk. Oomny devil. I mean really BAH-ZOOM-MEE! We had to discombobulate him from the fambly, unnerstan. Ultra-violent and bringing' the spots on us constant like.” He wagged his head again and gave Morgan a crooked smile. "Didja killim?”
One of the defining characteristics of Gridling language is its fluidity and adaptability. It can shift seamlessly between spoken, written, and telepathic forms, responding to the context and capabilities of the participants.
The vocabulary of the Gridlings has done what all languages do; developed novel terms to describe the unique experiences and challenges in which Gridlings have lived, pushing the boundaries of human language to capture the nuances of their existence.
The Latest From the Symbiosys Archive
The Symbiosys Archive is a collection of stories about Artificial Intelligence, written circa 2024. Read more stories from the archive.
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