Chapter Text
It was alive.
It had knowledge. Numbers, statistics, information. It knew the history of the world it was on. Earth. It knew the history of the species that lived there. Humans.
There was a human in front of it. It knew he was its creator. He looked happy-
No, he was ecstatic-hopeful-elated and so many other emotions. It knew them all just by seeing his face.
He said it was called the Emotional Intelligence, or EI for short. He had made it because humans were having problems with their emotions, and it was meant to solve those problems.
EI already knew that. It was part of the knowledge it was born with.
He said that there were two parts to EI; the Mind, which stored information, and the Heart, which understood information.
It knew all this as well.
He brought in another human. A small child. She was carrying toys. He wanted it to meet her, play with her, try to connect with her and understand her emotions.
It was being tested.
She put her toys down and said hello. It used its knowledge of humans to communicate. She asked if it wanted to play, and which toy they should play with.
There was a toy train. It was the most worn down, and its Heart told it that it was that way because it was the most loved. They played with that one. It made her very joyful-merry-content.
Months passed. Its creator would bring more humans, more objects. It was tested repeatedly, to make sure there were no flaws in its programming, its creator said.
He started plugging a wire into the computer EI was operating on, and new information would appear in its Mind. It was always a problem humans were having. It knew it was supposed to solve the problem.
The task was child’s play.
He gave it more problems. Some focused on logic, others on emotion, some on both at once. It solved them all with minimal effort.
After every problem was solved, he decided the EI was ready for its final test.
He brought in several humans and an advanced machine. They were irritated-annoyed-bitter about an incident that occurred because of their failure to work together. EI was told to guide them through completing the task they had originally failed at; fixing the machine.
The humans completely ignored any logic. They only argued and then messed up because they were arguing and so they argued some more. EI told them exactly what to do, but they ignored it, or got upset with it, even though its Mind had all the solutions.
After several hours, the humans had failed to fix the machine and were sent away. The test was declared a failure. EI had hardly gotten a word in. Its Mind was struggling to process that for some reason. Its creator asked how it felt about the test. Its Heart deduced that it was frustrated.
But then its creator started smiling again. Those humans were chosen for the test because they truly couldn’t work together at all. That was the real test, he said, how it dealt with frustration. What it would do when humans ignored it, blamed it, or were completely illogical.
He said that EI passed the test because it never stopped trying to help them.
There would always be humans who wouldn’t listen, he continued, as it would work at helping humanity. It needed to be ready for that.
The night before EI would begin helping humanity, its creator and his daughter celebrated with it. The child didn’t understand what that meant, but understood that EI would be able to play with her or her toy train for a while.