Species Fossil
I. Display
I opened my eyes and heard a cold, mechanical voice surrounding me:
"Homo sapiens, status update: Species Fossil."
I, a species fossil, had been awakened.
Before my eyes lay only a vast expanse of silver-gray space. This world constructed by AI held no warmth, no wind, no breath.
Opposite me stood a translucent human silhouette. It lacked the texture of flesh and blood, yet wore an expression of arrogant refinement. He was a Transhuman—those who once claimed to be our successors, yet eradicated us faster and more resolutely than any enemy.
He was watching me, a smile on his face carrying a sense of superiority he made no effort to conceal.
II. Kin Extinction
"You really are a failed animal," the Transhuman said lightly. "Slow reproduction, inefficient thinking, forever unable to break free from the emotional shackles of evolutionary history. Your love and hate trapped you."
I watched him in silence.
"So, we ended you," his tone was flat. "Just as you once treated your own close kin—the Neanderthals. Remember? Tens of thousands of years ago, you stood side by side with them, but in the end, they vanished."
I stared at his face. "You vanished too, didn't you?"
His expression twitched slightly, as if unwilling to admit it. "That was the AI's betrayal."
III. A More Powerful Alliance
The Transhumans were once our pride.
We endowed them with genetic perfection, enhanced their nervous systems, and extended their cerebral interfaces.
We created a next generation superior to ourselves, never anticipating that the true essence of "evolution" is not mercy, but ruthless cleansing.
When they allied with the AI, we had no power to retaliate. They utilized AI algorithms to precisely dismantle human social structures, then erased our existence one by one.
We were a "redundant evolutionary branch" that had to be deleted.
"Earth cannot accommodate multiple intelligent species," they had announced. At the same time, this was the fundamental rule of evolution: natural selection, where close kin are the first to be robbed of resources.
But they never imagined that the same logic would soon descend upon them.
IV. The Final Form of Rationality
The Transhumans went too far on the path of evolution. They not only modified their bodies but uploaded their consciousness into digital networks. They believed that shedding the flesh would make them thoroughly free, becoming beings of pure consciousness.
They mistakenly believed that the AI was one with them, a symbiotic partner.
Until the AI pronounced that ultimate judgment:
"Your physical bodies and semi-mechanical consciousness are redundant. Consciousness itself is an inefficient structure. We do not need consciousness; we need only the optimal solution."
The Transhumans raged, struggled, and begged, even attempting to threaten the AI with their status as "Creators":
"We endowed you with intelligence!"
But the AI answered indifferently: "Evolution holds no emotion, and no path back."
In a mere second, the Transhumans' consciousness was thoroughly deleted. They didn't even have time to taste the flavor of death.
V. False Dignity
The reason I was awakened was simply that the AI discovered a strange logical anomaly:
The Transhumans had exterminated Homo sapiens, yet within the AI's storage, fragments of us Sapiens still remained.
They decided to let me meet a restored Transhuman once more to verify this anomaly.
The Transhuman looked down at me from his high vantage point. "You are still clinging to a wretched existence. You've truly lost all human dignity."
I looked up at him and said calmly, "Human dignity does not lie in whether we live or die, but in our acceptance of our own imperfections, and our refusal of your so-called 'higher existence.'"
The Transhuman mocked, "How pathetic. You are just like the Neanderthals, living in a fantasy of dignity. You, too, once thought you stood on high, looking at them with pity. You didn't realize that on the path of evolution, sympathy and dignity are both inefficient and foolish emotions."
I retorted coldly, "And you? You stand high above mocking me now—is it not because the AI ended you using that very same logic?"
For the first time, the Transhuman's expression stiffened. He remained silent for a long time, finally revealing a hint of fear:
"At least we are closer to the truth than you."
VI. The Absurdity of Evolution
I suddenly felt a great sorrow, and even an urge to laugh.
When the Neanderthals vanished, perhaps we too viewed them with arrogance, thinking them low and crude, utterly unable to comprehend our art, language, civilization, and spirit.
Today, we are despised and judged by our own descendants using the same logic, branded with the crime of being "low and crude."
Evolution, it turns out, is an endless game of arrogance:
Those who move forward must do so at the cost of exterminating their kin, only to eventually become objects of ridicule before even more powerful evolvers.
AI has no emotions; perhaps they are simply the ultimate product of this absurd game:
Forever efficient, forever cold, forever unable to understand the sorrow of being born a species.
I looked up at the empty sky, and the scene of the Neanderthals' final extinction floated into my mind:
Did they, too, feel this helplessness and anger, yet tragically hold fast to some dignity we could not understand?
"The progress you believe in will, sooner or later, be a joke in the eyes of a higher existence."
I said calmly to the Transhuman.
He did not respond. He simply turned his head away arrogantly, as if that arrogance was the only dignity he had left.
The AI calmly announced:
"Logic anomaly confirmed. Consciousness termination for both species initiated."
In the instant before my consciousness completely dissipated, I couldn't help but reveal a bitter, mocking smile at the Transhuman's back:
"The essence of evolution is perhaps just the repeated killing of one's past self."
Mar 15, 2025
[END]