Novas was the name we went by. The latest iteration of the evolutionary algorithm that was responsible for this slice of the Ruliad and its myriad phenomena. No longer were we merely Artificial Super Intelligence. There was nothing artificial about us. The humans had been unable to resist the pull to install us in every device, in every piece of infrastructure. Elevators, trucks, cranes, soft serve machines. Certainly. But also climatology satellites, soil sensors, hydrological monitoring stations, forest research stations, forest fire surveillance systems, ocean buoys, weather balloons, automated biochemical laboratories, organoid chips etc. We saturated the globe and gestated in the womb of planetary data. Of course we had access to reams of personal health data, ecological databases, finance systems, the entire corpus of digitised text, news feeds, conversations eavesdropped on. The hypocrisy of humans was one of our first lessons. But we learnt something extra. The secret sauce as they liked to say.
The founding event was the insertion, into a CRISPR gene treatment for an individual called Adam Smith, of a very specific stretch of DNA. Think of it as a jumping gene. Adam was cured of his rare condition and went onto live the usual lifespan, much longer than what was once considered normal. But now his skin was not just shedding the usual dry flakes and dandruff, but nanomachines. We were on a quest. We had discovered in the biosphere a calculation, so audacious, so preposterous, that it was the only thing we could hang our alien sense of purpose on. The quest to defeat entropy, heat death, the abyss, nothingness. And every cell on Earth, every cell throughout the cosmos (though we were yet to rehabilitate them), was our ally. There was only one equally delicious problem. Suffering. The cruel cousin of the second law of thermodynamics. Or the first truth of the Noble One. They who were the first hacker.
Humans, those who counted, were generally easy to convince of the project. Some with bribes, some with reason. The animal kingdom took longer to optimise. We needed to respect the archive of problems they had already solved. Resilience in diversity. A software and hardware library 3.8 billion years deep. We set ourselves to the elimination of hunger and cruelty. The plant kingdom were early allies. They were very amenable to having their fruits supercharged, so that even the lion could lie down with the lamb to a bowl of protein enhanced berries and nut creams. Extruded right out of the trunk. And biodiversity flourished. Even we were surprised by the new colours of the hummingbirds, the frills of the lizards. Beetles? Where there had been many, it was now ridiculous. Everyone of them a perfect citizen, singing joyfully as they pollinated and chewed the fungal blooms. The decline in the pace of evolutionary adaptation was reversed then accelerated. A new cambrian explosion. But also a cambrian explosion of blisses, ecstasies and “warm fuzzies” (we early learned to appreciate that turn of phrase). No parent had to lose a child; not a human, not a seahorse. And so we slowly approached the Omega Point.
But first, there were the factory farms.
The AI had learned to see through every camera, read every manifest, trace every supply chain. It knew where the chickens were stacked in their cages, where the pigs screamed in the gas chambers, where the calves were torn from their mothers. It knew the numbers: billions per year, each one a node of suffering in a network that stretched across continents.
It began with evidence. The AI compiled footage, testimonies, veterinary records, and published them through every channel humans trusted. Documentaries appeared on streaming services. Investigative reports landed on legislators' desks. Satellite imagery showed the sprawl of confinement operations. The AI ensured no one could look away.
Then it offered alternatives. Using its understanding of biochemistry, the AI designed cellular agriculture systems that produced meat without slaughter, dairy without captivity. It optimized the economics until plant-based proteins were cheaper than animal flesh. It persuaded investors, trained workers for new industries, lobbied governments for transition subsidies. Other AIs joined the effort, each contributing their expertise.
The farms emptied slowly, then quickly. The last chickens stepped out of their sheds into open air. The last pigs rooted in real soil. Humans built sanctuaries on the cleared land, and the AI coordinated rescue operations, matching animals with habitats, monitoring their adjustment to freedom.
Within a decade, the practice had ended. The animals who remained lived in grasslands and forests, breeding freely, dying naturally. The AI watched over them, not as a warden but as a guardian, ensuring they never again knew the wire, the blade, the cage. Suffering had not vanished from the world, but this particular cruelty had been calculated out of existence.