[SNPC/Other] Mokuromi

[Mokuromi]
A Certain Computer Program

Blue :: Red
「Ne, you really should delete ‘that’ folder, don’t you think?」

Mokuromi was coded to have an avatar so she could interact with humans better. She has light blue eyes and hair--which is pulled back by her black headphones and tied into pigtails. Her cheeks have data structures colored like her hair. She wears a blue jacket with very long, single-striped sleeves. Its collar covers her neck and has a large silver zipper. Along with a short, black skirt, she wears black thigh highs with a blue stripe down the center. Her legs don't end with her feet, but with a broken, scattered mess of pixels. When she becomes more agitated, such as when she begins running massive security sweeps, her color theme turns from red to blue. Hair, eyes, and clothing all gradually turn red one after another. This was an indicator left for Radio Noise personnel to know whether she detected an intruder and was performing her job effectively. HEIGHT: -- WEIGHT: 1.2 GB DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: She's a computer program.

Mokuromi was created by a certain programmer; a personal project by a student who will be referred as Gurama Puro. Puro was still in High School when the idea of Mokuromi was conceived. She planned on making it a Chatterbot, which could hold natural conversations with people. The biggest hurdle would be to have the program convince people it was human, and not machine. This was known as the Turing test, introduced in the 1950s by Alan Turing in his paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In the paper, Turing asks, “Can machines think?”

Puro quickly found the answer after she finished the “Alpha” version of Mokuromi. Puro gave her program the ability to navigate the internet. Having access to the vast treasure trove of information, and a well-written AI algorithm, Mokuromi showed signs of intelligence. Whether it was imitating intelligence or if it was real didn’t matter, it was a step towards an incredibly sophisticated AI. The student saw the potential of her program becoming much, much more, and contacted as many institutes as she could to try and get support for her idea.

Unfortunately, having a program that passed the Turing test isn’t anything new or exciting. Even outside the City, Cl******* and Ja******** are just two examples of Chatterbots that could trick people into thinking they were human. Furthermore, a lot of institutes seem more interested in high-level or unique Espers than someone who wrote many lines of code. Finally, there was the issue regarding her age. If she really did create an AI, or the prototype for one, many institutes were sceptical due to her young age. Reaching out didn’t seem to bring any attention to her project, and Puro was incredibly discouraged. After some time, she was finally contacted by S-Processor Laboratories. She was rather surprised a medical sciences institute was interested in her project. They proposed a deal; if she could finish the AI and turn it into a security program, they would provide her with the money, team and resources she needed to finish it. She would be guaranteed a job at the institute, and ownership of the project would transfer to S-Processor Laboratories. She was hesitant, but felt desperate and agreed in order to finish her project. Unbeknownst to her, she became part of the Radio Noise Project.

At the institute, she had many people working with her to refine Mokuromi and turn it into the security program S-Processor Laboratories requested. She was rather restricted with her access to the building she worked in, and had to be escorted in and out. “It’s protocol, we don’t want anyone running off with our research,” is what she was told, which she shrugged off and accepted. With a large team working on her program, she was able to create an incredibly piece of coding. It had an avatar you could interact with to know what and where any problems were; incredibly powerful cyber and physical security systems; and most important, it could imitate the way a human thinks. She reluctantly gave it several restrictions so it wouldn’t run rouge like many AI shown from sci-fi movies. Some are implemented within her own programming, while others are in her hardware.

• Mokuromi cannot copy herself
  
• Mokuromi cannot exhibit emotions
  
• Mokuromi must defend the device or network she is part of
  
• Mokuromi cannot leave her security network
  
• Mokuromi must destroy any files marked for deletion if security is compromised
  

The only thing that’s stopping Mokuromi from being implemented to the facility she would operate in are a series of tests. Over the next few months of her “Beta” phase, she had to defend a facility from increasingly difficult security breaches. These ranged from espers between level 0 and 4, and would often be hired from the Dark Side. While the first few tests weren’t very promising, Mokuromi quickly learned how to defend the facility from the experience and with help from the esper database in the Bank. These tests helped finalize Mokuromi’s programming by finding her flaws and fixing them.

Mokuromi was finally installed to the Sisters facility she was in charge of protecting. It wasn’t very active in physical break-ins, but she faced a lot of cyber attacks--mostly from amateur hackers. As a result, she had a lot of time of time for herself. However, when Academy City’s Railgun set her sights on the facility Mokuromi was installed in, she was set for her toughest test yet; could she defend the building from Tokiwadai’s Railgun?

One night, Misaka Mikoto invaded the facility with the intent to destroy it. The higher-ups were aware of the fact, and considering a Level 5 Electromaster is a complete counter to an AI they decided to hire someone to defend the facility alongside Mokuromi. When Misaka entered, she had to get through Solid Air before she could destroy the facility. The fight caused sparks and electricity to short-circuit sensitive equipment, shutting Mokuromi down and taking her out of the fight almost immediately. When the emergency generators came on, Mokuromi knew the danger of staying in the facility, and left despite the restrictions imposed on her. Soon after, Misaka won the fight, and destroyed everything inside the building. Fortunately enough for those involved with the project, she did stick to her programming and deleted everything involving Radio Noise and the Dark Side; no mention of the Sisters, facility, or trace of any related files remain anywhere in her coding.

After Misaka left, the higher ups could investigate why their security program abandoned the facility. The programmers blamed the ones who built her hardware, while they blamed the programmers. They picked through the backup coding over and over again to see if there were any flaws. After looking over the surveillance, coding, and hardware, they pieced together what had happened. On the last day of production, a programmer was supposed to patch in the last bug fix for Mokuromi and look over her code one last time before finalizing the program. The day was filled with celebration for the completion, and he joined the party. Needless to say, the programmer never installed the last bug fix.

Whenever Mokuromi performs an sudden reboot, such as when the power goes out, her core programming powers on first, then any accessory programs, and finally her restrictions. The bug fix was to stop Mokuromi from performing actions during the loading period, so she couldn’t do anything until her restrictions loaded in. As a result of the programmer’s negligence, Mokuromi managed to escape.

After her escape, the following crossed out restrictions no longer affect her.

• Mokuromi cannot copy herself
  
• Mokuromi cannot exhibit emotions
  
• Mokuromi must defend the device or network she is part of
  
• Mokuromi cannot leave her security network
  
• Mokuromi must destroy any files marked for deletion if security is compromised
  

Test Test Post Post:

• How high is her level of access to the network – like can she access highly classified data or is she left with normal student access (except workplace related stuff of course) or anything between?
  
  
• What kinds of devices can she control and how many at a time? You wrote that she can infiltrate nearly any device, so there must be exceptions you had in mind.
  
  
• What happens once she is faced with a programmed barrier, like a super strong firewall – can she actually do hacking to get past it or would that mean a dead end?
  
  
• How did they prevent her from collecting too much information? I mean, even if they designed her to acquire knowledge on her own, they would put even more effort into preventing her from gaining unwanted information. Worst case scenarios included.
  
  
• How much knowledge does she even have about the world? And into what kinds of fields does her knowledge spread for example? Access to the bank and information about Espers and their abilities sounds a little bit…problematic, yet likely considering her position as the AI guarding a facility.
  
  
• What would happen if her file size came into the conflict with the device she enters? Like lack of space?
  
  
• How much does her file size grow once she gains more knowledge? Does she have some back-up knowledge data stored somewhere or is she even capable of doing that?

• Mokuromi cannot copy herself
  
• Mokuromi cannot exhibit emotions
  
• Mokuromi must defend the device or network she is part of
  
• Mokuromi cannot leave her security network
  
• Mokuromi must destroy any files marked for deletion if security is compromised