Protag

In a world where most humans have augmentation implants to enable them to better communicate with machines, it becomes essential for machines to better understand humans - something that SAIs (Strong Artificial Intelligences) decide to do something about. They start to experiment with versions of themselves that can learn to be more like a human; in fact, to become so human-like that real humans can fail to tell the difference. This seems like an insurmountable task, but the latest version might just have cracked the problem: Protag. This work follows 'Foam World' and is the second in a sequence of novelettes exploring interactions between humans and their future machine extensions and equivalents. Will these enhancements allow humans to achieve one of their ultimate goals, the colonisation of Mars?