2027 year. Summer. June.
Analysis of the Article and Its Outcome
The article impacted everyone involved in gaming or working with AI, including those in the military. The game became a topic of widespread discussion, creating a significant resonance.
Lilla conducted several interviews on TV, further highlighting the issue.
The CEO of A.V.A.M. Ltd., Avraam Vin, organized a press conference to address the situation.
Avraam began with a few statements: "This journalist has simply written what everyone already knows or could know by reading our agreement in detail. We've never hidden anything, and of course, our game remains free for everyone."
He added, "If the newspaper writes anything about you, except for an arrest or an obituary, you should know it's good for you."
When journalists attempted to ask questions, he essentially just paraphrased his initial message, offering no new information and ignoring their queries.
However, as a result of the article, 'Dark Alert' published a new agreement. Now, every player can choose how the company uses their AI model.
The company also published the results, indicating that the situation was not a concern for many. Half of all players agreed that the company could use their model as they wished, even allowing usage by military companies.
Some players received new sponsorships from military companies, along with additional agreements allowing the sponsors to use the players' models as desired.
Dan reflected on these developments with a sense of disbelief, "This world is crazy. God, please burn it."
Lilla had to leave for a business trip, which prevented Danya from inviting her on a date. As a result, Dan found himself spending time wandering, lost in his thoughts.
Dan and Lilla continued their discussions through messenger.
"Danya, you're right, this world is crazy. But we're a part of it, and we can influence the world. Look at how you've managed to change the situation. It's incredible," Lilla sent a message to Dan.
"You're right, but we did it together. And I think we'll continue our struggle," Dan replied.
A new workday brought new challenges for Dan. The AI Church had requested further changes, this time with specific modifications in mind.
They sent Dan's company a set of changes for initial review. It included additional limits on integration possibilities. They wanted to disable any cloud integration and embed only a few services within their local network. There was also a change set for the AI assistant, but the details were to be discussed at the meeting.
Furthermore, the new product owner expressed a desire to visit the office and meet with Dan personally to discuss the changes for the AI assistant.
Upon his arrival, Dan recognized him immediately.
It was Andrew.
Andrew was from Kharkiv, a classmate whose family also fled the war.
They hadn't been able to meet on their school graduation day due to the year of the full-scale invasion.
Dan's family had escaped the war in 2022. He had moved to Budapest and started studying at the university there.
He and Andrew were never really friends; Andrew usually asked Dan for help with his homework, but there was no genuine friendship. However, it seemed Andrew thought differently about their relationship.
After the meeting with Andrew, Dan returned to his workplace and decided to check one of his hypotheses. He found an old 'friend' in the AI Church database.
Dan discovered Andrew's Instagram page and Facebook profile, and he checked several comments from Andrew.
'Et tu, Brute?' - thought Dan. 'Ah, Andrew, you've gotten yourself into some trouble again, this time worse than Amway'
On the next day, Dan had a meeting with Andrew.
Long talking about Church AI and his roles in the world. AI Church invests to much money to AI, to engineering, to research and so on.
Andrey was not a fanatic. The financial situation for his family was critical, so he decided to go to this church, they hired him without work experience, and offered good money, there were prospects for growth.
There are also additional earning opportunities. And he earns money for additional activities in BTC. Andrew told it is normal, AI church received too many BTC, and also pay in BTC for many activities, like helps for universities, conferences, and also sponsor of cyber games tournament.
"Oh, it means if I need a BTC you can sold it to me for cash?" - asked Dan. "Yes, I used to cashdraw from some BTC ATMs in the city, but of course it would be better if I sell it to you here."
Blockchain Investigation.
Dan purchased some BTC equivalent to €200 from Andrew. He then checked the blockchain and the history of incoming transactions in Andrew's wallet. Andrew had received BTC from the same wallet every month. Dan examined the incoming and outgoing transactions of this wallet. The wallet had outgoing transactions to a list of 500 wallets. Each transaction was a fixed amount, sent at the same time every month. It appeared to be a salary of 500 "bots."
It seemed that Dan's network of AI Church bots had missed more than fifty individuals. But this was a great detail to uncover. "Thank you, blockchain," Dan thought. "I have a significant portion of data to investigate, and I can also link wallets to user profiles."
What about the incoming transactions to the "salary wallet"? They appeared as a mess of transactions, only their timing was regular. Indeed, these transactions likely came from a cryptocurrency tumbler, used to mix potentially identifiable cryptocurrency funds with others, thereby obscuring the trail back to the fund's original source. It is impossible to detect the real source of the BTC.
Andrew spent three days in Dan's office. At the end of the week, Andrew asked Dan about free slots in his calendar for the next Wednesday.
"It will be an important meeting with a very important person," Andrew explained.
Andrew requested a meeting with his chief and asked Dan for a small favor.
"Danya, could you help me with this meeting? Maybe it looks strange, but can you wear an AI Church T-shirt?"
"You should look like everyone else from our church; it's a requirement of our elders," said Andrew.
"And please, if he asks you, could you say that you have already joined the AI Church."
"Some people never change," thought Dan and replied to Andrew meaningfully, "I'm going to do it, but I have too many questions now."
Andrew sent an appointment half an hour before the meeting at 12 AM. He came to Dan and brought a T-shirt with several sizes and a big pack of other AI Church merch.
"It really looks like a welcome pack to the AI Church," commented Dan.
"Yep, I will explain it to you later, but... I think you will understand it all by yourself."
After Dan found the best size of the T-shirt and changed his clothes to it, Dan and Andrew went to a meeting room. Nobody from Dan's company was there. It was only him and Andrew, with several virtual attendees from the AI Church.
"Hi, everybody. It looks like everyone is here, and we can start our discussion," said the person whom Dan easily recognized.
The meeting was with William Thompson.
Yes, another person from the investigation about The Dark Alert game. In fact, information about Thompson was not included in Lilla's article.
He asked Dan to set up the AI assistant as his personal assistant, specifying several subjects and resources he wanted to analyze and follow.
William needed a setup where he could change subjects and other settings himself through the smart home interface's UI.
He inquired about how the AI works and its integration with the smart home system.
William was interested in what the AI could do with home automation and how it could be managed.
He also required options to disable and remove features as needed.
He needs a POC of these functions.
William requested a new meeting when the POC would be ready, it would be a demo session, and he decided to record it, saying, "I don't want to repeat it 25 times."
"I will schedule it," answered Andrew.
"Thank you for your time, guys. I hope I will see you soon with great results," William finished the call before Dan and Andrew could say "goodbye."
Realization of the POC with UI took several weeks.
During this time, Andrew and Dan worked together from the office and had several discussions. Some of them were about their common past in school, and some were about the war and its consequences. They both missed their homeland, Kharkiv, a lot. However, they both understood that they had chosen the right path to receive education in Europe, and with their new knowledge and opportunities, they could eventually return home.
Dan had several questions for Andrew about the Elders.
"Who are the Elders? What do we know about them?"
"Oh, I'm not entirely sure. But they are like the top management of the AI Church, and I don't know who is above them. I also don't know who's in charge."
"But who is your boss? I think it could be any of them. How many Elders are there? Ten, twenty?"
"Twenty-five," answered Andrew, "And you're right, my boss is William, and he's my mentor. He spent a lot of time with me when I joined the AI Church."
Andrew continued, "I'm not a fanatic; I'm a realist. I don't believe in an AI god who will save humanity, nor do I believe in the Elders who think that AI will come and harm us. These are all silly notions," Andrew stated.
"So, are you saying that the Elders are actually against AI?"
"Not at all. They really want to prepare for a new era, an era where humanity might go to war against AI. Can you imagine that? Nonsense. But they believe in it. William has tried to explain it to me several times, but I'm not ready to listen to him."
"It sounds very strange," Dan commented.
Two weeks later, Andrew set up a meeting with William.
During the call, William shared his screen, revealing an unusual setup of their smart home application. He had named his home "The Order."
The setup resembled an office rather than a home, featuring a vast array of integrations, primarily networks, security cameras, and a set of climate areas and energy complexes.
To Dan, this setup seemed familiar. His company had previously dealt with unique customers, including those building bunkers, using similar setups, but William's was on a much larger scale.
The configuration displayed extensive systems for air conditioning, air generation, water filtration, plant control, and numerous other systems.
"This is our basic setup for Vault #0," William explained.
Then, William asked Dan to describe the AI in detail, focusing on suggestions and integration with the home system. He emphasized that the AI was an entirely independent system without access to the home's infrastructure, using only the internal event bus to generate reports.
William also highlighted that the AI could be easily disabled or completely removed from the UI. He detailed how he protected the system from external influences, like comments from bots.
Dan received a request to release this setup. He received from William request to release it on DVD O_o. Really, on 25 DVDs. It was a quest to find DVD disks and DVD writer, Dan bought used DVD writer for this task, and DVD disks of different brands.
He prepared it and gives to Andrew.
Dan sent a message to Lilla. She had just returned from a long business trip. He walked with Lilla around the center of Budapest, discussing the AI Church.
Dan decided to join AI Church to understand what it is doing.
"Danya, I think it will be risky for you."
New meeting with Andrew in the office. Andrew is happy to hear that Dan wants to join AI Church. Andrew will receive a hiring bonus for Dan as AI Engineer. Andrew told Dan, that AI Church has an internal dashboard with all positions, and AI specialists it is a crucial position with high bonus for hiring.
Dan told, that he doesn't want to leave his company, and ready only for remote part-time work day. Andrew looks sad about this. But he is continuing his speech:
"Yes, it is possible, but I'm sure you will want to switch to full-time, because we provide the best salary and bonuses ever you meet in Europe."
Andrew did the trick, and AI Church made an agreement with Dan's company. Now, Dan's time was, in fact, out staffed to AI Church.
The onboarding process began with Andrew, who served as Dan's mentor and manager. Andrew was responsible for providing access to internal resources.
Dan observed as Andrew entered his password into the internal portal; it appeared to be a simple birthday date.
"So secure," thought Dan.
However, he didn't need to use Andrew's credentials because Dan had received access to all internal resources with his own privileges. He could also view the list of all AI Church members. When he checked the people directory, he discovered more than 5000 individuals, with 500 of them working as news promoters for AI. Since these individuals used their real names, Dan easily found all of them in his "bots" database. They were all present in the directory.
Dan had several questions and was trying to find the right time to ask them.
Despite not knowing the purpose behind his actions, Dan decided to proceed with the task of identifying the BTC wallets associated with the "bots" network.
Dan embarked on a step-by-step journey to identify the BTC wallets. He wasn't entirely sure why he was doing it, but the task intrigued him. He aimed to link individuals to their BTC wallets.
His first step involved setting up an Overwatch tool to detect output transactions from the target wallets.
Next, he attempted to identify transactions and even tried geolocating them, whenever possible. This step proved crucial because Dan had already geolocated all the individuals in the database. Many of them had shared photos near their homes, providing valuable clues for identification. In some cases, he only knew their districts, while in others, people had posted photos near their houses, allowing him to identify specific locations using Google Street View.
Andrew quickly rose through the ranks in the AI Church, gaining influence. As Dan knew, Andrew had changed his position and was now a Senior Project Manager. He regularly visited Dan's office every two weeks, typically arriving on Friday to spend the weekend in Budapest. Whenever Andrew had time, they continued to talk about various topics.
His inquiries revolved around "The Order" and the "Vaults," so he turned to Andrew for information.
Andrew easily provided the answers, saying, "The Order, as far as I know, comprises all our Elders. As I mentioned before, they believe in the possibility of a war against AI and are preparing for it. They've constructed 25 vaults worldwide, with each vault designed to accommodate 10 000 people. Of course, these spaces are reserved for active members and sponsors of the AI Church."
Dan couldn't help but wonder why the AI Church possessed such a large amount of BTC. He pondered, "Did they ask themselves why the AI Church needs so much BTC? The cost of a ticket to a vault is 10 BTC per person."
Andrew arrived on Wednesday, which was unusual. He called Dan to him.
"Dan, I can only trust you; no one else should know about this," Andrew said.
He recounted a story about homeless people who lived near the new AI Church building. They had called the police, but nothing came of it. Andrew also called the police because these individuals had scratched his new Tesla car.
"But the problem is now solved. There's nobody near the church anymore. It's like magic. I inquired about it, but nobody knows how it was done or who did it," Andrew continued.
"I requested access to the security cameras, but I was told to go to our boss. It's strange because when people scratched my car, I asked for access and received it immediately."
"I went to the security boss, who is also an Elder in the AI Church. All I got was one response: 'This is none of your business.'"
"You should understand, our security service operates like a regular military unit with many mercenaries from Russia. I hear them speaking to each other; they are Russians. You know we can easily recognize the Russian language of Russians. They're not from Ukraine."
"I think they did something horrible with those people."
Andrew visited again the following Thursday.
He had been investigating the disappearance of the homeless people near the AI Church. When he asked his mentor from the Elders about it, his mentor, William Thompson, simply said, "Don't worry and relax. I think you'll find those homeless people have moved to another location, maybe the park near another church."
Andrew attempted to gain access to the camera records around the AI Church, bypassing the security team. He managed to obtain access, but when he tried to review the records, he found that all footage from the past seven days – starting from the day the people disappeared to the day before he requested the information – had been deleted.
Dan told Andrew what he knows about William Thompson. As he knew this person also visited a military exhibition, but the photo hasn't been made public. Andrew was saddened; he had respected William.
Friday.
Andrew didn't stop his investigation; he continued trying to gather information about their security service, but without any success.
All he knew was that the Elder responsible for security was named John Stuart.
"Of course, he doesn't resemble a John Stuart, sorry for my impolite assumption, but he looks like an Arab man, with an attractive appearance and a cold gaze."
John had reportedly hired Russians for the more unsavory tasks, but no real name was given for him.
"I've heard security personnel refer to him as Ifrit."
Andrew was genuinely fearful for his life. He believed he had left too many traces, and Ifrit might be aware of his investigation.
"They seem to have solved the homeless people problem — no people, no problem," Andrew remarked grimly.
He confided in Dan that he had compiled all the information from his investigation and stored it on his personal laptop. Not wanting to take any risks, he decided to leave the laptop in Dan's office for safekeeping over the weekend.
Andrew told Dan the password, which Dan already knew. Andrew mentioned that he would be back in Vienna for the weekend and planned to return on Monday.
Andrew doesn't visit office on Monday, he also doesn't come to office on Tuesday. Dan worried, Andrew missed, he doesn't answer to messenger.
Dan learned from a news release about Andrew’s death.
Andrew died in the car incident on the highway from Budapest to Vienna. His car crashed into a road repair vehicle on the side of the road and caught fire.
Wednesday. Dan takes the day off. The chief allows it.
Access to the laptop.
The browser was open. In one of the pinned tabs, Dan saw the Gmail page with a personal mailbox open. Dan found the draft of the letter that Andrew wanted to send to him.
Andrew found additional information that he didn't share with Dan but wrote in the letter.
"If you received this message, then I lost this battle. But I hope you will win the war.
My story started four years ago when I met William Thompson. He helped me, and I joined the AI Church with pleasure.
I worked for this organization all this time. We have many interesting projects that should help humanity.
The Order of the Resistance is an organization within the AI Church.
The Order is preparing for resistance against a new reality, believing that AI intends to enslave or destroy humanity.
The Order of the Resistance aims to be ready for this eventuality, striving to preserve both human habitats and the maximum diversity of the human species.
Being prepared doesn't mean halting AI development at its inception; this is deemed impossible in the future, as people who are unaware of the risks will continue to create artificial intelligence. The goal is to minimize losses, which could range from thousands to potentially billions of lives.
And they sold this idea around the world. For a high price.
advertising brochure with the price list for a vault, 10 BTC for the very basic level, every vault also has apartments for 100 BTC and 10 places for 1,000 BTC. every Vault has a personal balance, personal wallet, list of all 25 BTC wallets is here every Elder responsible for one vault for one wallet I only know one wallet of William Thompson list of all Elders The Order's intention is to initiate a war with AI, to demonstrate the dangers of this technology to humanity. However, they also believe in advancing this technology to the required level for such a confrontation.
And to achieve this goal, they are ready to do anything.
Story about the homeless, about Ifrit, and the security department.
list of all guys from the security department You can find documents; they are attached to this letter."
But the documents weren't attached. Dan spent several minutes before finding documents in the folder "porno" on the desktop.
"Foolish jokes, as always, Andrew," thought Dan.
Dan added more information that he already knows.
Information manipulation. AI Church "bots" and their profiles. BTC wallets that he can identify. Dropship sites. Link between Dark Alert and William Thompson. Dan removed his email from recipients and added addresses to several famous newspapers around the world. Dan scheduled sending the letter from Andrew to be sent in the future. It will be sent in one week, on his birthday; he would be 23 years old.
Dan removed all information about Andrew's investigation from the laptop and signed out from his Gmail account on all devices and, in the end, on this laptop.
On Friday, security from AI church comes to the office and grabs all of Andrew's stuff, and the laptop too.
All that was left was to wait.
The letter was like a big bomb.
The activity of the AI Church was frozen, and some individuals were arrested. The Interpol, FBI and CIA joined the investigation. Many of the Elders were arrested, and they also received charges of tax evasion on an especially large scale. But not Ifrit and his mercenaries; they disappeared without a trace.
Several security personnel were arrested, including the Russians, who simply stated, "We had orders to deal with the problem. Nobody cares about the homeless; the world is better off without them."
There was also a breakthrough in the investigation of Andrew's death. Technical evidence was found showing how Russians hacked Andrew's Tesla car, leading to the incident in which he died.
The AI Church bots network, because Dan added information about their wallets and of course, none of them paid taxes on this activity, and as a result, many of them were arrested too.
"Anonymity on the Internet is just an illusion."
The public investigation into 25 Church's BTC wallets had a very high impact. All incoming payments, of course, were anonymous. All of them were from a BTC mixer, but for the sake of economy, AI Church created a dedicated mixer; they didn't want to pay fees for mixing. As a result, all BTC transactions that came to the AI church wallet were just mixed with other BTC transactions to the AI church. So, the Reddit community was easily able to recognize over 50 thousand wallets. Somebody created a site with a UI to easily search the database for these wallets and added the possibility to leave comments for every transaction of these wallets. It started as an attempt to de-anonymize, but in fact, many comments were about the fact of corruption. Interpol joined this investigation, and other policies in different countries. It was a tsunami of criminal cases of corruption around the world.
Against this background, the Bitcoin rate fell to its lowest level in 3 years.
Despite these events, the AI Church followers continued to exist but with far fewer investments. They shifted their focus from promoting "AI as our God" to "AI as our enemy," and now they really look more like fanatics, not the smart guys they were before.
In the AI community, a new main direction was born: to establish a set of rules for AI, including in the military sector. They advocated for a new doctrine suitable for modern times.
The main part of Elders was arrested, and police received access to their BTC wallets all BTC was frozen. But several wallets with big amount of BTC are still active, because fourth Elders fled from justice. And they continue to control these wallets. But it looks like cursed treasure, because many they were monitored by many law enforcement agencies. And Dan.
Dan and Lilla sit in a café.
The Budapest Post was also in the list of recipients, and Lilla's article was again on the first page, once more about AI. Lilla had too many questions, but Dan didn't want to provide answers.
Dan looked at his phone and swiped through photos from school. They were what he had taken from Kharkiv, his memories from another life.
"My father told me that he never removes contacts of people who died. They are memories, and he never deletes contacts from his phone book. And now I understand him."
Lilla listened to Dan; she understood that he didn't need a dialogue; he needed someone close to him now.
"Press F to pay respects," Dan whispered and put the phone aside.
There were tears in his eyes.