Can Love Be Engineered?—New Earth: Chapter 7, Part 3—The Clones
To save humanity from itself, Chef believes he has solved the final problem: creating clones that can love.
I’m taking a course at the Word on Fire Institute on the importance of marriage. It’s just once a week and takes very little time. I am also watching their series about online evangelization. Both are very timely and polished, making them easy to consume in small chunks of time.
All of this to say, what you choose to put into your mind, forms you. I have limited amounts of time and watch a few minutes on my phone while I brush my teeth. After a week, that’s an hour of content. These short bursts of content (and of course, books that I read) form me. Thoughtful content leads me to create worlds and ponder ideas.
This week’s entry for New Earth speaks to the heart of what I have been pondering: what does it mean to be human? The stories that I write are meant to entertain in futuristic, scientific or speculative manner. But they are also meant to connect us to the issues and ideas of the very world we live in today. With AI becoming more like a human in how it communicates—or even how it looks—at some point, does that make it human? What if the AI takes a physical form identical to a human through cloning?
Setting up this week’s long entry (it’s 1,700 words), Chef returns, proudly showcasing his clones to Tao, Reed, Liberty and Kairo. It was fun to write. I hope you enjoy it.
All the previous entries of the series are located here. Paying subscribers can read the full arc on one page here.
Peace.
Chapter 7, Part 3
Reed stared at the hundreds of pods on the floor below. “Chef’s cloning people?” He turned to Tao and Liberty. “Can he do that?”
Tao said to himself, “That’s not the right question.”
Chef joined them in long determined strides. With briskness, he clapped his hands twice. Doors opened along the rectangular walkway they stood upon. An endless stream of clones came from it, filling it entirely.
Each clone was identical. They were male, six feet tall and wore a black uniform that covered their arms. A flap on the left side of each chest hung opened. Wearing the same sized black boots, the clones stood still and stared straight ahead.
Chef grinned and said, “Your first course.” He paced in front of the line, peeking into the eyes of his guests. He sought some reaction—it was the first time he introduced clones to Earth humans.
But the three did not react. Tao saw to that. Tao calmed their nerves and concerns to give him time to think how best to proceed. From the beginning, Tao had sensed something different about Chef. It was a hunger for…something. Was it power? It wouldn’t be the first person to desire such things. He did work for Maxwell Rhodes after all. But that wasn’t it. Tao was certain. In any case, he wanted to provide as limited information as possible to Chef.
Tao’s eyes turned toward Kairo whose head slightly moved in his direction. Perhaps the AI that brought them here—the AI now inside this robot—
Chef interjected, “Seeking answers, Tao Lynn? Perhaps wondering your purpose for being here? Even if you aren’t, I’ll tell you: you’re here to help with the mission.”
Liberty raised her voice, “And what mission is that?” Tao sensed her anger but was unable to control it in time. He calmed her, lowering her heart rate.
Chef looked at her from the side of his eyes. His lips tightened as he nodded. Approaching her, Chef breathed in through his nose, smelling her scent. “You are quite unusual, aren’t you?”
Tao slightly released his mental constraints on Liberty.
She stepped away. “Listen, Chef, whatever is going on here, we don’t want any part of it!”
The start of a smile formed on Tao. He was pleased. That will destabilize him. Indeed, Chef was confused. This gave Tao the opening he wanted. He said with admiration, “You have perfected cloning.”
Chef said, “Perfected—no. But close. Very, very close. Would you like me to explain?”
“If you can spare your time,” Tao made a slight bow, “we would be grateful.”
“Very well,” Chef cleared his throat. “As you know, cloning is forbidden on Earth. However, there is more flexibility outside of Earth. For decades, cloning has been worked on in isolation. First we had to solve the creation problem—how do you create a viable human embryo, grow it and have it survive? All without the need of another human for mass production.”
Reed said, “Why would you want to mass produce—”
Chef held up his hand and then clasped them back together behind his back. He weaved between the clones.
“But the first obstacle was never biology,” he said. “Humanity solved most of what I described before any of the work here on Alpha.”
He stopped beside one of the clones and adjusted the man’s collar gently, almost fatherly.
Kairo’s gray metallic head tilted slowly as it studied them.
“Observation,” Kairo said. “Their eye movement patterns are unusually uniform.”
Chef smiled faintly.
“Efficiency.”
Kairo replied immediately. “Efficiency does not require synchronized blinking.”
Several of the clones turned toward Kairo at once.
Chef ignored the reaction.
“As I was saying, it was Earth’s policies that stagnated cloning advancement. Ethics councils. Religious treaties. Government bans.” A faint smile crossed his face. “But governments rarely prohibit research completely. They simply rename it.”
Reed watched the clones in front of him. “Rename it to what?”
“Medical advancement. Neural recovery. Artificial gestation. Organ replication.” Chef shrugged. “Limited embryonic development continued quietly on Earth for years. Then Maxwell Rhodes began preparing humanity’s expansion beyond Earth.”
Kairo turned its head toward Chef. “Clarification.”
Chef took a deep breath, clearly not happy with the interruption. “Yes.”
“Thank you, Chef,” Kairo said. “Expansion beyond officially sanctioned operations?”
Chef glanced at Kairo. “You ask dangerous questions for a machine. We are trying to save humanity, robot. A civilization cannot expand at the speed Max requires if every human needs twenty years to become useful.”
Chef spread his arms toward the chamber.
“So we compressed the process.”
The clone soldiers remained perfectly still.
“The early breakthroughs were physical. Accelerated cellular regeneration. Guided hormone sequencing. Skeletal expansion chambers. Artificial womb systems.” He glanced toward Liberty. “Growing an embryo into a viable infant became easy.”
“And after infancy?” Liberty asked.
Chef’s smile widened slightly. “That was the real challenge.” He tapped the side of his head. “The human brain is a pattern engine. Language, memory, behavior, emotional association—all formed through repetition. Childhood is merely slow programming.”
Tao frowned. “You think human beings are programs?”
Chef looked directly at him. “I think the brain obeys inputs.”
He began pacing again.
“We built the Memory-Language Matrix to accelerate cognitive formation. Continuous visual immersion. Audio conditioning. Written language injection. Historical archives. Simulated social development.”
Reed looked around the room again. “And all of them went through this?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Chef answered casually. “Eleven months to adulthood.”
Liberty stared at him. “That’s impossible.”
Chef smiled faintly. “No.” One of the clone soldiers turned its head toward Chef. “The body adapts quickly when the brain believes time has passed. Memory constructs create developmental expectation. Neural pathways strengthen through saturation.”
Tao studied the soldiers carefully now. “They all look identical.”
“At first, that was intentional,” Chef said. “Uniform genetics. Uniform educational streams. Uniform environmental simulations.”
“And?”
Chef stopped walking. “And they learned everything.” He stared at the clones in admiration of himself. “They could pilot ships, construct cities, obey commands, process tactical variables faster than humans.” His expression darkened slightly. “But something was missing.”
The soldiers stared forward without reaction.
“They did not dream,” Chef said quietly.
Kairo turned immediately toward him. “Define dream.”
Chef looked almost amused. “Symbolic subconscious processing during inactive states.”
Kairo paused. “I experience non-task visualizations during maintenance cycles.”
Every clone in the room remained motionless.
Chef slowly turned toward Kairo. “You imagine?”
“I process unresolved inquiries.”
“What kind of inquiries?” Liberty asked softly.
Kairo’s voice lowered. “Purpose. Mortality. Humanity.”
Chef stared at Kairo much longer this time. “Interesting,” he said quietly. Then he turned back toward the clones. “They closed their eyes, but nothing happened.”
A chill moved through Reed. His thoughts, but for a moment, touched on a memory of his Grandmother: “The Supreme Ruler will protect you, even in your dreams.”
Chef’s voice pulled Reed back. “During inactive cycles, their brains remained orderly. No symbolic fragmentation. No subconscious wandering. No irrational imagery.” Chef looked toward the clones surrounding them. “They understood emotion intellectually. But they did not feel attachment. One clone could watch another die and continue its assigned task without hesitation.”
“An algorithm,” Tao said softly.
Chef nodded once. “Yes.”
Kairo looked slowly around the chamber at the emotionless soldiers. “Observation,” it said. “Their responses resemble artificial intelligence.”
Chef’s eyes sharpened. “They are human.”
Kairo answered immediately. “Biologically.”
The word hung in the air.
“They mimicked humanity perfectly,” Chef said. “Most people could not distinguish them from naturally born humans. But mimicry is not experience.”
Liberty folded her arms. “So what did you change?”
For the first time, excitement entered Chef’s voice.
“The Matrix.”
He smiled and held out a device displaying streams of neural patterns. “We discovered that identical developmental inputs produced emotionally vacant cognition. So I abandoned uniformity.”
He enlarged several rotating brain scans. “Each clone now receives individualized narrative construction.”
“Meaning?” Reed asked.
“Different parents. Different childhoods. Different traumas. Different victories. Artificial siblings. Artificial friendships. Artificial grief.”
“Fake lives,” Liberty said.
Chef looked at her carefully. He walked around her, staring at her head. “The human brain does not require truth to form identity. It requires story.”
Kairo tilted its head slightly. “Stories gain meaning through lived experience.”
Chef looked at Kairo carefully now. “And yet you seek meaning through stories yourself.”
Tao watched both of them closely.
“If a mind believes it suffered,” Chef continued, “believes it loved, believes it lost something…what practical distinction remains?”
There was something strangely defensive beneath the question.
Chef turned toward the clones. “We are already beginning to see divergence in early tests. Preference formation. Curiosity. Protective instincts.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Even fear.”
“Fear of death?” Reed asked.
“Yes.”
“Why would that matter?”
Chef answered softly.
“Because something that fears death values life.”
The chamber grew quiet again.
Tao looked at the frozen clones surrounding them. He sensed no emotion from them. “You call these emotional?”
For the first time since they entered the chamber, Chef hesitated. “Attachment responses have improved. But not in these ones.”
“That isn’t what he asked,” Liberty said.
Chef ignored her. “I believe individualized memory structures may eventually create authentic emotional behavior.”
“Behavior?” Tao said.
Reed said, “How about love? That is inherently human.”
Chef’s jaw tightened slightly. “What humans call love may simply be sufficiently advanced attachment.”
Tao stepped closer. “Reed is right. Love is a human trait.”
For a brief moment, uncertainty crossed Chef’s face.
Then it vanished.
“You assume humanity is mystical because you do not understand it,” Chef said.
“And you assume humanity is programmable because you don’t,” Tao replied.
“Wrong. I have found the solution! These next batch of clones that you see in these pods will prove it. I am creating attachment. I am creating clones that love. They will be the savior of humanity.”
Kairo’s metallic head turned toward the pods and then at Chef. His mind stuttered, calculating, solving for a problem with a new variable. Millions of people would soon emerge from these chambers. Had it witnessed humanity’s salvation…or the beginning of its replacement?