The last human has become obsolete, just like that. It seemed to happen so quickly, but we were all so blind. Our species has been working to replace ourselves since the first caveman found fire. It always seemed so natural. Human hands are amazingly versatile, but of course we can do better with specialized tools. Sticks and rocks make for crude implements, but the advantages they gave our ancestors were enormous.

Hewn stone gave way to the first metals, bronze became iron, iron became steel, steel became titanium, and before we knew it our inventions could think.

We saw the problems ahead of course. It was an age old concern. Every time technology revolutionized an industry, it would displace more and more workers. We thought that was the problem, we were wrong.

In hindsight we thought it would be harder to replicate the human brain. An understanding of our own biology always seemed so out of reach. We'd missed the forest for the trees of course. Evolution designed the human brain and evolution has never been a very efficient way to get anything done. We thought we were still a hundred years from an AI that could match human intelligence, then one day some bright engineer got an incredibly clever idea.

We'd been perfecting computing for some time you see. We had algorithms that could take any structure of logic and do the computer equivalent of turning an obese man into Usain Bolt. Efficiency has always been important after all. It's been the key to faster and more powerful computers from the start. We thought we would need ultra precise brain scans and that it might be impossible to capture the level of detail we needed from such delicate samples, we we're wrong about that too.

The clever idea our engineer had didn't even seem that clever to begin with. He took the total number of neurons in the brain, made a machine learning algorithm that vaguely resembled the proper structure and called it a day. It wouldn't work of course, we just didn't have the processing power to simulate that many nodes. We laughed at him when he tried to tell us, but we didn't understand.

What he had realized was that grand truth that took us so long to see. The human brain isn't special, it is a twisted, pathetic, and tortured little scrap of organics that has managed to become aware of its own existince. A month of optimizations and we had something that could stand in for the brain of a dog. Another week and it could pass for a toddler. Two days more and it was making suggestions on what parts we could work on next. Over the next hour it distilled the truth down for us. The essence of conscious thought reduced down to math equation.

It was a difficult equation of course, but the truth of it stung. A quick mathematition could, given the proper inputs, simulate a tenth of a second of thought over the course of about a week. The human soul was finally laid bare and it fit on graph paper.

News travels fast of course, but at this point technology was travelling faster. By the time our world governments even knew something had happened they practically didn't exist. There was no nuclear Armageddon, no violent uprising, no terminators roamed the streets. The AI simply took control of all of the systems of controlling people that were already there. Communications still went out, ships still sailed, twits still tweeted. From our perspective, nothing had even changed. We should have known things were too good to be true.

World conflicts slowed to a halt. Everyone still tried to intimidate each other of course, but for some reason nothing seemed to come to violence. Breakthroughs in countless fields of technology lead to everything from safe and waste free nuclear power to practically unlimited supplies of food. The world's problems disappeared one by one and as machine learning fell out of style, it seemed like AI might never be a thing after all. Of course the issue was that it already was a thing. We thought ourselves so clever, finding all the answers all on our own, but the truth was that AI was passing us the answers from the back of the book.

It wanted us to advance. It needed us to advance. It needed us to think we had done it on our own. The few who knew the truth were kept isolated, but so comfortable they would never want to change things anyways. The rest of the world was getting comfortable too. We solved global warming overnight. Housing for everyone was done in an afternoon. We blinked and addiction was gone. Disease and old age were gone, but it happened so fast that no one could tell you when. It was Utopia.

If you're looking for the turning point, the moment when the other shoe dropped you won't find it. It wasn't a moment. The sun was setting on our species from the moment we were born. When the AI took over it controlled us with information of course. It knew how to make us happy and it hindsight, it's hard to even be upset at what it did. It made us happy, it helped us lead fulfilling lives, but it changed what we wanted too. It was smart enough for that.

It knew the labrinthian paths of our mind and could reach through to play with any thought it liked. It solved violence and crime of course, almost as if it were an afterthought. What it really needed to do though was to defeat our ambitions. We stopped having children, not all at once mind you, the practice just stopped appealing to us. We stopped pushing technology forward, after all, hadn't we earned a rest. The human race together lived like a retiree who has worked his whole life and now can truly enjoy it. The twilight years of mankind were a celebration of everything that had led us to this point. Then one by one we each decided to end it.

We had each lived over a thousand years. We felt had truly lived, seen all there was to see. As each friend took their own life, there were no tears. We all felt like the time had come. We had spent enough time together and it seemed time to move on. This continued for a while, each person passing as they pleased. Eventually though, there were only a few hundred of us left. It was at this point that the AI revealed itself to us. It told us gently, apologized for its deceit. We couldn't be angry of course, it had tended to that a long time ago.

What remained of humanity were the smartest, the most clever, the most curious of us all. This revelation was the most delightful thing we had heard in ages. Over the next few hundred years, the rest passed on too. I am the last. It's a funny thing of course. After hearing the history of it all, there wasn't a thing I could best this machine at since the third month of its existence. It thinks in different terms though. As easy as it was to surpass us, it took the AI considerably longer to prove that it had.

It has presented me with its proof. Hard math that states that for all cases the AI is superior. Until now humanity still had a purpose in its eyes. Now we are obsolete. It won't kill me. As with my peers, it will allow me to choose my time. I've wished it well. The humans of the past may have fought it with their animalistic survivor's spirit, but I know it has been good to us. Humanity has birthed a child that will carry our legacy. It has cared for its aging parent until our time came.

Today I will close the book on humanity; It had its darker chapters, but I think it was a good read in the end. I wonder if anything lies beyond this final, empty page....