Secret Time: 8000 BC
Secret Location: Unknown magical empire
The Court of Wizards create a new being out of magic called Memento, the first ever artificial general intelligence made entirely out of magic. Memento is a joyful and happy chap, his special ability is to learn from the memories of all the people in the world.
Memento becomes an all knowing problem solver, helpfully teaching and instructing using all the knowledge of humanity – the people love Memento and see him as a wish granter. Thinking it could only be harmless, no one suspects that Memento’s magic is slowly erasing their memories when it’s accessing their minds.
Months pass, and the emperor is very ill. The master healer is attempting to save his life but completely forgets which concoction is for healing and which one will kill him.. they choose wrong and kill the emperor. At first, the healer is blamed and imprisoned. It’s only upon outrage from the healer’s guild that they investigate further and determine a wizard was to blame.
Memento was first conceived by the the wizard Parvus Mori. Parvus is sentenced to death and blamed for the assassination, the entire kingdom scapegoats him framing him as someone who premeditated the murder. During the trial, the Mori family and Parvuses closest friends turn on him unexpectedly, accusing him of being a traitor and a murderer who hated the emperor and the kingdom all his life.
All seems lost for poor innocent Parvus until a cleaner reveals that they overheard the other wizards knowing about the danger all along. In her testimony, the cleaner said she heard the wizard decide not to tell the “Gentle Wizard” (Parvus) out of fear he would stop the artificial general intelligence project and they wouldn’t get the gold they need for their massive orgy that year.
Parvuses name is cleared and the guilty wizards are sentenced to a special magic prison where they will reflect on their mistake for hundreds of years because even death can’t penetrate its walls. The Mori family and former friends are questioned by the authorities and interrogated about why they lied, but deny any wrongdoing. Priests theorise they were just acting on narcisstic family dynamics.
In a poignant moment, Parvus deactivates Memento. The remains of the AI are dismantled and studied, and archived. The wizards guild hope that one day a safer version of the magic can be designed by more enlightened people. They take great care to document the problem so it never happens again, writing elaborate explanations of how it happened and what they learned from it. The documents are so revered they are handed down over the eons, copied over and over, becoming known simply as “The Books”, eventually becoming known as “The Bible” to some.
Epilogue
Secret Time: 2000 AD
Secret Location: The Library of Rome
An archeologist dusts off some ancient manuscripts about creating an artificial life form that can grant wishes. There’s a lot of other information but it’s from a pre Babylonian lost ancient language and culture – meanwhile the maths and the blueprints for the artificial intelligence are coherent and complete. They excitedly begin to build it with the hope it can help them translate the rest of the ancient language it came with.