About "The Worm" by Alexander Lazarevich.

This page presents the English version of my science-fiction story (or, rather, a techno-thriller) "Worm". It is built around two rather intriguing ideas:

1. The computing power of one, even the biggest, super computer at present still falls far short of what is required to achieve a real artificial intelligence comparable to the intelligence of man. But if we consider the total computing power of all of the millions of computers that constitute the global network, that computing power is much more than is actually required to eclipse the intelligence of man. The only thing this giant virtual global computer lacks, is the appropriate software which could make it work as one machine.
2. Such software would be so complex, that it cannot be written by mere humans. However, tha blind process of Darwinian evolution has somehow managed to create Homo Sapience out of unthinking one-celled amoeba. True, it took several billions of years, but the processes in the virtual worlds of computers are so much faster than in the real world...

And so, a self-evolving computer "worm" (a kind of virus) finally succeeds in linking all the computers in the world into one giant virtual global computer. And with this comes the obsolence of Man...

This story, written in 1992 and never officially published, was very popular on Russian BBSs.
Click here to read it.

or watch the abridged version:

The original Russian version of Part II of The Worm (2019: The Lord of Mars) was written in 1989-1992. It is a much bigger story, which contains 59 chapters. It is now being made into a 3D-animation movie, and some of the chapters are already availble on YouTube in Russian with English subtitles.

If you can read Russian you may read the full text here

Worm 1. 1992:The Prince of Darkness

Worm 2. 2019: The Lord of Mars

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Alexander Lazarevich.
E-mail:lazarevicha@online.ru