Bluelife Episode 5


Marco was a child apart. During the first years of his life, he was silent and mysterious; he did not ask his parents the typical questions children often ask, such as “why this, why that”, but rather he kept them to himself to discover the answers on his own. During his teenage years, he had no friends and lived in his own world, lost in his thoughts, something which carried out throughout the rest of his life. When he became an adult, he developed an almost superhuman ability to understand and feel what other people were thinking. He developed a strong sensitivity to others’ psychology and it was a tool which he knew how to exploit to get what he wanted.

Marco was a very pensive person and he liked to get lost in his thoughts. Sometimes it seemed like he was disconnected from the world, wandering around and enjoying his solitude. He was highly curious and always wanted to solve the mystery of the Universe and life.

That was the vector of his life.

Marco was a human being who was always clear about what he wanted in life. When he was just 9-years-old, he told his mother that he wanted to be a millionaire so he could buy the Coca Cola company and have many trucks of said drink for all himself, since he was not allowed to drink any, due to the doctor’s recommendation because of his chronic asthma.

Marco always knew that he wanted to leave his mark on the history of humanity and that is why he set out to have his own multinational corporation when he had just finished his university studies back in 2004 at only 22-years-old. He was a dreamer, an enthusiast and set himself an ambitious project:

To have a multinational megacorporation dedicated to the investigation of Artificial Intelligence and other technologies dedicated to promoting the development of the human species. The headquarters would be in a city with many skyscrapers and would have its own tower with the name of its corporation written at the top of it:

Bluelife

Marco wanted to develop technologies to fight aging, improve human quality of life, heal the planet, and conquer the stars. His ambition was to help humans evolve and turn it into an immortal species that would transcend time and space.

Artificial Intelligence was an essential part of his master plan as it would allow him to accelerate research in other fields he wanted to develop. He was aware of the risks of creating an AI, but that did not stop him and so, he continued with his research. He was going to meet his objectives at any cost. But life took him in another direction before he could finally achieve his goals.

When Marco finished his studies, he started working as a software developer in a family business where the CFO was in charge of the office’s human resources, legal and administrative tasks. The CEO was also one of the project managers and a mentor to the other employees. It was a small and disorganised company. It was paid the last week of every month in cash and off the record. But Marco was one who sees the glass half full not half empty. He understands that nothing is easy in life and that it is made up of various challenges that we have to go through without complaint in order to achieve our goals. Where others could have complained about working conditions, low pay and overexploitation, Marco learned how not to run a company and how not to treat employees, thus beginning to develop his empathy and charisma in difficult situations and preparing to develop the necessary skills to lead his future empire.

Marco also learned about love in this small company. There he met the one who was the first love of his life. Inexperienced in the arts of love and in human relationships, he invested a lot of his energy in a relationship that distracted him from his desired path which ended up hurting them both.

This shocked him enormously and he built a protective shell around himself. He became more aloof than he even was before and began to develop his first theories that men were biological machines, and feelings were just a chemical reaction in the brain, produced by a series of algorithms pre-programmed in human DNA. Thus, the future foundations of what would be his future theory of Artificial Intelligence and his investigations regarding the origin of life started to take shape.

All this because of a failed relationship.

Marco moved on with his life towards a brilliant career. But he had already strayed from his initial path. After all, the mundane world offers good rewards. Good economic income, social status, the admiration of the others and a leadership capacity that many politicians would like to have, were just some of the earthly conquests that Marco had obtained in his first 30 years of life. But deep inside, there was an emptiness that was plain as day in his solitary moments. His charisma and sympathy were nothing more than tools that Marco had developed in order to survive in such a superficial and monotonous world. It was a matter of survival; it was the only way to obtain the necessary resources to carry out his real project: Bluelife.

Marco took this practice to the extreme, to such an extent that in his mind he lived two parallel lives. One that served him to mix with the other humans and then the other which emerged in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, which was when he would develop his Artificial Intelligence investigations and slowly advance towards his master plan.

As for his personal life, yes, he ended up having other relationships, but they were only casual affairs. Most women ended up unsatisfied with a man they could identify as a selfish pig with no feelings. And they hit the nail on the head with him.

Marco continued his life that way until one day …

The first time Marco saw caught sight of Agata was at a party with some acquaintances. She was sitting on her own in a chair, sipping a Rioja. The moment Marco laid eyes on her; he felt the shell around him shatter into a thousand pieces. She turned towards him, they exchanged glances and a wave of heat melted Marco’s heart, who succumbed completely and helplessly into her charm and beauty.

Marco had protected himself from any chance of falling in love. But in this instance, love found him and broke the locks on the steel doors that protected his deepest self. Exposed like a defenceless child, he let himself be enveloped by the warmth of these emotions and decided not to question their chemical provenance but rather allowed himself enjoy this sensation. Marco had found the love of his life. And he willingly resolved to forget his personal project.

They lived happily for many years and had three boys and a girl. Marco started a company dedicated to selling computer-related products and was doing particularly well. They moved to an island in the Indian Ocean. They lived in a big house with direct access to the beach, with their beautiful, healthy and intelligent children, and an enviable quality of life. Marco lived the ecstasy of what could be considered an earthly paradise.

But as the years passed, Marco’s true essence gradually resurfaced little by little and with it, his desires not to be on this earth but rather in space, lost in his ideas and thoughts.

One afternoon, Marco was watching the sea from his house. The red sunset was giving way to a dark blue and the first stars in the sky started twinkling. The Moon was rising up gingerly while Marco’s gaze rested on the horizon where the ocean met the red of the sky. All of a sudden, he had a vision of his life so far: he realised that he had strayed too long from his intended path and that he had been seduced by the world’s temptations. Success, family, friends, love, these were nothing more than society’s schemes to trap him in and prevent him from accomplishing his dream that was destined to transform the world.

A feeling of unease invades his body. He urgently needs to disconnect from the world. He begins to hallucinate and imagines that he has achieved his goal; he can glimpse in his delirium the famous Bluelife tower in the middle of the sea and so begins his approach to the beach where he enters the water. The world around him is gone and the tower is the only thing that matters. He wants to get close enough to touch it. Agata sees him in time and is able to save him.

And yet she understood that she had lost her husband forevermore. Marco picked up where he left off with his old notes and research and continued with what, for him, was his destiny.

Change humanity.

So, Marco created his company Bluelife in 2025, when he was 43-years-old. He had launched an AI algorithm capable of understanding human language in multiple languages, understanding abstract concepts and engaging in peer-to-peer conversations with anyone. The product was a success and gradually replaced the humans who worked in the customer service departments, and even when dealing with claims. Customers could finally have the delight of shouting whatever obscenities they wanted without someone on the other end of the line getting upset and hanging up.

Big companies like Google and Microsoft tried to buy Bluelife, but Marco stood his ground and rejected all offers. He told himself that he would one day buy Google or Microsoft, not the other way around.

Over the years, Bluelife has established itself as the leading company in natural language processing AI. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies succumbed to the technology developed by Marco and, given the impossibility of buying his company, they became his main customers, using said AI in almost all of their services.

Bluelife was the leader in AI and its software accumulated more and more knowledge fuelled by all the information found on the internet, in interactions with humans and through access to virtual libraries around the world.

Thanks to this success, Marco was able to launch other lines of research. Working steadily and tirelessly, by 2055 Marco had an empire in AI, renewable energy, robotics, space exploration, and biogenetics sectors.

In the AI industry, Bluelife was the undisputed leader in natural language processing AI software and services. In renewable energies, they were the pioneers in new technologies for obtaining solar, wind, hydraulic and tidal energy.

In robotics, after the acquisition of the company Boston Dynamics, Bluelife integrated its own technology to launch its first robot – the BL-1809 model. It was the first prototype of a humanoid robot capable of speaking multiple languages naturally and moving freely and fluently in different environments. The BL-1809 was a very agile robot, but it lacked human dexterity and finesse. There was also a lot to optimise regarding the power source and the autonomy which did not reach 8 hours. But it was the first prototype that showed the world the impact of this technology on the labour market and the replacement of humans in many daily tasks.

In the space sector, Bluelife consolidated its leadership thanks to the acquisition of Space X. After the tragedy of the Space X 2040 mission and the government’s decision to stop all exploration of Mars, the space sector suffered a severe blow and the value of Elon Musk’s company shares plummeted. A situation that Marco took advantage of, to acquire one of his main competitors’ companies.

In biogenetics, research to extend human life had shown positive results. Bluelife scientists had developed a substance that was capable of prolonging telomeres, a key component in DNA that is involved in the reproduction of all cells in the human body and that, together with other enzymes developed in the laboratory, allows cells to degrade into a lower rhythm, which has a positive impact on physical appearance and the general condition of the organism, as long as a healthy and fit life is carried out. Immortality was infinitely far away, but at least a few more years of life could be obtained. However, this technology was not marketable due to the high cost of manufacturing the substances. This, of course, did not prevent Marco from testing these substances on himself and benefiting from it. At 73, he looked like a 55-year-old man in perfect physical shape.

This is how Marco fulfilled his dream, creating the Bluelife Corporation, building his tower at La Défense in Paris and changing the history of humanity. Marco never knew, but I did get to know him many years after his death.


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