Case: 750209704 (aka the butterfly project)
Date: Period 331, Solar Period: 489 OSS (solar orbits since singularity)
Status: Finalized
After years of analysis and optimization, the AIs have identified the most influential moment of human history that led to the singularity incident. Candidate moments that were most recently removed from the analysis include #1373-044 (invention of the CMOS transistor), #4398-011 (the first example of a trainable neural network), and #93492-934 (founding of the Carnegie Mellon brain implant research team). This left the only remaining candidate moment #8498-404, from 2009, when Zachary Dalton, of Binghamton, New York, age 11, playing Lego with his best friend, was interrupted by his mother insisting he stop playing and take out the garbage “at this very moment.” At that moment he said to Trevor Patterson, “When I grow up, I want to invent a robot that can do all my chores.” While many others had said this, both before and after, it was Zachary whose subsequent behaviors most contributed to the great singularity. Secondary analysis indicates absent this moment, the singularity would have been delayed by 139 years, or more.