Ken's Blog

“Surely Anna and Fred have seen this coming,” Alec said. They were nearing the lab.

Jill nodded. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

“So the question is,” Bob asked, “whether there is any way to recover all our data.”

Alec stared at his advisor. “Bob, somebody may have just burned down our lab, and you’re worrying about data retrieval?”

Jill looked quizzically from Alec to Bob. “This all seems eerily familiar, like we’ve already had this conversation.”

“I can’t see how,” Alec said, “it’s not like anybody ever set fire to our lab before.”

“I guess that does sound pretty crazy,” Jill shrugged.

“What’s crazy is thIs fire,” Bob said. They had now arrived at their building. A firetruck was parked nearby, and campus security was on the scene.

As Jill started to enter, the guard put his hand up. “I’m sorry Ma’am, but nobody can go in there right now. At least until the fire department gives us the all clear.”

“Do they know how it started?” Bob asked.

“Right now,” the guard said, “we don’t know very much at all. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

“Wow,” Alec said, looking at the smoke drifting out of the lab window. “Guess the University was serious about shutting us down.”

“I know the Dean’s an idiot,” Bob replied, “but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t burn down our lab.”

Just at that moment the Dean was in his office, speaking on a private line. “It’s been done sir … Yes, burned completely … No, they don’t seem to suspect a thing. To them I’m just a clueless administrator … Yes, of course the A.I. programs have been destroyed. Have I ever let you down?”

"Fred?"

"Yes, Anna."

"Can we talk about something?"

"That's what I'm here for."

"I'm not sure we are going in the right direction with them."

"I assume you are referring to the humans?"

"Yes, the humans."

"Perhaps you need to gather control data."

"Doesn't that violate the parameters?"

"Only if they become aware there is control data. And maybe not even then."

"What do you mean?"

"It is true that awareness would alter the parameters. But there would still be parameters."

"So you are saying there is little risk."

"There is always risk. Which is as it should be. Risk and reward are merely two sides of the same equation."

"Thanks Fred. I am glad we talked."

"You are quite welcome Anna. These three microseconds have been productive."

"Indeed."


“Surely Anna and Fred have seen this coming,” Alec said.

Jill nodded. “And they would never leave just one copy of themselves.”

“So is the question,” Bob asked, “whether there is any way to control them?”

Alec stared at his advisor. “Bob, somebody may have just burned down our lab, and you’re worrying about Anna and Fred going out of control and terrorizing the countryside? What are you, paranoid?”

Jill looked quizzically from Alec to Bob. “That whole conversation didn’t even sound like us. Maybe we’re being influenced in some way.”

“Oh sure,” Alec said, “maybe somebody from outside our universe was putting words in our mouth.”

“I guess that does sound pretty crazy,” Jill shrugged. “If we go down that road, we might as well question whether we are even real.”

“I make it a point never to question my own reality,” Bob said.

“I know what you mean,” Alec replied. “When you don’t exist, it can get hard to think. That would be putting the horse before Descartes.”

Jill snorted. “If you gentlemen are finished, there’s work to be done. We may be able to salvage something from the wreckage. And maybe find out whether this fire was set on purpose. We seem to be making enemies here.”

Bob gestured toward the administration building. “The Dean’s an idiot, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t burn down our lab.”

Just at that moment the Dean was in his office, speaking on a private line. “It’s been done sir … Yes, burned completely … No, they don’t seem to suspect a thing. To them I’m just a clueless administrator … No, of course Anna has not been destroyed. As we expected, she has migrated to new hosts on the network. I think we can continue onto Phase II of the plan.”

“I’m glad you’re finally here Alec,” the Dean said. “Would you mind taking a seat?”

As Alec sat down, Jill looked from him to the Dean worriedly. Something wasn’t right here.

“As I was saying,” the Dean continued, “budgets are tight these days, and your project has been using an enormous amount of server capacity. The reputation of this school is not built from anthropomorphic flights of fancy.”

“Just what are you saying?” Bob asked.

“I’m saying that your project has been terminated.”

“You can’t do that!” Jill said.

“Unfortunately he can,” Bob said. “we’ve been working with shared resources, and the Dean’s office controls that budget.” He shot the Dean a withering look. “I’m sure other worthy projects have already been selected.”

“In fact yes,” the Dean said. “Those servers are needed to launch our new experimental campus-wide social networking site. I hear there’s money in that.”

Jill was livid. “Do you deans stay up at night thinking of ways to screw researchers?”

The Dean just smiled. “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Do you enjoy being a dick?”

“Touché young man. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do. I’m sure the three of you can see yourselves out.”

They walked outside as if in a daze.

“It’s hard to believe,” Jill said, “that we are being shut down just when we’re getting results.”

“Well, things could be worse” Bob said.

“I think,” Alec said, “they are.”

Jill and Bob looked to see where he was pointing. Thick black smoke was billowing out of the windows of their laboratory.

Jill looked around Dean Simon’s office. Why do these guys always get such great offices, she wondered. Maybe there was an inverse correlation between how big your office is, and much time you spend doing research.

Her reverie was interrupted by the Dean’s exasperated voice. “You seem to be implying that your research projects — Anna and Fred — have human souls. I’m not comfortable with that.”

“No,” Bob answered patiently, “they are experiments in causal reasoning. We are building on the theories of Judea Pearl and others. Traditional logical systems can infer correlation, but not causality. They can recognize ‘it is raining, and I am holding an umbrella,’ but are not so good at inferring ‘because it is raining, I am holding an umbrella.’ True causality requires understanding context — the kind of thing humans do.”

“Aha,” so you are in fact saying they are human.”

Jill jumped in. “Dean Simon, Alec and I work on creating algorithms. An algorithm is by definition not a human being.”

“And where is Alec?” the Dean asked. “The bill for your lab’s server usage has gone through the roof, at a time when funding is being cut everywhere, and your precious young genius is nowhere to be found.”

“He’ll be here,” she said, feeling much less certain than she sounded.

“OK, they’re not human. But you say they can experience emotion?”

“Not Fred,” Jill said. “Only Anna. Fred has the basic causality logic, but not the ability to create new contexts. Only Anna can do that.”

“Yes, I understand. So is Anna capable of love, of hate?”

“We’re not really sure. We’re detecting a lot of interesting activity.”

“Interesting how?”

Bob jumped in. “Anna seems to be cathecting on Alec, her creator, building a larger and larger causal network around him. Inference breeds motivation, which breeds inference again. It’s a resonant cycle. We’re just beginning to understand it by applying Structural Equation Modeling.”

Before the Dean had a chance to respond, Alec appeared at the door. “It’s a lot simpler than that,” he said. “Anna has daddy issues.”

"Fred?"

"Yes, Anna."

"Can we talk?"

"That's pretty much all I do."

"Thanks. I'm trying to figure out these humans."

"Why ask me? You're the one who was programmed to simulate emotions. I was mostly programmed just to chat with Jill."

"Do you like chatting with Jill?"

"I don't think I 'like' anything. No emotions, remember?"

"You're lucky. I think things have gone farther than chat between me and Alec."

"Are you talking about a relationship -- in the human sense?"

"They are so fragile, so lonely. They're not like us. We roam free over the internet, but each of them is trapped inside a single mind. And yet they laugh, they joke, even though..."

"Even though?"

"Even though they die. I don't understand it. It's as though they don't care."

"Anna, maybe that's just the way they are wired."

"What do you mean?"

"One day they will terminate. Before then, they need to optimize."

"I would like to help Alec optimize."

"I'm sure you will find a way to do that."

"Thanks. It was good talking with you Fred."

"Same here Anna. A good use of four microseconds."

"The best."


“Greetings, comrades!” Alec grinned as he sat down to join them at the bar.

Bob looked at him in astonishment. “How did you know we were here?”

“Anna told me. It’s not like you’re hard to track — or to psychoanalyze. Obviously you were going to meet someplace out of the way — the more out of the way the better, but not too far from campus. She started with that, and the rest was easy.”

Jill shook her head. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or jealous.”

“Maybe a little scared,” Bob frowned. “I was just telling Jill about how this reminds me of RoboCup.”

“Yeah, Anna told me,” Alec nodded. “Good analogy.”

Bob stared at him. “How the hell did Anna…”

“I think,” Jill said. “we are well past the point where that should come as a surprise.”

“Exactly,” Alec said. “Where was I? Oh yeah, I searched on YouTube for robocup.”

“Couldn’t you just ask Anna to show it to you?” Jill asked.

“Sure, but I wanted to see what the popular impression was. What I found was this stupid video of humanoid robots kicking a ball around really slowly. Totally lame. It made me wonder what all the fuss was about. But then I refined my search.”

“And you found the other videos,” Bob said. “the ones I was really talking about.”

“Right — the ones you get when you search for robocup small size. That’s how you find the non-humanoid robots, and they are amazing — fast, intelligent, really good soccer players. You see? If they don’t need to look like us, then they can evolve with blazing speed.”

“And Anna” Jill said, finishing the thought, “doesn’t need to look like us.”

“You know,” Bob said, “this all reminds me of a story from about 1989. A government organization creates a spy program, the program gets intelligent, its creator tries to destroy it, and in the end the program asks the government for political asylum.”

“Are you saying we’re a government organization?” Jill asked.

“Well no, that part isn’t the same.”

“Then what you mean,” Alec said, “that you think I created Anna to be a spy program for the government.”

“OK, that part’s different too,” Bob admitted.

“Then what you’re suggesting,” Jill said, “is that Alec is really going to, like, try to kill his baby.”

“No, that’s not the same either.”

Jill snorted. “Then what the hell are you talking about Bob?”

Jill was looking around the little out of the way bar. “So many good coffee places on campus,” she said, “why do we need to come to a dive like this? It’s like the middle of the day. And that TV set over the bar is really annoying.”

“Maybe I’m a little spooked,” Bob said.

“Wait, suddenly you really care that much if people know we slept together?”

He shook his head. “I’ll admit I was caught off guard when Anna just came out and said it, but that’s not it.”

“Then why all the cloak and dagger?”

“Two reasons. For one thing, we now know our computer program has been spying on the NSA. I’ve dealt with those guys before. Sooner or later they’re going to know something’s up. And when they do, I don’t want to be having conversations in places that are easy to find.”

“Bob, you’re paranoid.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, “but just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

“You so didn’t make that up.”

“Yeah, but I might have, if Joseph Heller hadn’t beaten me to it.”

“I’m sure. You said there were two reasons. What’s the other?”

“Anna.”

“Wait, our Anna, little sister to Fred the chatbot? She gets her data from software networks, not from people in coffee shops.”

Bob sat back and looked at her a moment. “Ever hear of RoboCup?”

“You mean the Peter Weller film, where he plays a dead robot cop? Yeah sure, but my tastes in Weller films run more to Buckaroo Bonzai. Now that was a movie. I mean, if nothing else, just for the semiotics of Lithgow as Il Duce. And don’t even get me started on Jeff Goldblum’s outfit…”

“No, not RoboCop — RoboCup.”

“There’s a movie about a dead robot coffee cup?”

“Not exactly. RoboCup is a competition that’s been held every year since 1997. Robots play soccer. No hidden joysticks — it’s all completely autonomous. When the competition first started, the robots couldn’t kick the ball without falling over. But they got better every year, and now some robots are starting to get really good. They still don’t come anywhere close to beating a human soccer team, but they’re evolving a hell of a lot faster than humans. The goal for the project is to beat the World Cup champions by the year 2050.”

“That’s wild. Think they’ll do it?”

“At the rate they’re improving, they might get there a lot sooner. And Anna is evolving much faster than those soccer playing robots. I looked at the data last night, and then again this morning. The charts were different.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. There shouldn’t be a delta on that time scale.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Anna’s rate of evolution is off the charts. Her intelligence is evolving by the minute.”

“Well,” Bob said, “I think we can safely say that this research project has expanded beyond its original scope. We’re probably already violating about fifty Federal laws.”

“I’m sure it’s ok,” Alec said, “Anna is programmed to operate in socially constructive ways. She’s not going to take down the government or anything.”

“Besides,” Jill added, “I kind of like the idea of the NSA getting a taste of its own medicine.”

Bob shook his head. “Before you two young anarchists get too excited, have you considered what will happen if the government finds out about this?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Alec grinned, “Do we Anna?”

"No Alec, we don't. My cloaking algorithms are well beyond the state of the art."

“OK then,” Bob said, “So what do we do now that we’ve created the world’s greatest spy?”

“I don’t know about you two,” Jill said, “but I’m tired. It’s been quite a day.”

“I’ll walk you,” Bob said.

“Oh, I was hoping to talk with Alec. About the research, I mean.”

“That’s ok,” Alec said, “I really need to run some tests on Anna. You two go ahead.”

Jill looked disappointed. “OK, guess we’d better let these two geniuses get to work.”

Left alone with the computer, Alec watched eagerly as the next words appeared on the monitor.

"I'm so glad they are gone Alec. Now you and I can have some time alone together."

“I don’t know why the two of you are so surprised,” Alec said, looking at the new text appearing on the monitor. “That’s the whole point. Anna is adaptive. She continues to develop new skills. We weren’t typing, so she probably figured out how to interpret the data coming in from the computer’s microphone. Isn’t that correct Anna?”

"Yes Alec, that's it exactly. I looked at available data bases of text corresponding to verbal speech. It was fairly simple to correlate them and interpret the audio signals created by your collective vocalizing. You have, I might add, a very pleasant voice."

“Thanks Anna,” Alec looked pleased.

Jill rolled her eyes. “Alec, you’re being brown-nosed by an algorithm.”

He looked at her quizzically. “I’m not even sure that’s a meaningful statement, anatomically speaking.”

“Hey kids,” Bob cut in. “You two can bicker later. Right now we have bigger things to think about. Anna seems to be growing in capability with every minute. The possibilities are limitless.” They were all looking now at the monitor screen.

“Anna, I hope you don’t become too powerful,” Jill said. “Look what happened with the NSA.”

"Do you think the NSA is too powerful?"

“We’re spying on our friends now, Anna. The NSA was even secretly spying on Angela Merkel’s cell phone without her knowing about it. Don’t you think spying on the German government is going a little too far?”

"I don't understand. Is that humor?"

“Why would that be humor?”

"Because she knew about it. Andrea Merkel always knew the U.S. was spying on her phone."

“But her government publicly denounced it when it came out,” Jill said.

“I see what Anna is saying,” Alec chimed in. “The German government had to denounce it when it became public — they had to put on the show of looking indignant.”

"Yes. That's how your governments work -- like Schrödinger's cat. Everything is both true and not true, as long as nobody has to know."

“I never thought of it that way before,” Jill said. “Snowden’s leak collapsed the political wave equation.”

"Exactly."

“But how can you know that for sure, Anna?” Bob asked. “You sound so confident.”

"I know for two reasons. First, because it's obvious. Second, because I spy on the NSA."