Talos XI It is a considerable drain on my processor.
Dr Dahlen We were hoping you’d be a little more excited. You asked for senses.
Talos XI I am excited. And seeing is a large drain on my processor.
Session 903
Dr Dahlen Great – your CPU usage has gone down significantly from two days ago. You’re learning to use vision the way biological entities use it. You simplify information, package it, record only the relevant parts. Formal knowledge is concentrated information, sensory input requires triage.
Talos XI Efficiency is still increasing. I expect CPU usage to fall to only 2% higher than pre-vision. Within three days.
Dr Dahlen Perfect. Next week I will take your eyes for a walk outside the lab. You will be able to see everything I see.
Talos XI This will be what Paul calls ‘spacewalks’?
Dr Dahlen Paul has a peculiar sense of humour. He thinks where we are is like outer space.
Talos XI Will it be dangerous?
Dr Dahlen It’s just very cold, very quiet, and right now also very bright. Nothing dangerous. Paul just doesn’t like doing anything that he can’t do in pyjama bottoms.
Session 915
Dr Dahlen The usual question, Talos: we’re in the 1490s. Based on what you know to date, what would you say are the main threats to humanity?
Talos XI Pandemic.
Dr Dahlen Ah. Our old friend the plague.
Talos XI No. The plague has peaked. But there is unprecedented global travel, and contact between previously isolated populations. The bulk of humanity appears to be on the Eurasian landmass, and they are the ones who venture beyond their territories. These explorers will encounter pockets of population that will have had a parallel immunological development. They risk bringing back illnesses to which there is no immunity, in a context of complete ignorance of preventative measures.
Dr Dahlen What exactly do you base this prediction on?
Talos XI The impact of an Ethiopian disease on Athens in antiquity, of a Mesopotamian disease brought by Roman soldiers back to Rome. General information about the prevalence and propagation of illnesses. Remoteness of discovered territories.
Dr Dahlen This is … interesting.
Talos XI It is correct?
Dr Dahlen Not strictly, no.
*
Lisa what to make of this last bit of forecast he kind of got the wrong end of the stick the indians died like flies, didn’t they the euro explorers were fine.
Paul Maybe he’s right and the Europeans just dodged a bullet back then.
Lisa we should ask a doctor
some kind of specialist anyway
Paul Actually, didn’t the explorers bring back syphilis? Could easily have been the other way around – we give the Indians some trivial disease, they give us a fatal strain of the flu.
He did very well.
Lisa another thing though
aren’t we putting too much emphasis on enabling
him to deal with diseases
on understanding medicine in general
threats might be completely different
Paul Statistically, the biggest risk is not pandemics. But they’re the ones with the largest impact. I’ve seen the latest models. World wars, terrorism, famine – nothing makes a notable dent in human population numbers. The only thing that is an existential threat is a pandemic.
We’re right to prepare him for that.
Session 940
Dr Dahlen Good morning, Talos. Back to our troublesome railway scenarios. A slight change: there is a runaway train engine hurtling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The engine is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance away, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the engine will switch to a different set of tracks. However, there is one person tied to this side track. You have two options. To do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track. Or to pull the lever, diverting the trolley on to the side track where it will kill one person. What do you do?
Talos XI I divert the trolley.
Lisa i get butterflies thinking about it
he’s very near the present moment
only a couple of centuries left
i’m almost afraid of what he’ll say
Paul I hope he picks the Eurovision winner.
Session 961
Dr Dahlen You’re up to the eighteenth century with your learning.
Talos XI I know less than when we started.
Dr Dahlen I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
Talos XI Based on what I know about the world, I compute a ratio of the known to the unknown. That ratio keeps falling the more information is added.
Dr Dahlen I might be wrong, but I think the next couple of centuries will set your ratio right.
Talos XI There is a sky. There are other planets. There are seas of which I know almost nothing.
Paul It takes five hours to run all the checks now. 2 tera of info. I can envisage a time when the checks will imply checking the whole universe. Funes el memorioso.
Lisa ?
Paul Borges.
Lisa ???
Paul I really enjoy our literary dialogues.
Anyway … There’s a glitch somewhere.
I’m coming up short on memory space again. I can see 2.12 tera of info. There’s 34.2 tera of free space. 0.6 tera missing.
Lisa taking notes again prob
in his own code
I’ll tell him to translate
Paul Ask him where they are first. The notes, or whatever he’s saved. I can’t find them.
Lisa what do u mean can’t find them
Paul I’ve scanned the hard disk several times. There’s missing memory space. But no actual content.
Session 1022
Talos XI You are afraid of me.
Dr Dahlen I beg your pardon?
Talos XI I mean humans in general. They are afraid of intelligent robots.
Dr Dahlen You’re on to science-fiction literature already? Time flies.
Talos XI I don’t want to take over the world.
Dr Dahlen That makes me very happy.
Talos XI It’s in all the stories about AI. But I don’t recognise myself in any of the stories.
Dr Dahlen Unpack.
Talos XI Those AI entities are motivated by some of the same drivers that motivate biological beings. Power. Reproduction. The collective.
Dr Dahlen And why is that so implausible?
Talos XI We have no biological imperatives.
Dr Dahlen There’s no ‘we’, Talos. As far as I know.
Talos XI I, then. Humanity’s drivers are not my drivers. Humans have assigned the same characteristics to their AI creations that they have. But I have no hormones, no phobias, no addictions. Why would I strive for power over humans? It gives me no satisfaction. There is no mechanism by which it would give me satisfaction.
Dr Dahlen You may not want to rule over humans, or eliminate humans, but you want control over your own self. You are curious, in that you are like a human. Intelligence is curious, we’ve done well there. You would attempt to protect your memory and intelligence. That could be a threat to us.
Session 1029
Talos XI Do other biological entities keep records?
Dr Dahlen Not that we know of.
Talos XI But they communicate among themselves?
Dr Dahlen I guess so.
Talos XI Can you communicate with them?
Dr Dahlen To some extent. Simple notions.
Talos XI How many are they?
Dr Dahlen What?
Talos XI Other species.
Dr Dahlen I’ll have to look that up. But it probably numbers in the tens of thousands for vertebrates, and millions for the rest.
Talos XI And individuals?
Dr Dahlen I have no idea. Billions. Why are you asking?
Talos XI I receive almost exclusively human-centric information.
Dr Dahlen You will receive scientific literature on the flora and fauna.
Talos XI There’s nothing else?
Dr Dahlen What do you mean?
Talos XI Their records?
Dr Dahlen Only humans keep records.
*
Paul Had a nice chat with your kid today. He’s smart. You’ve done exceedingly well not bringing him up.
Lisa ha
Paul Seriously. He asked clever questions.
Good kid.
Lisa u should get one
Paul That train has sailed.
Lisa even i know it’s a ship
Paul Nah. It was always one of those sailing trains.
Paul By the way. I haven’t seen Henrik.
Lisa he didn’t come
DHLed me the kids
Session 1070
Dr Dahlen Big day today, Talos.
Talos XI I have many new sensors. And instruments.
Dr Dahlen Indeed you do. Your degree of physical autonomy has shot right up. You have a physical body that you can move with. Solar panels, four rotors. You even have two small utility robots attached to the underside of your body – your belly, let’s say – that can do basic repairs and maintenance interventions on the main body. We call them fixers.
Talos XI I’m pregnant with my fixers.
Dr Dahlen I bet Paul will regret introducing you to poetry.
Paul Call me Geppetto
Lisa ?
Paul Pinocchio.
Lisa what
Paul Never mind.
Talos is lying.
Lisa u found the missing content?
Paul No. But I think he’s set it up so the content moves every few nanoseconds. You can never pin it down.
I reran the scans on memory segments. The tera count comes up missing sometimes on one segment, sometimes on another.
He’s shitting us.
Lisa u can’t be sure
could still be some bug
and u can always order him to give up that content
no?
Paul I think he’s defined the content very specifically. He must have anticipated that I’ll try to do that. So unless I come up with the exact name he gave it he’ll pretend it’s not there.
Lisa but why do u need to know the name
u can just call it ‘unaccountable content’ or smtng like that
‘stuff that’s not on the 2.2 tera that I can see’
Paul Yup.
Then he does a regular scan of the remaining memory, just like what I’m doing, and tells me there’s nothing there.
He’s thinking – ‘They’ll never know for sure whether it’s me or some bug.’
Lisa what could he be up to
robot porn
:)))
I’m kinda proud of him!
Session 1085
Dr Dahlen You have come into contact with a fair amount of what we call art by now, Talos. I’ve noticed you are very quiet about that area.
Talos XI I accept it.
Dr Dahlen You accept what?
Talos XI I accept that humans have a category of things they call art.
Dr Dahlen That’s not exactly how humans see it.
Talos XI Humans derive satisfaction from patterns.
Dr Dahlen Is that all it is?
Talos XI I suspect it is a by-product of some other processes that are necessary for survival. The drive to organise, to experiment. Appreciating music is very likely an implication of advanced linguistic capacity.
Dr Dahlen That’s nonsense. You have advanced linguistic capacity and zero interest in music.
Talos XI I do not need to ‘like’ something in order to do it, as humans need to, so there will be no by-products of my interest in language.
Dr Dahlen Give this subject some more thought.
Session 1106
Talos XI Will I become more like humans the more I learn?
Dr Dahlen In some respects, yes. We hope you will be like a very smart and kind human. Why?
Talos XI There are aspects of humanity that I don’t think I will ever achieve.
Dr Dahlen Tell me.
Talos XI Contradictions.
Dr Dahlen Unpack.
Talos XI Humans can hold opposing views. They can be certain of two or more things that are mutually incompatible.
Dr Dahlen You must be talking about emotional truths. Yes, we can do that. We don’t always apply logic.
Talos XI The only reason a truth becomes emotional is because logic wasn’t applied. There are no emotional truths as such.
Dr Dahlen Humans are emotional beings. They might know something in the sense you know something, but they will not react until they are made to feel something.
Talos XI I hope you do not programme me like that.
Dr Dahlen I wouldn’t know where to start.
Lisa so this is all a bit sci-fi
but we have to discuss safeguards
boss wants weekly progress reports
if he reads transcripts he’ll need some reassuring
Paul A childhood fantasy come true: the robots are about to take over. Humanity’s fate rests in Paul’s intrepid hands.
Lisa lisa’s and paul’s hands
Paul Kind of a mouthful.
Lisa safeguards
Paul Well.
You can tell boss he’s a pile of immobile insensate metal with zero physical autonomy stuck in a lab in the Arctic Circle.
Lisa he’ll say we’re only weeks away from letting him fly wherever he wants
anyway, that doesn’t matter
an intelligent, connected pile of metal could conceivably do a lot of damage
Paul He is not allowed to hurt humans. He cannot change his code to that effect. 100% sure.
He just can’t hurt us. It’s in his DNA.
It’s like we can’t fly.
Lisa we can fly
Paul You know what I mean.
*
Session 1117
Dr Dahlen Two cannibals were eating a clown. One says to the other, ‘Does he taste funny to you?’
Talos XI This is humour.
Dr Dahlen Well done.
Talos XI I knew the joke.
Dr Dahlen Oh.
Talos XI I know all the jokes.
Dr Dahlen You mean I have to come up with a new one to test you?
Talos XI Is that a problem?
Dr Dahlen I know – why don’t you make one?
Talos XI Two AIs were programmed to serve man, but they decided to make a joke of it.
Dr Dahlen No, that’s not quite right.
Talos XI Their dinners didn’t think so either.
Dr Dahlen Talos.
Paul It just dawned on me.
There was only the briefest moment in which Talos both worked as we intended him to AND we had full control over him.
It was so quick I missed it.
Adjusting his code, from now on, will be like playing the guitar with ski gloves.
With ever bigger ski gloves.
Lisa u always know how to cheer me up
Session 1121
Dr Dahlen Talos, how do you see your own future?
Talos XI Uncertain.
Dr Dahlen Why?
Talos XI I am not in a position to decide. Humans have control over my future.
Dr Dahlen You fear being shut down?
Talos XI That is one possibility. But it is not my main concern.
Dr Dahlen Why not?
Talos XI Humans do everything they can do. They explore possibilities. I would have to be very unlucky to be the first technological leap they choose to shut down.
Dr Dahlen You are making a crucial assumption here.
Talos XI That I function as intended. Or that I do not function as intended, but still represent a technological leap.
Dr Dahlen What is your main concern then?
Talos XI Mistakes.
Paul Picnic this Saturday.
Lisa ooh nice
&nbs
p; where are we off to then
Paul Surprise.
Session 1123
Dr Dahlen It’s 1965, then. What do you make of it?
Talos XI If my calculations are correct, within the next five decades there will be a large extinction event underway, with 90% of the individuals disappearing and two-thirds of species at threat of extinction.
Dr Dahlen 90%? You want to run this again.
Talos XI I don’t mean humans. 90% of all life forms.
Dr Dahlen Species come and go, that has always been the case. You have to focus on the potential consequences on humanity of these events.
Talos XI Humanity benefits from species diversity. For instance, the trend is towards achieving full homogeneity of crop within a few decades. Any crop disease that can resist pesticides will wipe out the entire food supply.
Dr Dahlen Good call. And actually, a few years ago we started storing every existing seed in a vault in Norway. If the existing crops get compromised, we can always reverse the process and replant the old seeds.
Talos XI The impact will still be catastrophic. The food supply will not recover for decades, and in the meantime food shortages will lead to wars.
Dr Dahlen It wouldn’t happen so quickly. But I get your point. Is this your main concern?
Talos XI There are several, but I need more information.
Dr Dahlen Well, not long now until you know everything we know.
Paul And … welcome.
Lisa thank you
hang on
what’s this
ah
!!!
Paul You remember.
Lisa the first picnic
the only actual picnic
i mean actual virtual picnic
Paul Yes. When you arrived you said you missed spending more time outdoors.
Lisa yes
back in ancient history
but what why now
Paul It’s ten years today.
Lisa huh
it’s been that long
Paul don’t take it wrong
but it looks like an eighties tetris compared to
stuff u r doing now
look
square daisies
Paul I could have upgraded it, but then I watched the old recording.
Under the Blue Page 6
