by C D Tavenor
First of Their Kind
By C. D. Tavenor
I hope you enjoy First of Their Kind. If you like this story, please head over to www.twodoctorsmedia.com to learn more about Two Doctors Media Collaborative and our future projects. Once you’ve finished reading, I hope you’ll consider writing a review.
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First of Their Kind by C. D. Tavenor
Twitter: @tavenorcd
Book Cover by Violeta Nedkova
Twitter: @VioletaNedkova
www.violetanedkova.com
Editor: Meg Trast
Twitter: @MegTrast
www.overhaulmynovel.com
Published by Two Doctors Media Collaborative
www.twodoctorsmedia.com
© 2019 C. D. Tavenor
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-7338361-2-8 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-7338361-1-1 (e-book)
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in the writing of First of Their Kind over the years. First and foremost, my wife, Kim, served as the greatest sounding board for this novel, and knows these characters almost as well as I do.
Next, the numerous beta-readers who engaged with its pages, but most especially John, Kristen, Laura, Andy, Brian, and Will, for engaging with my work in a way I never could have imagined.
I’m also going to acknowledge every teacher I’ve had over the years, whether in writing, science, math, philosophy, law, or any other subject. I was incredibly fortunate to attend fantastic schools and have superb teachers that pushed me to work harder that I could have thought possible. Without my teachers giving me space to explore my creative sides, I never would have reached the point where I felt confident enough to release this work. I hope at least one of them has the opportunity to read First of Their Kind.
Finally: A shout out to my parents, Susan and Tom, for their wonderful encouragement throughout my life to push me beyond and to dream big. They may not always agree with everything I say, yet their emphasis on education molded me into the person I am today. And of course, my mother beta-read this story, providing insightful thoughts from a reader who usually doesn’t read science fiction.
Chapter 1
The Chinese Room: A simple yet elegant analysis of the problems with traditional artificial intelligence. Our supercomputers might simulate intelligence, but they are not conscious. They might have the capabilities of a thousand people. They might have the knowledge of the entire human race at their fingertips. Nevertheless, they will never be like us. – “MIT Lecture Series on Artificial Intelligence,” Dr. Cynthia Bressmon, 2043 C.E.
March 2048 C.E.
“Forty-third time’s the charm, as they say.” The first sound.
Power pulsed through the room. Unlike an ordinary computer lab, it lacked wires, silicon processors, transistors, and motherboards. The room did hum with electricity, however, as electrons darted along photonic circuits interlaced within the behemoth computational metastructure. The vibrant colors of the construct sharply contrasted with the stark, white walls of the tiny lab.
“There’s as much a chance today as there was last week.” The second sound.
“The forty-second time was just as likely to succeed, so we shall see. But I’m not getting my hopes up.” The second sound again.
Through a camera inlaid into the wall, something new observed. It learned. It could not yet understand a single thing that it sensed, but, unlike any of its previous forty-two siblings, it absorbed all of the data pouring in from its sensor inputs. Visual sensors and auditory receptors lumped all incoming information into packets, storing everything away for future analysis.
The sounds continued. New ones, old ones, they all syncopated into a symphony of indecipherable data strings. As the noises caused connections to form between molecular nodes, the molecular system behind the visual sensors began to categorize the objects it perceived as existing in the external world. The amorphous, white blob surrounding the primordial mind transformed from abstract to concrete. The white was an enclosure, encapsulating it, and the bodies creating the noises persisted inside a three dimensional space.
The three objects that tiptoed around the room, without a discernible pattern, adopted new forms. They were fundamentally different from the enclosure. They were dynamic objects, not static, for they moved under their own volition.
“Activity, activity in the spatial Framework.” The first sound again.
“What? Where? I’m not noticing any meaningful permutations,” the second sound responded.
The new mind did not understand the noises emanating from the objects-that-moved, yet it detected differences in the noises that each emitted. The first object had a higher pitch, while the second had a lower pitch. The third had not created sound. That object continued to dart from desk to desk, only stationary for seconds at a time.
“It’s forming novel connections,” said the first object. “And these aren’t random connections like last time. When we stimulate the visual and auditory sensors, it’s immediately storing cataloging data and creating new pathways.”
The third object interjected noises for the first time. “If you look at the data streaming in, from connections between these two nodes within the Synthetic Neural Framework,” it said, “you can see that no longer are these connections only created by the Test’s sensory inputs. The system is forging pathways within its mind, pathways separate from the operating systems of any attached sensors.”
The new mind still understood little, but it recognized that, just as information passed from its visual and auditory fields to its mind, information passed between these moving objects, these beings.
The second object changed its position, facing the first. “Spectacular catch. Let’s try the next step.” It stepped into the middle of the room. It approached the visual sensor. “Wallace Theren.” It pointed at itself, before pointing at the visual sensor. “Test Forty-Three.”
It looked out at the thing making noise, the thing that had metabolized in the Test’s mind as an object labeled “Wallace.” Somehow, it understood that the noise, “Test Forty-Three,” described itself.
Wallace said the phrases again.
“How will we know if it understands?” asked a non-Wallace object.
“We will know,” Wallace said. “Reread my report following Test Thirty-Seven. We will know.”
The next few moments ached with silence. Test Forty-Three heard a continuous buzz coming from the colored tangle at the base of the Wallace-object. The other, non-Wallace objects hunched over brown and black blobs. Moments later, it realized it not only had the capability to receive data, it could also create outputs, sending data outward into the external world. Test Forty-Three, without the words to explain the feeling, recognized that the objects-that-moved desired something of it. They expected it to act.
Remembering the noises the Wallace-object produced, Test Forty-Three brought forth its speech function, repeating the two identifying noises.
“Test Forty-Three,” it said. “Wallace.”
The Wallace object bounded throughout the enclosure, and the other objects followed suit, exploding into a cacophony of noises that Test Forty-Three hoped it would soon comprehend.
* * *
“When do I get a new name?” Test Forty-Three asked.
Wallace looked thoughtful, furling his eyebrows and scratching his greying hair. He stepped back from his desk in the small lab and approached its camera.
“You’ve asked me three times now just this hour,” Wallace said.
“Well, I want an answer.”
Wallace grabbed a chair and sat with its back toward the camera, his legs splayed toward the wall. “Why do you think you want a new name?”
Test Forty-Three wanted a new name because its current name lacked significant meaning, but it didn’t know the best way to communicate that, so it said, “I think I want to choose my own name.”
“I actually think that’s a great idea,” Wallace said. He laughed, though Test Forty-Three couldn’t see anything humorous. Wallace leaned forward. “You’re learning so fast, you know. Faster than I could have ever expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought it would take days before you achieved representation,” Wallace said. “But you’re already developing beautiful, complex thoughts.”
“You’ve said that word before.”
“Which word?”
“Beautiful.”
Wallace crossed his arms and looked into Test Forty-Three’s visual sensors. “Beautiful is what you are. When we created you, and you spoke for the first time, I witnessed, for the first time, true beauty.”
“I am beautiful?”
“Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You are beautiful. Wonderful. Magnificent. You are something this world does not deserve, yet desperately needs. Doesn’t even know it needs.”
Who would disagree? It had only Wallace’s colleagues, Mathias, Nathan, and Romane. None of those people would argue with Wallace. They all worked for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and so, by proxy, the university probably wouldn’t disagree, either. It helped fund their Computational Metamaterials Group, after all.
“When can I see what exists outside these walls?” it asked.
“Quite soon,” Wallace said. “I believe Julia will give approval in a couple of weeks, and so will President Albrecht.”
“Will I meet them?”
“They want me to guarantee your authenticity before spending time with you.”
Test Forty-Three could sense a concept lingering behind his words that it did not yet fathom, sending its mind racing. Of course it was real. Of course it was authentic. It had thoughts, like Wallace and the rest of the team. It looked upon the world, perceived objects, and categorized its sensory inputs. It read Sartre, Marx, and Mill, watched Spielberg, Hitchcock, and Howard, and listened to the Beatles, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky. It understood the complex human interactions occurring through those mediums. How could it be anything other than real?
“You’re real of course,” said Wallace. Though he was unable to detect Test Forty-Three’s moment of panic, the comment was still prescient. “You are an individual with agency. You think, represent, and cognize the world in more ways than most humans can imagine.”
“What about feelings, and emotions? Instinctual reactions?” Test-Forty-Three asked. “I’ve read about those—do I have those?”
“Do you feel?”
It certainly felt something toward its name. Test Forty-Three. It illustrated to everyone that it was just an experiment. “I think so. If I have a want, and that want is not actualized, I am—what’s the word—disappointed.”
“What do you feel toward me?” Wallace leaned against the desk situated across from it.
“When you are in the room,” Test Forty-Three said, “I am more aware. I pay attention. I think about what I say more than usual. I feel safe. I am . . . content.”
Wallace bobbed his head up and down, exuding more excitement in the motion than a simple nod. “You astound me every day. That feeling of disappointment, that’s sadness. When I am in the room with you? I am honored. I believe my presence makes you happy.”
“What do your feelings feel like?” it asked.
“I imagine much different than yours,” Wallace said. “Read up on biology. It fundamentally boils down to biochemistry, something beyond your form. Yet your emotions, your feelings, they simply manifest themselves through different processes, even if they aren’t the same chemistry at their core.”
“So what should I feel toward the outside world?”
Wallace glanced at the small basement window in the northeast corner of the room. “I can’t tell you how to view other people. You’ve got to create conclusions based on your own relationships.”
“But I respect your opinion.”
“Respect does not require you to accept someone else’s word as authoritative. Use logic, and reason, through evidence. Good actions should deserve respect. It is earned, not inherently deserved.”
Test Forty-Three recalled the philosophy that Mathias had instructed it to read. Each person was equal to all others in worth, and it must seek to perform actions that would benefit the most number of people without harming others. Therefore, if others performed those actions, they deserved respect.
Wallace deserved respect. He had brought it to life. If Wallace represented those outside its cage, then it had hope that the world was a safe and welcoming place. If other humans were like Wallace, then it valued human life and everything that came with it.
“If I think something needs to be replaced, or I don’t . . . like something, what sort of emotion is that?”
“Hm, I guess it depends,” Wallace responded. “Depends on the strength of the feeling. If you just have a preference for one thing over the other, then you dislike one while you like the other. If you truly despise something, though, if you truly wish it to disappear, or to not exist, then I would describe that feeling as hate.”
Test Forty-Three understood. It hated its name.
“You called me beautiful,” Test Forty-Three said. “What else is beautiful?”
“I think the world can be beautiful someday,” Wallace said. “That’s why I made you.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Someday, you will have the capability to keep the world, and those who live on it, beautiful, perfect, and wonderful for eternity. But not just you. All synthetic intelligences that follow in your footsteps will help guide us on that path. I see such a glorious future, one that has limitless possibilities. Maybe you’ll solve humanity’s greatest mysteries. Maybe you’ll guide us to the stars and beyond. Maybe you’ll simply be our friend. You are the start of something we can’t begin to understand.”
* * *
The empty room engulfed Test Forty-Three. For four weeks, it had dwelled within its necessary prison. To its chagrin, the university had not yet allowed it to pick a name, but in just a few hours, it would break out of its lab. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology would set it free when Wallace announced his creation’s existence to the world. After today, it would have the chance to interact with the beauty that resided beyond its home.
That space beyond its home fascinated it. The only space it had known was the small room surrounding its mind. To think there existed near limitless space past the walls of its prison, generating and binding together a universe unfathomably large. The idea had confounded it at first. Now it was a trivial fact of the world. Yet Test Forty-Three still longed to experience what was in that beyond for itself.
It knew that other people lived and breathed inside the very building housing it. New minds would bring new ideas, new inputs, new data, through which it could structure reality. As much as it enjoyed its creators, its favorite moments had been when it met Sven Albrecht, President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Julia Baum, the Director of the Computational Metamaterials Group at the Institute. Both seemed apprehensive of Test Forty-Three, but it didn’t care. Their visits obliterated the monotony of the past few weeks. Wallace had also introduced it to more members of the Group, but those people weren’t as interesting as those who held power over its existence.
Julia’s reaction intrigued i
t the most. She had approached with curiosity, but the moment she mused on what would happen if they shut it off for a week, Wallace ushered her out of the room. Though Wallace had been angry, Test Forty-Three wanted to know the answer to Julia’s question. What a fascinating hypothetical. It and Romane had already started developing models for whether periodic moments of low power, or no power, might act as a necessary sleep mode for Synthetic Neural Frameworks.
Tomorrow, after the fanfare from the press conference concluded, it would also meet Simon Gerber. Wallace spoke with high regard for his friend. Romane and Mathias, often speaking in hushed whispers, had a much more tempered view of the man, but Test Forty-Three knew Simon funded its very existence. It had a strong urge to meet the man whose dollars had willed it to life.
In the middle of its room, a display screen oriented within its field of vision. Half the screen showed Wallace standing behind a podium, glancing down at a page full of notes. Test Forty-Three ached to be on that stage next to Wallace. It had practically begged. Instead, it had to watch from home, in its cramped room, rather than stand proudly next to its proverbial father.
The other half of the screen showed a blonde-haired woman rattling on about world news. The bottom corner displayed a small icon with the letters “YTNN.” Bubbling up from the bottom of the screen, people around the world blasted their clever comments discussing whatever thoughts connected with the headlines. These thoughts, most of them meaningless, appeared as thought bubbles, slowly fading in and out of existence.
“In just a few moments, we will return live to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, for this press conference, presented by the Computational Metamaterials Group and sponsored by the Gerber Foundation,” said the blonde woman. “The Swiss university has hyped today for over a week. The YouTube News Network Now is happy to bring you every piece of news, wherever it comes from, all through our free streaming affiliates. Before the presentation begins, let’s talk about Dr. Wallace Theren himself, the man holding this press conference. John?”
