“I’m eighty-five.”
“And your date of birth?”
“May twenty-ninth, 1960.”
“And how were you born?”
“I—I beg your pardon?”
“Was it a normal birth? A cesarean section? Or some other procedure?”
“A normal birth, at least by the standards of the time. My mother was given heavy anesthetic, labor was induced, and my father wasn’t allowed in the delivery room.” Karen looked directly at the jury box, wanting to score a point right off the bat. “We’ve come a long way since then.”
“A normal birth,” said Lopez. “Through the dilated birth canal, out into the light of day, a gentle slap on the bottom—I imagine that was still in vogue back then.”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“A first cry.”
“Yes.”
“And, of course, a severing of the umbilical cord.”
“That’s right.”
“The umbilical cord, through which nutrients had been passed from your mother into the developing embryo, correct?”
“Yes.”
“A cord whose removal leaves a scar, something we call the navel, no?”
“That’s correct.”
“And those scars come in two forms—commonly called innies and outies, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“And which kind do you have, Ms. Bessarian?”
“Objection!” said Deshawn. “Relevance!”
“Mr. Draper raised the question of biometrics,” said Lopez, spreading her arms. “Surely I’m allowed to explore all her biometrics, not just the ones that Mr. Draper can do parlor tricks with.”
The judge’s shoehorn face bobbed up and down. “Overruled.”
“Ms. Bessarian,” said Lopez, “which is it—and innie or an outie?”
“An innie.”
“May we see it?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
Karen held her head up high. “Because it would be pointless, and—as I’m sure the judge would agree—hardly befitting the dignity of this court. You’re hoping I have no belly button at all, so that you can make some facile point. But, of course I do; my body is anatomically correct. And so, with my belly exposed, you’d fall back on trying to make some lesser point about how my navel isn’t really made of scar tissue but rather is just a sculpted indentation. Let me save you the bother: I concede that indeed it is sculpted. But given that navels don’t do anything, that’s hardly significant. Mine is as good as anyone else’s.” She looked directly at the jury box again, and smiled a winning smile. “It even collects lint.”
The jurors, and even the judge, laughed. “Move along,” said Herrington.
“Very well,” said Lopez, sounding somewhat chastened. “Your honor, may I introduce the defendant’s first exhibit, a hardcopy of the operating manual for the transaction terminal Mr. Draper introduced earlier?”
“Mr. Draper?” asked Judge Herrington.
“No objection.”
“The exhibit is admitted,” said the judge.
“Thank you,” said Lopez. She crossed the well, approached the witness stand, and handed the manual to Karen. “As you can see, I’ve bookmarked a certain page. Would you open the manual to that page?”
Karen did so.
“And will you read the highlighted passage?” asked Lopez.
Karen cleared her throat—a mechanically unnecessary bit of theater, then: “‘This scanner uses biometric data to ensure the security of transactions. Both a fingerprint scan and a retinal scan are performed to verify the identity of the user. No two human beings have identical fingerprints, nor do any two individuals share the same retinal patterns. By measuring physical characteristics of both, the security of the transaction is assured.’ So you see—”
“Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?” said Lopez.
“Yes. And the point is that the terminal did—”
“Forgive me, Ms. Bessarian, you can only reply to the questions I pose.” Lopez paused. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t wish to be rude. You had a comment you wanted to add?”
“Well, just that the scanner did recognize me as Karen Bessarian.”
“Yes, it did. In key biometric areas, you are apparently identical—or at least as close as is necessary—to the original Karen Bessarian.”
“That’s right.”
“Now, if it pleases the court, I’d like to try something. Your honor, defendant’s exhibits two, three, and four. Number two is an artificial hand, and number three is an artificial eyeball, both—as, number four, the certificate of provenance, attests—produced by Morrell GmbH of Dusseldorf, a leading manufacturer of prosthetic body parts. Indeed, Morrell is the company Immortex employs to make many of the replacement components it uses.”
There were about fifteen minutes of objections and arguments before the judge accepted the exhibits. Finally, we were back on track, and Lopez handed the artificial hand to Karen. “Would you please press the artificial hand’s thumb against the terminal’s scanning plate?”
Karen reluctantly did so. One green light went on—I used to hate using those things, because I could never tell if the light was green or red.
She then handed Karen the artificial eyeball. “And would you hold this up to the terminal’s lens?”
Karen did that, too, and a second green LED came to life.
“Now, Ms. Bessarian, would you be so kind as to read to the court what the display says?” She held out the device.
Karen looked at it. “It …”
“Yes, Ms. Bessarian?”
“It says, ‘Identity confirmed: Bessarian, Karen C.’”
“Thank you, Ms. Bessarian.” She took the device out of Karen’s limp hand and tapped some keys with slow deliberation. When she was done, she handed the device back to Karen.
“Now, I’d like you to do for me what you did for Mr. Draper: transfer ten dollars into my own bank account. Of course, to do that, we’ll need your PIN number.”
Karen frowned. “It’s just a PIN,” she said.
Lopez looked momentarily confused. “Sorry?”
“PIN stands for ‘Personal Identification Number.’ Only people who work for the Department of Redundancy Department call it a PIN number.”
Judge Herrington’s little mouth smiled at this.
“Fine,” said Lopez. “What we need now is your PIN, so that we can complete the transaction.”
Karen folded her arms across her chest. “And I don’t believe the court can make me divulge that.”
“No, no, of course not. Privacy is important. May I?” Lopez held out her hand for the terminal, and Karen gave it to her. She stabbed out some numbers on the unit, then handed it back to Karen. “Would you read what it says?”
Karen’s plastic face wasn’t quite as pliable as one made out of flesh was, but I could see the consternation. “It says, ‘PIN OK.’”
“Well, what do you know!” declared Lopez. “Without using your fingerprint, or your retinal pattern, or any knowledge known solely to you, we’ve managed to access your account, haven’t we?”
Karen said nothing.
“Haven’t we, Ms. Bessarian?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, in that case, why don’t we go ahead and transfer ten dollars into my account, just as you did for Mr. Draper?”
“I’d rather not,” said Karen.
“What?” said Lopez. “Oh, I see. Yes, of course, you’re right. That’s totally unfair. After all, Mr. Draper gave you ten dollars first. So, I suppose I should also give you a Reagan.” She reached into her jacket pocket again, brought out her hand, and proffered a coin.
Karen crossed her arms in front of her chest, refusing to take it.
“Ah, well,” said Lopez, peeling back the gold foil, revealing the embossed chocolate disk inside. She popped it in her mouth, and chewed. “This one’s a fake, anyway.”
CHAPTER 25
A gilded cage is still a
cage.
I was fine now, with decades of life ahead of me. And I didn’t want to spend it here at High Eden.
And—I was fine, wasn’t I? I mean, Chandragupta’s technique had supposedly cured me. But …
But my head was still throbbing. It came and it went, thank God; I couldn’t take it if it was like this all the time, but …
But nothing was helping. Not for long, not for good.
And I didn’t trust the doctors here. I mean, look at what had happened to poor Karen! Code Blue my ass …
And yet—
And yet, I had to do something. I wasn’t a machine, a robot. I wasn’t like that other me, that doppelgänger, free from aches and pains. My head hurt. When it was happening, it hurt so fucking much.
I left my suite, bouncing along in the lunar gravity, heading for the hospital.
Our next witness was Andrew Porter, who had come down from Toronto, joining the half-a-dozen Immortex suits already here. “Dr. Porter,” said Deshawn, “what is your educational background?”
The witness stand was a little small for someone of Porter’s height, but he scrunched his legs sideways. “I have a Ph.D. in cognitive science from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Master’s degrees in both Electrical Engineering Science and Computer Studies from CalTech.”
“Have you had any academic appointments?”
Porter’s eyebrows were working, as always. “Several. Most recently I was a senior research fellow with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
“Now, I rather enjoyed Ms. Lopez’s coin trick earlier,” said Deshawn. “But I understand you have a real gold medallion, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I do. Or, at least, I’m part of the team it belongs to.”
“Did you bring it with you? May we see it?”
“Certainly.”
Porter pulled a large case out of his jacket pocket, and opened it.
“Plaintiff’s three, your honor,” said Deshawn.
There was the usual back-and-forth, then the exhibit was admitted. Deshawn held the medallion up to a camera, showing first one side then the other; the images were projected on the wall screen behind Porter. One side showed a three-quarters view of a young man with delicate features, and was inscribed with the italic quotation, “Can Machines Think?” and the name Alan M. Turing. The other side showed a bearded man with glasses and the name Hugh G. Loebner. Both sides were labeled “Loebner Prize” in letters following the curving edge of the disk.
“How did you come by this?” asked Deshawn.
“It was awarded to us for being the first group ever to pass the Turing Test.”
“And how did you do that?”
“We precisely copied a human mind—that of one Seymour Wainwright, also formerly of MIT—into an artificial brain.”
“And do you continue to work in this area?”
“I do.”
“Who is your current employer?”
“I work for Immortex.”
“In what capacity?”
“I’m the senior scientist. My exact job title is Director, Reinstantiation Technologies.”
Deshawn nodded. “And how would you describe what it is you do in your job?”
“I oversee all aspects of the process of transferring personhood from a biological mind into a nanogel matrix.”
“Nanogel matrix being the material you fashion artificial brains out of?” said Deshawn.
“Correct.”
“So, you are one of the developers of the Mindscan process that Immortex uses to transfer consciousness, and you continue to oversee the transference work that Immortex does today, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” said Deshawn, “can you explain for us how it is that the human brain gives rise to consciousness?”
Porter shook his long head. “No.”
Judge Herrington frowned. “Dr. Porter, you are required to answer. I don’t want to hear any nonsense about trade secrets, or—”
Porter tried to swivel in his chair, but couldn’t really manage it. “Not at all, your honor. I can’t answer the question because I don’t know what the answer is. No one does, in my opinion.”
“Let me get this straight, Dr. Porter,” asked Deshawn. “You don’t know how consciousness works.”
“That’s right.”
“But nonetheless you can replicate it?” said Deshawn.
Porter nodded. “And that’s all I can do.”
“How do you mean?”
Porter did a good job of looking as though he was trying to decide where to begin, although, of course, we had rehearsed his testimony over and over again. “For over a century now, computer programmers have been trying to duplicate the human mind. Some thought it was a matter of getting the right algorithms, some thought it was a matter of mathematically simulating neural nets, some thought it had something to do with quantum computing. None succeeded. Oh, there are lots of computers around that can do very clever things, but no one has ever built one from scratch that is self-aware in the way you and I are, Mr. Draper. Not once, for instance, has a manufactured computer spontaneously said, ‘Please don’t turn me off.’ Never has a computer spontaneously mused upon the meaning of life. Never has a computer written a bestselling novel. We thought we’d be able to make machines do all those things, but, so far, we can’t.” He looked at the jury, then back at Deshawn. “But the transfers of biological minds that we have produced can do all those things, and more. They are capable of every mental feat that other humans can perform.”
“You say other humans?” asked Deshawn. “You consider the copies to be human?”
“Absolutely. As that medallion proves, they totally, completely, and infallibly pass the Turing Test: there is no question you can ask them that they don’t answer indistinguishably from how other humans answer. They are people.”
“And are they conscious?”
“Absolutely. As conscious as you or I. Indeed, although the voltages differ, the electrical signature of a copied brain and an original brain are the same on properly calibrated EEGs.”
“But—forgive me, doctor, I don’t mean to be dense—but if you don’t know what causes consciousness, how can you reproduce it? How do you know what to reproduce?”
Porter nodded. “Consider it like this: I don’t know anything about music. When I was in school, they thought I’d be a menace to every hearing person if they gave me a musical instrument to play, so I was assigned to the vocal class, along with all the other tone-deaf people. So, I know nothing at all about what makes Beethoven’s Fifth a great piece of music. But as an engineer, if you brought me a CD recording of it, and asked me to copy it onto a MemWafer, no problem—I could do that. I don’t look for the ‘musical’ stuff on the CD; I don’t look for the ‘genius’ on the CD. I just copy everything to the new medium. And that’s exactly what we do when we’re transferring consciousness.”
“But, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, isn’t it possible you’ve missed something key?”
“No. Most psychologists would say that even if all we did was transfer a map of the interconnections between neurons, and the various levels of neurotransmitters, we’d have captured everything meaningful in the brain. And we certainly do that.”
“It sounds like an enormous amount of data is involved,” said Deshawn.
“It’s not as much as you might think,” replied Porter. “We’ve found fractal resonances in a lot of it—that means that the same patterns are repeated over and over again at different levels of resolution. The data would compress very nicely if one were inclined to keep a record of it.” I sat up in my chair as he said this, but, since I was behind Karen, there was no way for me to catch her eye.
“And so by copying this information, you’ve copied consciousness as well?” asked Deshawn. “Simply by copying the neural networks and neurotransmitter levels?”
“Well, some argue that those things aren
’t the true physiological correlates of consciousness—that is, that they aren’t in and of themselves the physical indications of conscious thought—and they point to paramecia as proof.”
“Paramecia?” repeated Deshawn.
“Yes. Um, your honor, if I may … ?”
Herrington nodded, and Porter got up out of the witness stand, looking relieved to no longer be squashed. He pulled a small remote control from his jacket’s other pocket, and images started appearing on the wall screen.
“A paramecium,” said Porter, “is a kind of protozoan—a one-cell lifeform. Paramecia don’t have a nervous system, since nervous systems are made up of specialized nerve cells, and obviously a one-celled lifeform can’t have any specialized cells. And yet, without neurons or neurotransmitters, a paramecium can learn. Not much, I grant you—but it can learn. You can teach it that if it comes to a divided pathway, going left will always result in a mild shock and going right will always result in getting food.” The images on the wall illustrated this. “Somehow, the paramecium learns this despite having no nervous system at all. And that at least suggests the possibility that neural nets are not actually what’s responsible for our awareness.”
“Well, then,” said Deshawn, “how does awareness come about?”
Different visuals appeared on the screen.
“One argument,” said Porter, “is that the microtubules that make up the cytoskeleton of a cell are where the awareness, the infinitesimal consciousness, of a paramecium—or a human—resides. Microtubules are like hollowed-out cobs of Indian corn: they have an empty center, but are covered with kernels. And, just like in Indian corn, the kernels can form patterns. Some argue that those patterns move and replicate like cellular automata, and—”
“Cellular automata?” said Deshawn.
More visuals, like animated crossword-puzzle boards.
“Yes, indeed,” said Porter. “Consider the microtubule’s surface to be a grid of squares rolled into a tube. Imagine some of the squares are black, and some are white—that’s the Indian corn appearance I was referring to a moment ago. Imagine, too, that the squares respond to simple rules, such as this: if you’re a black square, and at least three of the eight other squares surrounding you are also black, then you should turn white.” The visual display illustrated this.
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