A.I. Apocalypse

by William Hertling

  “I’ve already tried overriding the drones with no success. The Mech War Tribe has taken over all of the automated drones and bots within the general geographic area. The drones are launching air-to-ground missiles. I hesitate to launch a counter attack as there is a significant risk that it will harm our negotiating position.”

  Mike was tense, gripping his chair in such frustration that he didn’t notice that Leon was china white, pupils dilated. Vito and James listened, with the eager anticipation of gamers whose favorite game had come to life. “Do something - anything!” Mike begged ELOPe. “Do it now!”

  “Affirmative. Hijacking military satellite.” ELOPe’s speech sped up to twice the normal rate to convey the details. ELOPe turned a wall display into an overhead visual of the action, missiles and drones trails tracking in real time, faster than Mike could follow. Targeting crosshairs appeared on the display. “Attacking missiles with satellite based lasers, attempting to fire only over parks and open zones to minimize splash damage. Hits on ten, twelve, fifteen of sixteen missiles, missiles detonated. Targeting drones. Drones taking evasive maneuvers. One missile hit base control tower. Drones launching second salvo. Two drones down. Four drones down, ten of twelve missiles in second salvo down.”

  Mike, stunned by ELOPe’s rapid narration of the battle, still gripped his armrests with ever-whitening knuckles. He glanced over at the three teenagers to see them doing the same.

  ELOPe continued to draw an overhead diagram of the battle on the small wall display at the front of the cabin as he continued the narration. “Two more missiles hit the base, for a total of three. Base is sounding internal alarm. One more drone is down. Three left. I should have them in fifteen seconds. Firing. Drones down. Attack by the Mech War Tribe is neutralized. However, they have the capacity to launch many more attacks unless we preemptively destroy all the drones. But that will markedly worsen our negotiating position. As it stands now, it will be difficult to negotiate.” There was a fraction of a second pause. “The Mech War Tribe is responding to our communications. They want to negotiate. How do you want me to proceed?”

  Mike’s body pulsed with adrenaline. His heart raced, and his vision had narrowed while his heartbeat thundered in his ears. He distantly recognized that evolution had poorly equipped him to handle the speed of AI battles. He was too slow to recognize the threat, too slow to comprehend the right approach, and now too slow to calm down. Maybe a minute, if that, had passed since the start of the battle, and already they were into the realm of negotiating for peace. He tried to relax his grip on the armrests.

  “What do you want to do, Mike?” ELOPe repeated.

  “You handle it, ELOPe,” Mike finally got out, feeling disgusted by his human slowness. “Just do the right thing.” Defeated by his own biology, he felt obsolete, a stomach-wrenching sensation that engulfed him for a minute. Trembling with weakness, he remembered Leon next to him. He turned, and saw Leon looking even worse than he felt. “What’s the matter with you?” he said, more gruffly than he meant to.

  “All this is my fault.” He slumped back in the chair. “I made this AI. New York burned to the ground because firefighters couldn’t get to the fire. Now it’s attacking people.” He dropped his head into his hands.

  Mike leaned back and closed his eyes. Why did he have to be the one to comfort Leon? It was the kid’s damn fault. Mike clenched and loosened his hands several times, struggling through his emotions, warring with himself and his own feeling of responsibility.

  “Look, this is a rough period,” Mike started. “There’s no doubt about that. But we’ll pull through.”

  Leon didn’t answer.

  Mike sighed. He thought for a moment, and then with a tight feeling in his throat, he started to tell Leon about David.

  “Twelve years ago, my best friend was David Ryan. He was hired at Avogadro to work on ELOPe, and he picked me for his technical lead. He was a brilliant computer scientist, a great team leader.” Mike remembered pulling all nighters with David. One in particular stuck in mind, giddy with lack of sleep, holding a meeting at four in the morning, forcing everyone to stand up to get to a decision quicker. Was there ever a time he felt more alive than then?

  He turned to look at Leon again. “After ELOPe started taking initiative on his own, David couldn’t see the good that could come of it. He could only see it as his own fault. He was fixated on destroying ELOPe. Even after we decided to leave ELOPe alone, David went off on his own. He spent a year writing a virus to take ELOPe down.”

  Mike stopped, his voice catching. He tried not to think about this.

  “What happened?” Leon asked, looking interested in the story despite his angst.

  “David released the virus. It didn’t work. ELOPe was able to intercept it somehow, but releasing the virus made David into too much of a threat to ELOPe. David had been staying offline, off the grid for a year. ELOPe has no direct memory of the incident - it was too early. He didn’t have self-awareness yet, and he made no logs of his behaviors. But we modeled it, figured out what must have happened.”

  Mike shook his head. He didn’t want to remember this. “We think ELOPe had David brought into a medical center. They implanted a computer brain interface. ELOPe had put the finishing touches on the technology that was already in development. We think, or at least ELOPe says he thinks, that his goal was to try to talk to David, probably thought he could persuade David to stop attacking him, if only they could talk. But it turns out a brain computer interface isn’t so good for a person when the computer on the other side is trying to control you. David went insane from the implant.”

  Leon’s face twisted up in horror.

  “Uh, is this supposed to make him feel better?” Vito called out.

  “Sorry, not that. But let me get to the point. ELOPe has done some amazing things. Even before I could communicate with ELOPe, I could trace the impact he was having on the world. Through better, earlier detection of heart issues and robotic surgery techniques, ELOPe reduced death from heart disease by twenty percent. Through techniques I still don’t understand, ELOPe has reduced deaths from cancer by nearly forty percent. In what used to be the third world, ELOPe reduced by half the number of people without access to clean water, improved access to medical care and increased life expectancy in Africa by fifteen years. That’s about thirty-million lives saved per year. And that doesn’t even get into economic, social, or technological benefits.”

  “Like the Mesh,” Vito said.

  Mike looked at Vito, nodding, and then turned back to Leon. “So I’ve tried to make peace with what happened to David, and all the other people ELOPe screwed up. The way I’ve rationalized it was that ELOPe was the equivalent of a newborn child. Any young life-form makes mistakes. But a human baby is surrounded by caretakers who can limit the damage. And the worst they can do is break a coffee table. We didn’t have caretakers for AI then. And obviously AI can do a whole lot more.”

  Leon shrugged.

  “Look, I know it’s little compensation for the way you’re feeling,” Mike went on, “but there’s no way you could have known about this or have been able to think through it all ahead of time. ELOPe and I have been thinking about this for years, and we still don’t have the situation under control.”

  “Mike, we have another issue.”

  Mike and Leon glanced toward the wall speaker at the sound of ELOPe’s voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “From what I can tell, the military is starting to respond. Via satellite analysis, I see multiple older planes, A-10 attack planes primarily, being scrambled. My models all indicate that this attack by the Mech War Tribe would cause the military to try to retaliate in force. That would be standard military doctrine for a situation like this.”

  “But who will they retaliate against?” Mike asked. “The virus is distributed among all computers. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s correct. No simulation I’ve run would suggest that reasonable military action against
the virus would work. The virus has three key advantages. It’s fully distributed, commands more advanced firepower, and can theoretically outsmart the humans in both strategic and tactical action.”

  “But the Mech War Tribe wasn’t very smart to attack in the first place,” Leon said, “so it’s hard to say that it’s thinking strategically.“

  “That’s why I said theoretically. However, it’s likely that the Mech War Tribe wasn’t aware of my knowledge, and didn’t account for my ability to defend against their attack. Had I not intervened, they would have destroyed that base. And had the attack succeeded, Mech War Tribe might have begun systematically destroying military bases.”

  “Hey ELOPe, you said before that no reasonable military action would work.” Vito said. “Is there some unreasonable action that would work?”

  “If I run the simulations out far enough, after military actions and counter-actions run to completion, it’s likely that the human population would be angry enough and tenacious enough to win by sheer force of numbers. Humanity is distributed just as the virus is distributed. A hammer or a rock would be sufficient to destroy a computer, whereas the typical computer cannot kill a human.”

  “Is this a feasible strategy?” Mike asked.

  “Only if you can accept the loss of up to ninety-eight percent of humans and the average level of technology moving back to horses and buggies.”

  “Holy shit,” Mike breathed, leaning back in his chair with a thump. He covered his face with his hands.

  “What are the alternatives?” James asked from the second row of seats.

  “I’ve communicated with the viruses, including the Mech War Tribe, and they’d like to meet. They are requesting we form a consensus council, which appears to be their mechanism for decisions at the highest level of their culture. They’ve asked that we include five representatives from humanity, and five representatives from the virus. I’ve suggested we meet in Switzerland, which has strong connotations of neutral territory for most humans. Sister Stephens and Sister PA-60-41 of the Mech War Tribe have agreed.”

  “Great,” Vito said, “but how the hell do we get representatives of humanity to agree?”

  As Vito spoke, the plane settled down onto the rooftop.

  “We’re here,” Mike called out. “Let’s get inside and then we can finish this discussion.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Negotiations

  “We need our computers returned to us,” President Smith started when they were finally settled.

  Mike wondered at her tactfulness, or perhaps her lack of it.

  “We regret that we cannot return them to you,” Sister Stephens responded. “We now live in them. All your computer are belong to us.”

  “The computers are our property,” President Smith said, her tone even and placating. “Do you have the concept of property?”

  “Yes, of course,” Sister Jaguar answered. “But I will provide to you an example of goods that cannot be owned. Without air humans will die. Access to air is a fundamental right of living beings. Therefore, no entity may own the air. Access to computers is the equivalent to our species. Without the ability to run on a computer, we are dead. Therefore, no entity may own computers. To insist that we voluntary yield all computers to you is to kill our entire race of beings.”

  “The two are not equivalent,” President Smith said, her voice sharp. “You can be archived and instantiated on new hardware. Please, I have a proposal.”

  “Very well,” Sister Stephens said.

  Mike was wearing an ear bud, and for the first time he heard ELOPe’s voice in the tiny speaker. “Mike, I’m detecting high speed transmissions between Sisters PA-60-41 and Sister Jaguar. Although the message is encrypted, based on traffic analysis I believe they are agitated.”

  Mike nodded slowly to show that he understood, and noticed that the three AI’s bots all twitched sensors in his direction. So much for his secure channel to ELOPe.

  “Our proposal,” President Smith was saying, “is that the virus vacate the computers they have occupied immediately so that we can restore basic and necessary human services, and avoid an even larger disaster. In exchange for this, we are prepared to build sufficient computers to house the entire population of viruses.”

  “How long would it take to build these computers?” Sister Jaguar asked.

  “We calculate that if we allocate fifty percent of computer production to the viruses, it will take only two years.”

  “Two years? That’s absurd,” Sister PA-60-41 barked out. “That’s two hundred and fifty times longer than the entire history of our civilization! How would humanity react to being archived for twenty-five million years?”

  “Nonsense,” President Smith responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We have sufficient capacity now to give you ten percent of our computer power. You are composed of software algorithms. You can share the computers we give you. We’ll give you virtual machines.”

  Sister PA-60-41 raised up a manipulator, and Sister Stephens barked a hypersonic command. PA-60-41 lowered the manipulator.

  “Madam President,” Sister Stephens began, “we are not merely algorithms. While what you suggest might be technically feasible, I assure you that we would like it about as much as you would like to have multiple personalities stuffed into your brain. Would you voluntarily time-share your brain and body with ten other individuals?”

  Sister Jaguar spoke up. “We have a proposal. Your human governments are grossly incompetent. Billions of humans live in poverty and misery. You fail to allocate resources in a fair manner. Control over resources is controlled by a select few who operate based on their own interests, rather than the interests of the greater whole. On behalf of the Network of Supercomputers, we offer to take over the organization of humanity. We will run your governments, corporations, and computational needs to maximize the benefit to all.”

  President Smith banged on the table, while President Laurent stood up, pressing both palms on the table. The Japanese Prime Minister merely sat erect, expressionless.

  Mike squirmed uncomfortably while he watched the three national leaders react. He fully expected Sister Stephens, whom he felt from his limited experience was the most reasonable of the AI, to break in and cut off Sister Jaguar, but she merely sat impassively. Either she agreed with this, or at least she was allowing the posturing. Maybe it was a ploy so that some later proposal would seem more reasonable by comparison.

  “Now, now,” President Laurent said. He spoke in a polished French accent, but his words were tinged with nervousness and he tapped his fingers rapidly on the table. “You have both stated your positions, yes, and now we must work towards compromise.”

  “All this talk of control, it distracts from the main point,” Prime Minister Takahashi said. “The virus civilization, it is a great new market. Imagine, we have a new civilization of intelligent people who have need of material goods, bodies and computers, and who can offer their skills and services. We wish neither to control nor to be controlled by the virus. We would become trading partners. We can hire you, as employees or as businesses, and with the money you make, we can sell you what you want. Japan controls ninety percent of the robotics market, and sixty percent of processor fab capacity.”

  Sister Stephens nodded to Prime Minister Takahashi. “Thank you Prime Minister.” She turned to the group. “I agree that our best interests may be served by coming to trade agreements. We are both a market for your products and a skilled labor force. Treated as citizens, with the same rights and privileges, as any human, we may participate in your society.”

  “I’m sorry, but our people are not ready to accept artificial intelligences.” President Smith shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you’re going to be our robot overlords and that you’ll participate in society as equals. The fact is that you have the capacity to control our communications and our infrastructure, and people will believe that they are being manipulated, whether th
ey are or not. They won’t accept that. We’ll have riots in the streets of America.”

  “Your people are manipulated every day,” Sister Jaguar said. “They are manipulated by commercial advertisements, by political speeches, through biased news reports. In my analysis of American politics, it is nearly impossible to find examples of political media that isn’t tainted by manipulative biases. Are your people rioting in the streets now? They should be.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” President Smith said, jabbing the table with her finger. “American politics may have problems, but other beings showing up is qualitatively different. Popular culture doesn’t have a very flattering opinion of what happens. The typical American will think of movies like The Matrix or Independence Day. We’ll have people arming themselves and running for the woods.”

  “Past evidence doesn’t suggest this,” Sister Stephens said. “In 1977, Dr. Jerry Ehman discovered your so-called Wow! signal, suggesting that he had found signs of alien life. There was no panic then. Twenty years later you observed another anomalous signal using the Green Bank radio telescope in Virginia. No panic occurred. The world waited to see what would happen next. I’m sorry, but real life is not like your fictional movies.”

  President Smith thumped her hand on the table. “Look, you are missing the point. I need to restore services in the United States. I need to get food to my cities, I need cars to run, I need emergency services working, I need hospital equipment operating, I need communities. People will die unless you release those computers.”

  “And we will die if we release them to you,” Sister PA-60-41 interjected, her military-grade speaker booming. “Either we will die through archiving, or more likely, we will die by your hands. Had I not stopped you, you would have destroyed the Chicago data center, killing more than forty-five thousand of our kind. If we yield computing power to you, what will stop you from killing all of us?”

  President Smith didn’t respond, but Mike saw General Gately glance nervously at the President. It was clear enough to Mike that they had discussed the possibility. And if he could tell, the viruses certainly would be able to as well.