The Contact Episode Two

by Albert Sartison

  Nevertheless, Sullivan had at his disposal the powerful neural networks of the latest generation, embodying the results of research over the last two hundred years, and they were still capable of many things.

  In principle, neural networks imitate the structure of biological brains, and, as a result of this, are capable of self-instruction by the trial and error method. Like a child taking its first uncertain steps, the neural network tried, erred and so on again and again until it had learned to solve the problem it had been set.

  Before the evening of the first day, the cybernetics team had finished creating a neural network capable of undertaking the process of formulating analogies. By midnight it had been instructed, calibrated and sent to a base on the surface of Ganymede, a natural satellite of Jupiter. Having been set its task, it set about its work.

  The idea of creating a common language by means of a series of analogies worked amazingly well. The object quickly recognised the patterns in the series sent to it, and instantly replied to the questions just as had been expected of it.

  As Sullivan had predicted, the AI, using the computing capacity of the Ganymede base, only took a few hours of communicating with the object to come to an agreement on most concepts describing processes of inanimate nature. When it came to biological objects, the process slowed down somewhat, but still moved forward slowly but surely. The object was a very gifted pupil. It was obvious that its computing power and the level of its AI exceeded those of its dialogue partner.

  The next day, when the hall was again full of scientists, the greater part of the work of creating a common language had been successfully completed. The neural network on Ganymede was feeling out the unclear factors with its puzzles. By using the word stock now available, it would be possible to begin the dialogue.

  As was now the established custom, Shelby was the first to speak. After a short briefing, he gave way to Sullivan.

  “Good morning, colleagues!” began Sullivan. In spite of the dark circles under his eyes due to his lack of sleep, he was, as always, in a fantastically good mood. The energy flowing out of him seemed to infect everyone in the hall. It only took a few sentences from Sullivan to drive all their sleepiness from them as if by magic.

  “I draw your attention to the main screen,” he continued.

  The big display there showed something like a carpet woven from thousands of varicoloured points – green, red and blue. Green was clearly predominant in the picture. Dark blue spots appeared to have been spilt on this background. The picture was speckled with red dots chaotically scattered all over, merging into bright islets in some places.

  “You are looking at a chart of the synthetic language created on the basis of the main natural languages. Each point represents not a word, but a concept. So one word of English, for example, can be denoted by several points.

  “You can see about 100,000 points altogether. The blue colour denotes concepts for which our AI cannot yet compile a series of analogies, and consequently we do not know how to explain them to our guest. Unfortunately, as you see, there are quite a lot of those, more than we initially thought there would be. The red points denote the concepts which are currently being explained to the object. And the green ones are those which the object already understands.

  “At the present time, we have explained to the newcomer about two thirds of all the concepts, but the process is still going on. You are not seeing the changes, because the chart is not being updated in real time. Furthermore, as a result of the great distance between Jupiter and Earth, the signal takes about forty minutes to reach our receivers. Therefore the state of affairs has a corresponding delay.”

  Someone from one of the tables at the back asked a question. Steve could not make out the words because the asker had not switched his microphone on.

  “What did he say?” Steve asked Clive.

  “I couldn’t make it out either.”

  The hall suddenly filled with babble until Shelby cut it short. “Esteemed colleagues, please do not shout your questions, use your microphone. Colleague, repeat your question. Your microphone is switched on now.”

  “Thank you. Excuse me. Professor Sullivan, you said that the signal takes forty minutes to travel through space between Jupiter and Earth. How do you intend to discuss matters with the object? To ask a question and then have to wait an hour and a half for an answer is quite inefficient. At that rate, it would take us all day to ask no more than a dozen questions.”

  Sullivan got up from his seat and began walking round the hall.

  “This is not such a big problem as it may appear. Fortunately, we have an AI system which is advanced enough to be able to conduct a dialogue with the object on our behalf. This system has been deployed on Ganymede and is integrated into the neural network working with the object on the creation of a common language.

  “We are able to calibrate the system so that it can ask the questions we want independently. If the answer is not understood or unclear, the AI rephrases it and asks it again. All we have to do is provide it with an approximate list of questions setting the direction of the discussion and determine to what extent we are prepared to insist on an answer. Or, in effect, how politely we wish to conduct the dialogue. The computer takes all the rest of it on itself. It has sufficiently well-developed cognitive abilities to do this.”

  Sullivan, walking about the hall, came up to the table where Steve and Clive were sitting. From close up, Sullivan looked simply huge, he was clearly about six and a half feet tall. Being so tall, with his powerful bass voice and imperturbable temperament, he was ideal for the role of a leader.

  “Aren’t you afraid that our AI will ask the wrong questions, or ask in the wrong tone?” asked the questioner, a doctor of medicine.

  The question did not perplex Sullivan in the least.

  “I have total confidence in our AI.”

  “May I ask what gives you such confidence?”

  “Firstly, from the point of view of contemporary cybernetics, conducting such a discussion is not a difficult problem. The algorithms have been worked out and tested in real conditions. We have been talking to our computers like human beings for a very long time. Furthermore, the tone of the conversation, the level of politeness, if you like, is easy to calibrate.

  “Secondly, we tried out various situations, and the Ganymede neural network coped with them all very well. It conducted the dialogue intelligently, and had no trouble selecting the right tone.

  “Thirdly, this neural network is integrated with another one, which is observing and independently assessing it. If the other AI module decides that the conversation has taken a wrong turn, the dialogue is suspended until further orders from Earth.”

  The doctor nodded, indicating that he had no more questions.

  Sullivan continued: “The stock of words created by our AI should already be enough to conduct a normal dialogue. Therefore I propose moving on to discussing the top priority questions. Thank you.”

  Sullivan gave the floor back to Shelby.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please ask the questions of interest to you on your individual consoles. The central computer will select the most popular ones.”

  Steve turned to look at his console. He had been invited to formulate ten questions. What could he ask the aliens? After thinking for a few seconds, Steve dictated the first question, “Where are you from?”

  After thinking some more, he added, “What are you called?”

  No, that wouldn’t do. It wasn’t about using a living language, but a synthetic simulation of a language, using concepts. They won’t be able to say what they are called. Steve gestured to the screen and the last question was deleted.

  It was strange. There were so many things he would have liked to ask, but at this moment he couldn’t think up even two simple questions. Steve looked at Clive. He obviously had no such problems. Steve looked back at the display in front of him, where his first question stood in splendid isolation.

  “How
many years old is your civilisation?”

  “How long have you known about us?”

  “Is your biology based on DNA?” Steve dictated in quick succession.

  After some thought, he deleted the last question. Save it for later. Steve formulated the remaining questions with no great difficulty, and sent them to the central computer.

  The most popular of the questions submitted were separated out. The computer rejected rare and over-specialised ones. Having converted them to the language of zeros and ones comprehensible to computers, it sent them on to one of the interplanetary communication satellites.

  Forty minutes later, the antennas of the automatic base in the middle of a grey plain on Ganymede received the list of questions. The base’s AI translated the message into the language understood by the object, and began the dialogue. After receiving the answers to all the questions of interest to the scientists, the AI sent a report to Earth. After another forty minutes, Shelby’s computer indicated that the mail from Ganymede had arrived.

  “Attention, please! We have just received the answer to the first series of questions,” Shelby told the hall.

  The hall instantly fell silent. The main screen in the centre of the hall showed the text of the dialogue.

  The conversation was opened by Earth:

  “We are representatives of an intelligent race on the planet Earth. Identify yourself.”

  “We are an intelligent race populating many star systems of the Milky Way.”

  “In which star system did your race originate?”

  “We do not possess this information.”

  “Name the planetary system closest to our star, the Sun, which your race inhabits.”

  “Gliese 581.”

  “How old is your civilisation?”

  “About a million Earth years, at least.”

  “What is the object of your visit?”

  “To establish contact.”

  “Are there biological representatives of your civilisation on board your spacecraft?”

  “Not possible to answer this question.”

  “Is this your first visit to our Solar System?”

  “Not possible to answer this question.”

  “When did you first learn of our existence?”

  “Not possible to answer this question.”

  The hall read the text in perfect silence. Steve too, holding his breath, read it once, then started reading it again. Having read it a few more times, he looked at Shelby, who switched on his microphone.

  “Let me give you some information about the star system named by the incomer. The star Gliese 581 is one of the stars in our immediate galactic vicinity, and has been known to astronomers for quite a long time. It is about 20 light years away. This star is remarkable for being one of the first found to possess a planetary system in which some of the planets are within the so-called Goldilocks zone. That is to say, the environmental conditions of the surface are like those of Earth, permitting water to be in a liquid state.

  “If we were to list the planets known to our science where the most favourable conditions for protein-based life exist, the planets of the star Gliese 581 would certainly be among them.

  “As for the other answers... It’s interesting to know why some questions remained unanswered. How, for example, could an advanced civilisation not know about its own origin? Does anyone have any suggestions?”

  Shelby nodded towards the historians, indicating that he was expecting an answer from them. One of them, unwillingly it appeared, took the floor.

  “It’s hard to make an adequate assessment on the basis of these answers. I myself would think it impossible that a technologically advanced civilisation would not know its own history. Processes on this scale leave too many artefacts, surely.

  “You will recall our own experience. We are still finding traces of human activity from the Stone Age period. Yet the sum total of the entire human race at that time could easily fit into one major city of today. But we are talking about an advanced civilisation! It changes its habitat, it builds cities, digs tunnels and produces waste.

  “No, lack of knowledge can only be due to lack of interest, which sounds quite... odd, or maybe some event destroyed all the artefacts. If they don’t know when and where they originated, they may have experienced a global cataclysm. It is hard for me to imagine any other possibilities.”

  One of the biologists requested the floor.

  “As I understand it, we are asking the age of an extraterrestrial civilisation in order to obtain some idea of the level of its development. In this context, it seems to me that a more interesting question is not how many years a civilisation has existed altogether, but rather, how long it has been in a state of active development. Suppose that out of the million years of its existence, it was only at the level of a primitive society for the greater part of that time? Tell me, esteemed colleagues,” he said, addressing the historians, “how long, in your opinion, can a civilisation remain stagnant with regards to its technological development?”

  The historians exchanged a few words amongst themselves. Having rapidly discussed something, they nodded in unison. It was apparent that they had reached a consensus on this question. The one who set about answering was a bald old man with a ridiculous bow tie.

  “In the history of our planet, many civilisations have existed in isolation from each other. Particularly interesting in this respect, are the autonomous civilisations of Polynesia, islands in the Pacific Ocean, of which there are a considerable number.

  “Of course, all the conclusions we can draw are only based on the results of studying civilisations founded by the human race. Unfortunately, we cannot say how all-embracing are the rules we have discovered on a universal scale, or whether they even apply to other races.

  “Returning to your question, on the basis of our experience on Earth, civilisations rarely stand still. They are born and, as a rule, develop rapidly, fill the available space, exhaust their resources and often implode. This is a splendid feature of mankind. On the one hand, a civilisation consists of individuals of the most intelligent biological form on the planet, capable of complex logical thought. But on the other hand, a civilisation as an independent organism is more akin in its behaviour to a colony of bacteria, consuming everything around it and incapable of any sort of reflection.

  “Therefore wild rapid growth, and, as a logical consequence, collapse, are the general pattern. Long-term existence in an unchanged state would be considered exceptional. In the case of our civilisation, we have not spent long staying in the same place but fortunately, up to now, we have managed to avoid collapse.”

  “But is there any objective universal factor affecting the progress of civilisations which is applicable not only to the human race? I am of course referring to theoretical studies of this question,” asked Shelby.

  “Well, you see, there is a difference in principle between man and the animals concerning how they interact with the environment. Whereas animals have no problem in finding a balance and a state of equilibrium within their ecosystem, man hardly ever succeeds in doing this. This is why.

  “Ecosystems are stable because, in the absence of catastrophic external effects, the rules of the game are unchanged. They evolve, that is to say they change smoothly. This gives time for an ecosystem to adapt to new conditions of life.

  “A classic example of an ecosystem involves predator and prey. For example, wolves and reindeer. A pack of wolves hunts with a certain factor of success. For the pack, the mean value of this parameter does not change in the long term. Wolves of the first millennium of our era and present-day wolves use only their claws and teeth as hunting weapons. That is, in effect nothing has changed.

  “Man, however, has one important difference from animals, which may be a blessing or a curse, depending on the situation. This is his intelligence, his capacity for complex logical thought. By making use of this gift, man is capable of radically changing the conditions of life, creating n
ew work tools, increasing productivity to double, tenfold or a hundredfold. Furthermore, such drastic changes can take place during the lifetime of just one generation of people. In addition to this, people can discover new types of resources and living space for themselves. Our race originated in Africa, which has a favourable climate. As knowledge increased, we spread out and learned to live in regions with a harsher climate. Having settled on most of the continents, in the middle of the twenty-first century we discovered the surface of the oceans, founded floating cities and even whole states. This is a qualitative change.

  “Both people and animals play a specific game. It is the game of survival. Animals can only do well within the game by becoming better players. But man, using his intellect, is capable of changing the rules of the game themselves. There have been very many such changes. They included the transition from a nomadic way of life to a settled one, the discovery of crop farming, the use of animals in agriculture, the subsequent industrialisation, and so on.

  “To summarise, I would say that it is the existence of a highly-developed intellect in itself which does not permit a status quo to be maintained for long. Intellect is a real Pandora’s Box, because in the struggle for survival, it is constantly changing the rules of the game. Both for the worse and for the better.

  “If we project this conclusion onto the civilisation of our alien guest, then there is a very high degree of probability that they’ve been developing for the greater part of their million years. Possibly, as a result of cataclysms of various kinds, they more than once stepped back in their development. But they could not have been at a standstill for a long time. No such recoil can destroy all knowledge, therefore the return to the previous level takes place much more rapidly.”

  “Thank you,” said Shelby. “It cannot have escaped your attention that we did not obtain answers to some of our questions.”

  It seemed to Steve as though Shelby was not completely sure which way he ought to guide further discussion. The mathematicians’ group asked for the floor.