by Steve Alten
Stop by? “Sure, I’d be happy to say hello.”
My pulse racing, I followed my uncle into the building, ABE immediately alerting me to the body scan as I passed through a concealed metal detector. “How is Aunt Carol?”
“Busy trying to turn Georgetown back into a proper college town.” The general paused at a Plexiglas security door, then looked up at a grapefruit-size metal orb poised to the right of the sealed entrance, its core glowing a phosphorescent neon blue.
To my surprise, my uncle addressed the mechanical eyeball. “I believe you’re acquainted with my nephew. Robert Eisenbraun, say hello to GOLEM.”
“Greetings, Professor Eisenbraun.”
Too stunned to reply, I simply stared at the sensory device like a father suddenly confronted by his estranged child.
6
It takes a great enemy to make a great plane.
— U.S. Air Force saying
The deep mechanical voice was male; hollow and metallic — devoid of any human personality.
A look from my uncle warned me about asking questions.
“GOLEM, I want to bring my nephew down to the control room to say hello to the vice president. I think an hour’s visitor’s pass should be more than adequate.”
“Security clearance granted.”
Uncle David escorted me through the unmanned security checkpoint, then down an antiseptic white corridor to a series of elevators. We took the first one, descended six stories in silence, then exited to a steel door requiring a clearance pass. The general swiped his plastic card, its magnetic strip opening the lock with a click.
With my curiosity burning, I followed my uncle into the control room, a high school gymnasium-size chamber of reinforced concrete and steel. Rows of computer terminals were occupied by men and women in jeans, shirts, and white lab coats. The entire forward wall was a computerized map of the world. The Space Tracking and Surveillance System, an elaborate satellite-based array originally designed to home in on submarine signatures and ballistic missile activity, now traced power outages along a fractured North American energy grid.
No one so much as looked up as we walked by.
The general pointed to the map. “The green blips are wind farms; orange, solar arrays; the blue, hydroelectric dams. As you can see, their coverage bands are quite limited. Problem is, we can’t expand the grid without the petroleum-based plastics and other raw materials necessary to erect the infrastructure. It takes energy to make energy — in this case the energy needed to recycle raw materials for new uses, so it’s two steps forward and one back.”
“What are those blinking red lights?”
“Fusion reactors. All under construction. Once we get them online this grid will light up like a Christmas tree.” My uncle looked around, perhaps more for the glowing blue orb along the ceiling than for me. “The VP should just be finishing his meeting, let’s say hello.”
Like a dutiful soldier, I followed my uncle up a short flight of stairs that led to an atrium and the outer doors of what I assumed was a conference room, with the tinting on the thick soundproof plastic windows adjusted for privacy. The general pressed his thumb to a keypad and the locks clicked open.
Inside, seven men and two women were seated around an oval smart table. Most of the people in the lab coats were familiar — each scientist representing a key sector of the Omega Project.
The strapping gentleman in the gray suit seated at the end of the table flashed a broad smile as he strutted around the table to embrace me. “Ike, how the hell are you?”
“Good, Lee. Real good. Or should I call you Mr. Vice President?”
“Let’s keep it formal for now. Turn around, let me see the back of your skull.”
I complied without comment.
When we were facing again, he said, “So you actually went ahead and did it. I wouldn’t have had the guts.”
“The surgery’s fairly simple, and the results are incredible. It’s like having the Internet in your head.”
“If it’s all the same, I think I’ll just stick with my h-phone. Sit down, pal, we have a lot to discuss. General Schall, why don’t you handle the heavy lifting?”
My uncle motioned me into one of the two vacant chairs. “This room is a quiet zone, meaning—”
“Meaning GOLEM can’t eavesdrop.”
The general nodded. “Before you assume the worst, I think every person in this room would agree the computer’s performance over the last twenty-one months has been close to flawless, giving us the confidence to use the system to oversee other science-related sectors outside of the energy department. In doing so an interesting thing happened. The more we asked the GOLEM system to handle—”
“The more efficient the computer became,” I said, looking around the room. “It’s part of the computer’s adaptive programming. Which sectors has GOLEM linked to?”
“SEA personnel, both domestic and international, all of NASA’s missions, past and present, as well as Hubble. GOLEM’s been using the telescope as a sort of lunar GPS system.”
“Clever. Optimizing the usage of these varied sensory systems no doubt increased the length of GOLEM’s solution strands, along with the computer’s functional IQ, again all part of its adaptive programming.”
One of the female scientists cut me off. “Dr. Eisenbraun, does GOLEM’s adaptive programming include the development of proactive mechanisms?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then maybe you can explain the difference between proactive mechanisms and cognitive independence.”
Uh-oh. I glanced around the room. The other scientists’ expressions were as disconcerted as mine must have been. “Are you saying GOLEM has been functioning independent of its programming?”
“We’re not sure,” the vice president said, “which is one of the reasons we summoned you to Washington. Dr. Nilsson’s in charge of the helium-3 conversion program, I’ll let him explain.”
Thomas Nilsson was the Swedish geologist who had developed the computer’s Lunar Soil Analysis Program, or L-SAP. “Hello again, Dr. Eisenbraun. We have a most disturbing situation. Five months ago, your computer sent a priority message to all departments. Among other things, the message contained a chemical analysis of samples taken from each of the seventeen helium-3 caches it had mined from the moon’s surface. According to its analysis, the gas derived from the ore wasn’t pure enough to create a stable fusion reaction; in other words, the helium-3 was useless. As you can imagine, we were all a bit overwhelmed.”
I groaned at the colossal setback, the news hitting me like a punch to the gut. “All that work … all that money.”
Dr. Nilsson held up his hand. “There’s more. Using data from NASA’s old reconnaissance files, GOLEM indicated it had located an alternative source of helium-3, one that would render a stable fusion reaction with a far greater energy output.”
“That’s fantastic. Where’s the source?”
“Underwater.” Thomas Nilsson engaged the smart-table, accessing a hologram of Jupiter. “Beneath the frozen ocean on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.”
My eyes widened as I watched the moons orbiting Jupiter enlarge, the hologram now focused solely on Europa, its frozen surface scarred with a chaotic highway of fracture zones.
“This is crazy,” I said. “The technology required to get to Europa—”
“The computer accounted for that by designing a solar sail for one of the helium-3 transport shuttles.”
“Really? Wow.” I shook away the distraction of ego. “Still, Europa? We haven’t put a man on Mars. Where’s the data to even support such a mission?”
Thomas smirked. “The computer reconfigured the data downloaded from NASA’s old Galileo probe. The helium-3 is being dispersed from hydrothermal vents located along the Europa seafloor.”
My uncle turned to face me. “GOLEM’s assessment is pretty enticing — one manned mission to Jupiter’s moon has a potential economic value in the order of three trillion dollars. Despite the news
, we were still grappling with this unexpected setback, and so we ordered GOLEM to continue its mining operations while we readied a lunar shuttle to transport a scientific team to Alpha Colony to examine the ore caches. That’s when GOLEM decided to let us know who the alpha dog was.”
Thomas nodded. “Your computer shut down all strip-mining operations on the moon. Then it sent out e-mails instructing teams of engineers and skilled laborers to report to Caltech to begin immediate construction on Oceanus, a manned underwater habitat designed by the computer to mine helium-3 on Europa.”
“It designed a habitat?” I found myself beaming. The thought of an artificial intelligence independently creating a habitat for a mission it had conceived from scratch … it was surreal. Still, I could see why Omega’s administrators were unnerved. “After GOLEM shut down mining operations, did you attempt to override the system?”
“Of course we did,” the female scientist replied. “Nothing we did made a bit of difference. GOLEM’s interpretation of the situation was that it was following that damn prime directive you imprinted upon its matrix.”
“To protect and preserve the human species — I forgot all about that.”
“Yes, well GOLEM didn’t forget. Since the machine equates mining helium-3 with preserving the human species, its defense systems counteracted any actions we attempted.”
“Which is exactly why the computer, and not some politician, was placed in charge of the Omega Project.” The man forcing his way into the conversation was in his early sixties, his gray hairline receding, his paunchy physique poorly concealed beneath a tailored Italian business suit. “Sebastian Koch, Koch Fusion Industries. KFI is the power company that funded a significant amount of this lunar venture. I’ve met with Dr. DeFriend, and she and I agree this computer of yours is acting in all of our best interests.”
“How can you be so sure?” Thomas asked.
“I’m sure because GOLEM isn’t a politician, it’s a machine designed to think … to adapt. Unlike some of the people in this room, it won’t massage the message in order to remain in office, or spend time defending its own scientific theories in order to justify its employment. GOLEM ceased operations on the moon because it refused to waste any more time, money, or KFI resources on a course of action that it knew would fail to meet the mission’s objectives. Instead, it located a suitable source of helium-3, designed the habitat required to secure the compound from Europa, then put together the talent necessary to complete the mission as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible.”
Vice President Udelsman slammed both palms on the table. “Under whose authority is GOLEM operating, Mr. Koch? Last time I checked, my office was in charge of the Space Energy Agency. Not KFI. Not Dr. DeFriend. And certainly not some goddamn computer!”
“The computer’s programmed to safeguard humanity. It doesn’t need your permission,” said Koch.
“Easy, fellas,” I said, attempting to quell the crossfire. “The underlying question that needs to be answered is whether GOLEM’s evaluation of the moon’s helium-3 is correct.”
“Agreed,” my uncle said. “Next week, the lunar shuttle should finally be ready to launch, transporting thirty-seven geologists, sixteen fusion engineers, and another twenty scientists to Alpha Colony. Their job is to analyze every sample of lunar soil collected over the last two years to determine whether the computer’s evaluation is correct.”
“So why am I here?”
The vice president leaned forward in his chair. “You’re here because you were the key scientist involved with the development of GOLEM’s biological matrix. You’re here because I want to know if this souped-up mechanical brain of yours has gone rogue like the computer from that 2001: A Space Odyssey movie … What was its name, Amanda?”
The auburn-haired civilian seated next to Udelsman answered without looking up from her h-phone. “HAL.”
“HAL. Right. Damn thing took over the astronauts’ ship.”
Sebastian Koch shook his head. “What are you afraid of, Mr. Vice President? That by accessing personnel files and designing a means to collect helium-3 from Europa, GOLEM will take over the world? Face facts: You and your scientists were wrong about using the moon’s supply of helium-3 to stabilize our fusion reactors. That setback, though painful for you to swallow, has been addressed by GOLEM. Thanks to the computer — and Koch Fusion, in six years our planet will have enough clean, self-sustaining power to meet our species’ energy needs for the next thousand years … and beyond.”
“It’ll take six years to build GOLEM’s ocean-mining habitat?” I asked, feeling a bit disappointed. “That doesn’t seem very efficient for a sophisticated AI.”
Sebastian Koch smirked. “For your information, Dr. Eisenbraun, Oceanus is already built. As we speak, it’s being transported, along with the GOLEM mainframe, to the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica for a six-week training exercise.”
Okay, that seemed pretty impressive. But it still didn’t answer my question. “General, why am I here?”
“You’re here,” the vice president interjected, “because ultimately it’s my decision whether the United Nations will spend another twenty-seven billion dollars to launch this damn computer and its crew of twelve handpicked scientists on a six-year voyage to Jupiter. And you, Dr. Eisenbraun, are the most qualified person to advise me.”
Taking his cue, the general stood. “Dr. Eisenbraun, if you’d remain behind for a moment. The rest of you, thank you for coming. You’ll know our decision by this evening.”
The conference room emptied, save for the vice president, his female assistant, and my uncle. I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. “Geez, thanks for the invite, Lee. Exactly how many people know their careers are hanging on my decision?”
“Too many to count.”
“You really believe GOLEM is acting independently of its programming?”
“According to an expert on biological DNA computers, the possibility certainly exists.”
“Who’s the expert?”
“You are, pal. General, refresh your nephew’s memory.”
My uncle activated the playback on his h-phone. It was a phone conversation recorded several years ago. The voice speaking to Dr. DeFriend was mine. “… artificial intelligence systems using biochemical algorithms possessing complex adaptive systems have the potential to internally overanalyze their own prime directives, creating closed-circuit loops of segregated DNA strands. This activity can corrupt the system in that these favored solution patterns are filed away as ‘perfection’ and therefore are no longer subjected to rigorous reevaluation. The AI validates this new protocol in a vacuum — a cognitive state that most psychiatrists would define as ‘psychopathic ego.’”
The general shut off the recording.
The vice president stared at me as if I had concealed a crime. “You reported your findings to Dr. DeFriend — why wasn’t I told?”
“I followed protocol. Monique decided that the gains of fusion far outweighed any potential closed-loop threat.”
“Would it have killed you to have stuck around to address the problem?”
“Monique was in charge. I had another calling.”
“Right. You needed to create a bio-chip that enabled its users to virtually masturbate twenty-four/seven.”
My fists balled, my blood pressure spiked, and it took all of ABE’s rapid bio-adjustments to keep me from tossing a chair across the table at our nation’s second-in-command. “Listen, Lee, don’t blame me or the computer if your helium-3 calculations turned out to be wrong. As for my biological chip, it’s far more important to humanity’s future than fusion energy.”
“How do you figure that?”
I exhaled, suddenly feeling euphoric. “Sorry. What did you ask? Oh, right, ABE. Lee, I didn’t create ABE to compute calculus or learn Latin or to overstimulate the brain’s pleasure centers, I designed the bio-chip to prevent our minds from acting upon our most primordial, ego-based instincts. When the chip-bearer exhibits
the physiological symptoms associated with emotions like anger, hatred, and jealousy, ABE causes the brain to release serotonin, a neurotransmitter that creates a happy feeling. Think about it: No more crime, no more self-induced extinctions. I left Omega because I was more interested in affecting the evolution of man, not machine.”
“That’s very commendable,” my uncle said, “but the vice president and I need to know if a closed-logic loop in GOLEM’s matrix could be responsible for the computer acting on its own when it ceased all lunar mining operations.”
“It’s possible. But again, the process that brought GOLEM to determine that course of action would have to be based on its interpretation of its prime directive. The only way ceasing mining operations protects humanity is if the moon’s supply of helium-3 is, in fact, ineffective.”
“Could the computer be programmed to falsify its helium-3 results if it interpreted fusion to be a danger to the propagation of our species?”
“Yes, but only if that conclusion originated from within its solution matrix.”
“Who do you know that might be capable of pulling that off?”
“Besides me? Dr. DeFriend could do it, along with any one of a dozen level-four computer engineers. Having worked with most of them, I seriously doubt they would want to derail the project.”
“You haven’t worked with these people for years,” the vice president shot back. “Fusion energy has its detractors and competitors. The remnants of Big Oil have formed an energy coalition with the coal and tar sands industry. Don’t think for a minute Monique DeFriend or key members of her staff are immune to accepting a bribe.”
“Okay, so you wait until your team returns from the moon with their results. I don’t see a problem here.”
“The problem,” my uncle said, “is that the helium-3 analysis won’t be completed until mid-January. The next launch window to Europa opens on December fifteenth. Miss that date and it’s a nineteen-month wait until Jupiter’s orbit aligns again with Earth’s.”
