Conscious

by Vic Grout

  No-one spoke. No-one seemed prepared to make themselves group spokesperson this time. No-one even knew if what they were thinking was the same as the others. Almost to buy some time, Bob suggested:

  “Well, I suppose we would be able to take a whole load more measurements over there, at least. We might be able to build up a better picture of Its development so far. Particularly if we need to start thinking about what happens next … or even what to do.”

  “On the other hand,” said Jenny, no more than playing Devil’s Advocate to expand the conversation, “I suppose Geor…, er, your assistant – your colleague – can now take those measurements in some form?”

  “I am afraid that is no longer possible,” said Stephen darkly. “She is no longer with us. I was able to have her password reset this morning to access her most recent configuration. Consequently, I was able to re-run the analysis she performed last night. That was the revised S figure I gave you. To re-apply the process elsewhere, with different parameters, is beyond me and would take anyone else in my team at least as long as it did yesterday. We will try, of course, but, in the meantime, it would be better if you and your equipment were to come directly to Brussels.”

  A cold chill settled on every spine. Andy broke the silence.

  “What you mean, ‘no longer with us’?”

  “My colleague was killed by an RFS incident last night on her way home. There was an isolated explosion at a food stall at which she had stopped. We are unsure of the exact cause – although we know gas was involved – but, once again, an end system had not ‘failed safe’ for some reason. My colleague died instantly; the stall owner a few hours later in hospital.”

  “We’re coming,” Jenny said firmly.

  *

  It was ten o’clock the same morning. The Desk sat waiting for a car, which had apparently been dispatched to take them to Heathrow. Hattie had already been collected. Stephen had arranged these things remotely and quickly, as he had many others. Aisha had contacted her hospital to discuss her possible continued absence. Not knowing how to start the conversation with her senior director, she was astonished to discover that she already knew and had been given to understand that it was ‘in the national interest’. She had enquired no more. Aisha, Jenny and Andy had borrowed small bags and cases, a few clothes and travel-sized toiletries from Jill and Bob. Bob retrieved his passport; Andy still had his in his conference bag; Aisha and Jenny found other documentation that would suffice for the EU. The whole panic had a surreal, insulated feel to it. RFS continued all around – inside and out. They knew not what to expect next. They sat with their own thoughts for a while.

  “So, what exactly is It?” asked Bob, breaking their silence so suddenly that Jenny jumped.

  “Surely, we’ve been through that,” she answered.

  “No, I mean what is It? Not what’s It doing, or how, or even why? But what is It? Assuming It is actually self-aware, to some extent, what sort of self are we talking about here?”

  Jenny shrugged her shoulders. Aisha and Andy exchanged glances.

  “To me,” suggested Aisha, first in, “It is an artificial entity that has acquired an essential control imperative from reaching a critical level of powered neural complexity, in accordance with some simple scientific rule, which we do not yet fully understand: much could be said of our own brains, of course. But I imagine Andy would say something very different!” She stopped, smiling at him, by way of invitation.

  “OK then, two suggestions from me,” said Andy. “It’s either a manifestation of the panpsychic universal consciousness principle, but aye … possibly having reached some essential point.” He nodded to Aisha in concession of this last observation. “Or, It’s God giving life, a soul if you like, to a system that fulfils the requirements for consciousness He’s laid down for His universe.” He paused grinning. “Or, of course, It may be both of those – or Aisha’s model – all at the same time! Who’s to say?”

  “It’s bloody science-fiction; that’s what it is,” grumbled Jenny. “I mean, I don’t doubt our theory any more: it seems to be vindicated by everything that happens but it’s still mad. I’m surprised no-one’s come up with this in a story before!”

  “I guess they have, really,” suggested Bob. “If you think about Skynet in Terminator, that’s really a huge network-based intelligence, isn’t it?”

  “Big difference, though, between that and this,” insisted Andy.

  “Yes, I suppose, if you think about it, there are a few sci-fi stories out there about conscious intelligence – AI, if you like – running on systems, often networks,” agreed Jenny. “But that’s not we’ve got here, is it? We’re not talking about It running on the Internet; we’re saying It is the Internet.”

  “And a bit more,” added Aisha. “The power as well. It is not just a brain: more like a nervous system.”

  “Aye, big network-based AI has been written about in sci-fi a fair bit,” agreed Andy, “but always from the point of view of it being software running on hardware. Sawyer's WWW Trilogy is probably the best example.”

  But they all shook their heads: it was not familiar.

  “Robert J. Sawyer,” continued Andy. “Canadian sci-fi author. Wrote the ‘WWW Trilogy’. Clever title because the three books were ‘Wake’, ‘Watch’ and ‘Wonder’. His version of a big AI was a thing called ‘Webmind’, which lived on the Internet. Somehow made up from cellular automata, if I remember rightly. But still very much software-based. The hardware was just the platform – as it always seems to be in these stories. We’re in completely new territory here in the real world. With It, the hardware’s critical: It is the hardware every bit as much as the software: there’s an almost symbiotic dependence.” The others nodded mute agreement; however Andy had not finished.

  “But, in many ways,” he continued thoughtfully, “there’s a much bigger problem with fictional AI. Form is one thing but behaviour is something else again. Generally these sci-fi stories are always so ridiculously anthropomorphic!”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jenny.

  “Well, these AI consciousnesses always seem to have such conveniently human characteristics,” Andy explained. “They always see the world very much the way we would. Maybe a bit more good or evil in there somewhere and usually a lot cleverer but always essentially thinking like us.”

  “It might make it easier to tell the stories like that?” suggested Aisha.

  “Aye, that’s a fair point,” Andy agreed, “but it doesn’t help us get to grips with how an AI might really behave if it’s come to life independent of our programming – with no input from us. (Remember that piece that you and I wrote before Christmas?) ‘Webmind’ was particularly daft in that respect, as it happens. Rob Sawyer is a pretty typical middle-class Western author: well-enough-off, with a standard modern neo-liberalist outlook on life – and he’s probably never really had those views effectively challenged by anyone. So, of course, Webmind had to share that outlook! It was going to do ‘right’ and Sawyer assumed he knew what ‘right’ was. If you’re sure you’re right about everything then you’re going to think that something more intelligent than you will just think the same things but be better at going about making it happen. It may never actually occur to you that you might be wrong and the super-intelligence might think something completely different! Sawyer’s creation was just an extension of himself so it did what he would do. It started off by getting rid of spam, then it found a cure for cancer; finally, it overthrew the Chinese government. Every ‘good’ thing it did was something that Sawyer thinks is ‘good’. OK, it had to sometimes learn the difference between good and bad – from a child, interestingly enough: presumably she knew better than everyone else in the world! But, in the end, it just fell in line with its author.”

  “But you could argue that, if Webmind had been conceived by someone in China, or Africa, or from any different social group, its moral code would have been very different. Not to recognise that is pretty arrogant. Even t
he best of philosophers are products of their time and place (Bertrand Russell said something like that): sci-fi writers aren’t going to be any different. It’s funny how people who aren’t starving to death place ‘personal freedom’ above a fairer distribution of resources, for example! It’s highly unlikely that a super-intelligent, ultra-logical AI would see the world anything like the same way as a comfortably protected Westerner but we all make those assumptions if we’re not careful. Some people do the same with God, of course: they have their own narrow views – often their own bigoted opinions – and they actually assume that an all-knowing, all-powerful God shares them. When you see God as an extension of yourself, you’re spiritually screwed!”

  “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius,” said Bob, suddenly remembering a piece of Sherlock Holmes of his own.

  “Touché!” smiled Andy.

  “Anyway, it’s a fair thought,” agreed Bob, trying to get back to the point. “So you’re saying we don’t know what Its moral code is going to be?”

  “I don’t think we can even ask questions like that at this stage. It’s …” Andy cast a questioning look at Aisha, who nodded.

  “It has nothing like a moral code at present,” she interrupted, quite forcefully. “It is just not even close to that stage yet. You could even say It is not actually particularly clever. After all, It has just ‘woken up’ and Its neural complexity is within a few orders of magnitude – more or less, it is hard to say – of our own. It is more like a very, very young child – possibly even embryonic. It is consciousness – yes, OK, I said consciousness – at a very low level. It is a nervous system looking to implement a control imperative. If it were not for all the things that we have connected to It, we would probably not even notice It! It makes absolutely no sense to discuss how It might behave and it may never do: It is not functioning on that level at all. It will just do whatever It can discover how to do. It will make whatever things work that It can find out how.”

  “And just consider what some of those ‘things’ are!” said Jenny.

  They all took long breaths.

  Chapter 17: Flight

  The car’s arrival was announced by Jill, from her station at the window. She and Bob kissed a longer-than-usual goodbye and she watched them all out of the front door. Her look of annoyed but resigned acceptance was deliberate; the deep concern she clearly felt was not meant for external expression – but was badly hidden nonetheless.

  The official UK government advice was now that no-one should leave home – or wherever they happened to be – unless to do so was absolutely essential. Speculation as to the cause of PDN and RFS had reached levels of complex hysteria but the effect was only too simple and clear. Energy supply networks and end systems were unreliable, sometimes to the point of being dangerous. All leave had been cancelled for power workers, network engineers and emergency services staff. Hospitals were already operating far beyond capacity. (Aisha naturally felt some guilt at this.) Local public transport had been suspended indefinitely. Fuel shortages had already begun to bite. National train networks were running skeleton services and all reservations had been cancelled, although the usual ticket restrictions had been lifted. Most airports were still open but about two thirds of UK flights had been cancelled. Affected passengers had been told not to travel to airports as there was no immediate intention to reschedule them onto alternative planes. Stephen, however, appeared to have sufficient oversight to make appropriate arrangements. Their flight, he assured them, would depart. This only partially addressed their general sense of danger.

  Bob was no auto-enthusiast but the car sent to collect them had a similar appearance, he thought, to the one he had travelled in from the airport in Luxembourg, just a little longer to accommodate an extra line of seats facing the normal rear passenger row. Other than size and this being right-hand drive, it seemed identical to his limited observation. The driver was similarly uncommunicative. The Desk slid in and sat down to look out at a chaotic world from behind dark tinted windows.

  And chaotic it had truly become. Everywhere were signs of increased RFS and its impact. A considerable level of damage was to be seen; its exact cause not always evident after the event itself. Police cars and emergency repair vans were as numerous as private vehicles since many people were keeping to their homes – if they were safe there. Ambulances were also everywhere, and yet there appeared not to be enough of them. Just beyond the turn in Jill and Bob’s street, a fire engine was dousing a detached house. One of the walls appeared to have been blown out. Normally, in this quiet area of suburban Greater London, such a rare event would have brought two or three such appliances but there were probably too few to cope now. Also, under normal circumstances, of course, they would have stopped to help people; but the sheer scale of this was beyond them. Bob reflected quietly that these were his neighbours but he hardly even recognised any of them.

  They had travelled just fifty yards further, however, when he did see a familiar face. A man of about forty or fifty ran screaming down the path from a bungalow set back from the road. “That’s old Mrs. Harris’s son,” Bob pointed. “Driver, stop,” he shouted. “… please,” he added as an afterthought. Their first impression, despite the man’s agility was that he was himself injured in some way. However, as the car lurched to a sudden halt, and he veered to meet it, the real situation became immediately, and alarmingly, clear.

  “My mother!” he screamed. Tears and sweat mixed across his face. “I think she’s been electrocuted. She was ironing clothes. I don’t know what happened. She just fell down; she’s not moving.”

  Aisha threw herself from the car and rushed past him into the bungalow. The others followed at an only slightly reduced speed. Only the driver remained in the car. “Have you phoned for an ambulance?” asked Jenny as they ran.

  “Yes,” the man cried, “well no, not exactly; I didn’t have to.” He tried to overcome his confusion. “I just hit the button on her telecare system. It sent off the alarm call – I heard it do that – but there wasn’t a response; not that I could hear anyway. I was trying to do that resuscitation stuff … but I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whined apologetically. By this time they were at the door.

  As they entered, they saw Aisha performing CPR on Mrs Harris, lying in the square angle of two sets of kitchen units, with an iron and a buckled ironing board by her side. Jenny carefully disconnected the iron by pulling on the insulated power cable forcefully until the plug came reluctantly away from the socket. Andy tried to call the emergency line but there was no response. Bob did likewise.

  But Aisha’s skills had already worked. They could tell by the change in her, before they could see for themselves in the patient, that some life had been restored. Aisha stopped her frantic chest pounding and mouth-to-mouth and, after a few calming breaths of her own, slowly and carefully straightened Mrs. Harris out further and began to make her as comfortable as possible, checking her pulse and breathing all the time. Her son’s tears flowed without restraint now – but from a different emotion.

  “OK, do we believe there is an ambulance on the way?” Aisha asked as calmly as she could manage.

  “We’re not sure,” answered Bob. “We thought we’d got through but the line went part way through my giving the address. If the GPS tracking kicked in, or her telecare system is working, we should be OK; otherwise, I don’t know. I’ll keep trying.”

  “I’ll have to stay with her until it comes,” Aisha said.

  “Can we afford to do that?” asked Jenny. “We might miss the plane.” She knew it was not the most tactful of observations under the circumstances. Sure enough, Aisha cast her a sour look.

  “This woman has just recovered from a cardiac arrest,” she snapped. “At a bare minimum, she requires medical observation until some other qualified assistance comes. You may go but I will remain until an ambulance arrives.”

  “We don’t know how long that might be,” Andy said so
ftly. “Her son could look after her until then?” The man nodded. Andy continued. “We may have some important things to do ourselves in Brussels. If we all miss the plane, then we might conceivably be letting down hundreds, thousands, millions, not just one person.”

  “I know,” Aisha smiled, grimly but gently, “and I do understand. That is why I think you all should go – you may have some purpose there. But I may not and I cannot. We do not even know if the ambulance is coming. I am a doctor: I have my duty here. It may only be one person but this is what I do!”

  “I won’t leave you,” insisted Andy after a pause. “I’m staying here too.” Aisha initially protested but there was something in his tone that was beyond contest.

  “I will remember this,” she growled.

  *

  The minutes ticked by. The driver had come to the door to rudely insist they left; otherwise they would miss their flight. They came to a reluctant acceptance that they were to be divided. Andy would remain with Aisha; Bob and Jenny would continue to Brussels: no-one was particularly happy with any of it. Jill had been called (with some difficultly) and was on her way on foot to provide whatever support she could for the Harrises: whichever of them needed it most. There was no time for Bob to even wait to see her again. The Desk hugged their disconsolate goodbyes. Bob and Jenny were on their way back to the car.

  And then, at the very last moment, an ambulance arrived. Two paramedics rushed in and took control. Within a minute, Mrs. Harris was on a trolley being wheeled out to the road. Aisha barked a few instructions and pieces of essential information and they were gone. Dazed and emotional, The Desk regrouped, threw themselves back into the car and the driver raced, at an alarming speed, to Heathrow.

  *

  Making contact with anyone remotely was now proving difficult. Bob was sure that the 4 & 5G phone networks were still PDN-free but the underlying infrastructure used by everyone – originally just wired but now wireless too, of course – was not. Across the global Internet, although ‘ordinary’ communication was still possible alongside the PDN, there were frequent delays and often complete failures. From the car, he eventually – but far from easily – made contact with both Stephen and Jill. Stephen was able to confirm that check-in arrangements had been made for The Desk at Heathrow and Jill was tidying up in old Mrs. Harris’s bungalow as her son accompanied her to hospital in the ambulance. “Don’t worry;” she said, “I’ve understood enough of this to take precautions. I’m not touching anything I don’t have to and checking everything that I do!” Still Bob worried.