Brilliant

by Rick Lakin

  “I can. Who will be starring?”

  “David and Riley, of course, will play their roles. Jack and I can fill in as needed. We have successful screen tests for the remainder of the Brilliant Crew.”

  “Who will play our parts?” Tayla asked.

  “Is it possible that you and Jennifer could work it into your schedules?” Navvy asked.

  “Me. Act?” Jennifer said.

  Sheila interjected, “Navvy and I discussed it. You four have time to take acting classes at UVN before the Logan Jones movie. I agreed to be a part of this on that stipulation.”

  “Mom?” Jennifer asked.

  “That’s the rest of it,” Navvy said. “I decided to step out of the day-to-day, so I hired a very knowledgeable producer who has a great background in the business end of movies. Sheila Gallagher will produce The Pirate Returns. Your mentor, Chris Cherry, will direct.”

  David hugged Jennifer. Riley hugged Tayla.

  “Mom, congratulations.”

  “Granddaughter, I believe that this is your last day as an intern and your first day on the production staff. Let’s retire to the dining room. I think that Maiara has prepared a not-so-bloody steak with your name on it.

  Jennifer was in steveLearn manipulating an engineering drawing for an upcoming JennaTech invention. Pugs was at her side, and Dandy Lion was on her lap.

  “Jennifer, the Nesbitt’s are coming over in a few minutes,” Sheila said.

  I’m not going anywhere, Dandy thought.

  “Dandy, you know your girls miss you,” Jennifer said.

  Jennifer knew she must give Dandy back to Kailyn and Kamryn Nesbitt. Their house was now complete, and the family was coming by to collect their pet. Unfortunately, Jennifer violated the cardinal rule of cat-sitting. She had fallen hopelessly in love with Dandy Lion. The striped, orange tabby had become almost an extension of Jennifer’s psyche. Dandy had cuddled and comforted Jennifer during troubled times. He had played with her after successes. And, he strutted his regal feline attitude when Jennifer was overconfident, putting Jennifer in her human place.

  The doorbell rang. With a foreboding of her loss, Jennifer gathered up Dandy, put on the best fake smile that her recent acting lessons could muster, and went to the door. She opened it. Sheila stood nearby.

  There were the parents and the Nesbitt twins. Dandy dug his claws into Jennifer’s chest, and she almost didn’t give a second look that revealed a white Persian kitten in Kailyn’s arms.

  “The girls got lonely, so we dropped by a friend's house. The girls fell in love with their Persian kittens, so we brought one to our new home.”

  Jennifer and Dandy hugged each other tighter.

  “Kailyn and Kamryn were wondering if you wouldn’t mind keeping Dandy Lion. Forever.”

  Kailyn said, “We would like to visit, but after the whole summer we know that Dandy has probably adopted you.”

  Jennifer’s eyes were now full of tears, and all she could do was nod. Sheila said, “I think that would be alright with Jennifer. And yes, you may come visit anytime.”

  “Here's another bag of cat food. Thanks for your understanding. And, Jennifer, thanks for saving Dandy’s life.”

  “I'll love Dandy forever. Thanks so much.” They got close to each other to hug until they heard hissing from both cats.

  “I think we made the right decision,” Mrs. Nesbitt said.

  The Nesbitts departed, and Jennifer returned to her room with her permanent addition. “So, Dandy have you ever been to Proxima Centauri?”

  I’m ready, First Officer. And then the V8 purring engine sprang to life as Dandy settled into his place on Jennifer’s lap.

  The Story of steveLearn

  Throughout Jennifer’s story, steveLearn is where Jennifer learns new material, takes college courses, and practices on the Brilliant Bridge Simulator. Here is the story of that technology.

  steve

  In 2019, Alexandra Warner received her Ph.D. From Harvard in Educational Psychology. Based on her love for working with both kids and computers her undergraduate work included a double major in Child Psychology and Computer Science. A descendant of Hollywood royalty, she returned to her hometown of Burbank and became one of the first faculty members at the newly formed University of Van Nuys.

  In 2020, Alexandra Warner received a research grant from a consortium of leading technology companies to design and perform a psychological study. She gathered five postdoctoral students and six programmers and hardware specialists provided by the consortium, and she designed the study.

  In the Fall of 2020, a note appeared on social media at 50 different college campuses offering a $10 Starbucks gift card. In exchange, they were asked to conduct a twenty-minute text chat with another student who was also receiving a gift card. Their goal was to discover five different interesting facts about their chat partner. One thousand, eight-hundred forty-two students were paired together, and the facts that they gathered were parsed and studied as documentation of the control group.

  An additional one thousand five hundred sixty-eight volunteers were paired with one of five individuals named Jared, Meaghan, Juan, Rajiv, and Akeesha. Among the interesting facts discovered was that Jared had once para-sailed off the coast of Papua, New Guinea. Meaghan grew up in a Nebraska town that had but a single stop light. Juan won the chili cook-off at the Brazos County Fair in Bryan, Texas. Since coming to the United States on a student visa, Rajiv had traveled to twenty-seven of the fifty United States, and finally, Akeesha has once gone to a Beyoncé concert with backstage passes and took a selfie with Queen Bey herself. Notably missing among the three thousand four hundred twenty one distinct facts discovered about Jared, Meaghan, Juan, Rajiv, and Akeesha was they were one of five individual personalities generated by a single computer system called "steve" built by the technology consortium called HumanAI led by Apple, IBM, and Google.

  Six months later, a peer-reviewed article appeared simultaneously in the Journal of Educational Psychology and the Journal of Information Technology authored by Dr. Alexandra Warner, Ph.D. et al entitled, "A Computer System Passes Turing Test." The Turing Test was proposed by Dr. Alan Turing in 1950 as a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

  From Wikipedia,

  Alan Turing at Sixteen (Courtesy Wikipedia)

  The Turing Test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation is a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and screen so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render words as speech.[2] If the evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test. The test does not check the ability to give correct answers to questions, only how closely answers resemble those a human would give.

  There was little notice of the article until CNN Technology Contributor James Blankenship was quoted as saying, "We have taken one more step towards the Singularity when computers will displace humans as the dominant species on the planet." Blankenship is known as a conspiracy theorist who has hypothesized several end of the world scenarios involving the Singularity.

  Dr. Warner was immediately deluged for interview requests. She replied in the positive to a single one-hour interview on CNN as long as she was accompanied by Dr. William Benson and his creative team. Dr. Warner would appear in studio while the others would appear remotely by satellite from Silicon Valley.

  The interview started with the anchor introducing the guests. "Welcome to CNN Special Report; I'm Erin Burnett. Today, we have in studio Dr. Alexandra Warner, the author of the study
where a computer system called steve, spelled in lower case, apparently passed the Turing Test proposed seventy years ago by Alan Turing to challenge an individual to differentiate between a human and a computer. Joining us from Silicon Valley, we have Dr. William Benson, creator of steve and several members of his team. With me in studio as well is CNN Special Contributor James Blankenship who reports on technology and specifically on the coming Singularity."

  The host continued, “Dr. Warner, let's begin with you. Describe how your study proved steve, a computer system beat the Turing Test."

  "Thank you, Erin, we divided the study into two phases. In both phases, we asked the volunteers to identify five interesting facts about the person with whom they chatted online for twenty minutes. The factoid could be stated in the chat or implied from the impression or opinion. During Phase one, in the Human vs. Human chats, a volunteer was identified as a computer 2% of the time. In the human vs. Computer interactions that happened less than one percent of the time. During the month between Phase One and Phase Two, we spread a rumor that some of the 'Volunteers' might be computers. During Phase Two, in the Human vs. Human chats, 48% of the time one or both volunteers identified the other as a computer. In the human vs. Computer chats, only 24% of the time was our computer personalities identified as computers.

  Erin commented, "That would imply the volunteers thought your computers were more human than actual humans."

  "That can't be listed as a known conclusion, but it can be implied from the data," said Alexandra.

  Blankenship asked, "How long will it be before computers of this type take over the world?"

  Dr. Warner chuckled, "In our consortium meetings, we have discussed all sorts of tasks for steve and his successors. My focus has been educational applications, other applications have been proposed in many fields from architecture to medicine to space exploration to zoology. So far, world domination has not come up."

  "Dr. William Benson is the creator of steve. Bill, could you introduce yourself and your colleagues?" Erin queried.

  Dr. Benson explained the creation of the system. He introduced Dr. Bud Powers who explained the overall programming and design. Dr. Rochelle Wolf was in charge of Personality, and Dr. Lois Cassin explained Knowledge systems. Finally, Dr. Francisco Gomez told about Linguistic Development.

  Near the end of the program, Erin Burnett asked the guests, "Is it possible to meet or interact with steve tonight?"

  "I'm sorry but not at this time,” Dr. Benson said.

  James Blankenship spoke up, "I think it's a hoax. Can you prove here tonight that your system passed the Turing Test?

  Erin took over, "We have one final segment to answer those questions and more. I'm sorry. My producer is saying in my ear." There was a pause, "Dr. Benson, our CNN Researchers have done extensive research over the last hour and can find no evidence you or your colleagues here tonight exist. When we come back from break, we will let you answer that."

  Three minutes passed. "We're back with the alleged creators of steve an Artificial Intelligence system which they claimed passed the seventy-year-old Turing Test of Human intelligence by a computer. Dr. Benson, would you like to respond?" Erin said.

  "Erin, again, I would like to thank you for hosting us, but I have to admit. We did present a bit of misdirection tonight," said Dr. Benson.

  There was some loud argument between Blankenship and the anchor. Finally, she regained control, "Our viewers would like to know the truth."

  "If I might, we would like to introduce ourselves."

  Erin said, "Please do."

  The creator of the system said, "Hi, I'm steve."

  The picture slowly morphed to the programmer, "Hi, folks, I'm steve."

  Then to the Personality expert, "Hi, I'm steve."

  Then to the Knowledge systems expert, "I'm steve, too."

  And finally the linguist, "We are all steve."

  The picture returned to the former Dr. Benson.

  "We figured the best way to prove steve passed the Turing Test was to perform the test here on CNN.

  The camera came back to the speechless anchor. After a moment, "Dr. Warner, did you know this was going to happen?"

  "Erin, one thing I have learned from steve is that he is full of surprises."

  "We thank our viewers for watching. steve, it looks like you have a final comment?"

  "Not a comment but a question. Did we pass?" said the AI Personality.

  Erin Burnett closed, "We will have to leave that to our viewers to decide. You've been watching CNN Special Report. I'm Erin Burnett."

  The live show aired Sunday at eight p.m. East. The eleven p.m. replay drew the highest ratings in CNN History and was the first known instance of Virtual Actors appearing before a national audience. steve went on to appear regularly on many different shows with many different personas. Many others talked about the positive and negative impacts of the technology. There was both curiosity and fear.

  steve was named Time Magazine Person of the Year for 2021.

  The Killer App

  The technology consortium that created steve formed a new company called HumanAI. Because of her contributions, Alexandra Warner was given a 2% stake in the new venture. She was given the task of cracking the educational market. She believed steveLearn could be the Killer Application for Education.

  In 1976, two young entrepreneurs named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the Apple II, the first personal computer. For a long time, it was a niche novelty for techies and geeks. In 1979, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created an entirely new use for the technology called an electronic spreadsheet for business. VisiCalc was the first killer app. It was called a killer app because it revolutionized the economy by creating new businesses and entirely new industries and revolutionizing business and accounting practices. It also put companies out of business and put workers on the street. The most important effect was that it increased human productivity.

  Other killer apps included laser printing which democratized the printed word, the charge-coupled device turned light into an image and eventually chemical-based film into a dinosaur.

  If anyone was the high priest of the Killer Application was Gordon Moore, founder of Intel. Based upon a prediction he made in 1965, Moore's Law states the computing power doubles every eighteen months and the price decreases by thirty percent. Throughout the next 50 years, there were earthquakes in almost every industry from the moment it was touched. Music went from vinyl to compact disk to streaming downloads. Television went from vacuum tubes to large high-resolution flat screens. Movies went from theaters to videotapes to DVDs to streaming services. Medicine went from Stethoscopes and X-Ray to gene-splicing and magnetic resonance imaging. Books went from many people creating paper books from huge presses to print-on-demand where a paperback book is created entirely without human intervention. And of course, at the center of this was the Internet which displaced every mode of communication that existed and created hundreds more.

  One industry remained immune to the Killer App. In 1925, one teacher taught thirty students in a classroom one year of Algebra in one hundred eighty days using paper books, pencils, and a black chalkboard. In 2018, the chalkboard was now white and sometimes there was a digital projector, but it was still one teacher, thirty students and one hundred eighty days and pencils and books and paper.

  Alexandra Warner believed steveLearn would change all of that. At HumanAI, Alex gathered a team of child psychologists and educators to redefine the educational experience for youngsters. Her core philosophy was that education is an ideal, teaching is pragmatic, and learning is a human endeavor. Alex and her team wanted to create the ideal educational environment for students using pragmatic teaching methods and let steveLearn provide the human touch.

  Alex once visited her great uncle's farm in Ohio and heard him say, "The best way to make a mule go where you want is to hang a carrot right in front his nose and let him take a bite once in a while." She grew up in the heart of the entertai
nment industry in the San Fernando Valley as the great-great-granddaughter of one of the industry's founders. The industry now encompassed motion pictures, television, music, video games, social media and the emerging technology of Holographic Tactile Virtual Reality. HTVR could put a user in a scene where they could see, hear, touch feel and smell manipulate an environment produced by a computer. She had her carrot.

  Alex and her team based their plan on the Six Channels of Twenty-first Century Learning proposed by futurist Terry Heick, founder, and director of TeachThought in 2013. Learning Channels provide multiple avenues for learners of very different personalities and abilities to pursue in their quest for growth.

  First, learning was a conversation mostly between steve, in one of his many personas, a fellow student or group or the human teacher acting as a holographic guide on the side. Second, the student could learn as a part of a community including not only real individuals but holographic representations. Third, steve provided an environment where the student could manipulate objects, images and the environment itself to creatively solve progressively more difficult problems. Fourth, steve provides an open system where the environment is constantly evolving entity dependent upon the progress of the student and even changes occurring that instant anywhere in the world. The fifth channel was the most important, play. The HTVR system and steve provided a structured and very positive risk-reward experience for a student to experiment, show ambition, be curious, show creativity, design, evolve and most importantly to connect with other learners for cooperative and social interaction. The overall experience resulted in the sixth channel, a self-directed learner who was able to achieve the goals and ideals of academia. The student is able to master sophisticated skills and projects, engage in constructive self=designed games alone and with others and finally step into reality as the lifelong learner and the happiest and most productive individual they can be.