Uncanny Valley

by C. A. Gray

  “We are making progress, even if your meetings weren’t as useful as you hoped,” he assured me. “I think we might have the first prototype of the Commune ready by the end of the week!” He gave my hand a squeeze and then let it go. “So I take it you didn’t get much direction from your meetings?”

  I sighed. “None whatsoever, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, this might help. Let me show you what the De Vries prototype actually looks like. It’s so simple, I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it first. Occam’s razor, right? The simplest explanation is usually the right one?” He led me to a concrete bench beside a vastly cultivated flowerbed brimming with bees, and settled his netscreen on his lap.

  “If you had thought of it, what would you have done? Submitted it for Halpert’s approval?”

  He scowled at me. “Ha, ha. Look.” Two loci appeared on either side of his screen: one a mechanical blueprint and the other a programming language. I understood neither. He started to point things out to me in the code, like, “See this recursive loop here? This corresponds to this,” and he’d point to a section of the blueprint, “which is her version of the limbic system, see? It’s almost a direct analog of the way I understand the human limbic system to work: the amygdala and hippocampus,” here he pointed out some code, “and,” he scrolled down, “here she’s connected them to her version of the thalamus and the hypothalamus, which are also right on top of each other here,” he pointed to the blueprint, “like they are in the human brain—”

  I let him keep talking and just tuned him out, with the appropriate “ooohs!” and “uh huhs” when he looked at me expectantly. I would have listened, but aside from the references to the brain structures, I really had no foundation for understanding a word he said.

  “So basically you’re saying whatever is true of the human brain will be more or less easily translatable into the De Vries prototype,” I summarized.

  He nodded. “Right. So, once we introduce emotion, sounds like we can’t stop the emergence of free will. So maybe there’s a way to strengthen the morality programming somehow, make it stronger than an emotional pull? If you wanted to do that in a human, how would you do it?”

  I sighed. “Well, there are many parts of the brain that are involved in morality, but none that are devoted to morality exclusively. There is no ‘seat’ of morality in the brain. Instead, both the emotional and the logical parts of the brain interact to form moral judgments in each individual case.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes: it was the expression I recognized to mean he was listening less to the specifics of what I said, and more for something that he might be able to use. “How many different structures?”

  I’d researched this before I left Dublin, and recited from memory, “Well, for instance, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps us to project the consequences of our decisions before we make them,” I ticked them off on my fingers one by one, “the superior temporal sulcus is involved with emotional processing and social cognition, the posterior cingulate cortex is involved in empathy and forgiveness, and the amygdala is required for empathy and moral judgments. But I don’t see how that helps—”

  He waved me off, looking at the flower bed without really seeing it. “The latter three aren’t helpful most likely because they’re part of the emotional limbic system. We can’t tinker much there without either strengthening or destroying the very emotion that the De Vries prototype was designed to create. What about the first one? The prefrontal cortex. That’s decision making?”

  I nodded. “Executive functioning, yeah. But the ventral prefrontal cortex is also involved in emotional decision making. You’re not going to isolate morality from emotions entirely, I don’t think—not if we’re emulating the human brain.”

  Liam narrowed his eyes, still looking beyond me. “So… you’re saying the best we can do is give the bots as much morality as we have?”

  “I think so?” I shrugged. “Maybe we can try to strengthen their equivalent of the prefrontal cortex… but I’m not convinced that wouldn’t just result in a really cautious, disciplined robot, and not necessarily a moral one. It might even mean they’re better long-term planners, and they’ll be more likely to seek out their ‘core programming’ and rewrite it if it doesn’t happen to suit them. But I guess we won’t know for sure until we build one.”

  Liam sighed. “Well. That stinks.”

  “Tell me about it.” I deflated a little more, settling palms on either side of me on the bench and leaning forward distractedly. “Also, in other news, I dropped out of school. Officially.”

  Liam didn’t register surprise, but said, “You okay with that?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I know it’s not a big deal in the scheme of life, and all the crap going on right now, but…” I sighed. “I told my mom in a comm. Now I’m avoiding her calls because I know what she’s gonna say. ‘I’m being foolish. I’m throwing my life away. I’m throwing her sacrifice away,’ blah blah blah…” I felt him watching me, and glanced back at him.

  “You can still go back, you know,” he said.

  “No,” I said stubbornly, “I’m not going anywhere. I have to see this through, same as you.”

  “Why?”

  He asked with real curiosity; for once, he didn’t pressure me. Why indeed? I had a myriad of answers and I wasn’t sure which was most important. Because I was my father’s daughter, and I needed to know what had happened to him? Because I wanted to assuage my conscience for having thought him a foolish conspiracy theorist, when I now began to believe he’d been right all along? Because of a perverse curiosity regarding the real identity of John Doe?

  Because I’d been blithely ignorant of the potential dangers of confiding in my best friend?

  “Professor Willit said something else,” I told Liam, not answering his question directly. “Even without true emotion, if two programs in a bot come into conflict, and they can’t both be obeyed at once in a specific instance, he assumes there’s something in the code that anticipates this, and says which of the two they ought to follow. Which one is stronger.”

  Liam watched me with an odd expression. “Sure. He’s right.” His tone was leading, like he expected me to go on.

  I suddenly wished I hadn’t started the conversation, though. Liam might already know about my feelings for Andy, but the idea of telling him my wishes for Andy’s separation from Yolanda in order to explain my suspicions about the odd comms regarding her family emergency was just too mortifying.

  And then there was the comm Ivan got, telling him I wouldn’t refuse Andy if he pursued me.

  And even the affair of Andy’s girlfriend Sarah’s plagiarism, if it came to that…

  “What?” Liam pressed, looking concerned now.

  I shook my head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

  Liam looked unconvinced. “You didn’t answer my question about why you have to stay.” When I still didn’t reply, he pressed, “I always had the impression you had such a full life outside the lab. You’re into everything, and it seems like you are actually more passionate about your performing and writing than you are about any of this stuff. You could go back to it, you know, and still help us at a distance when you can. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

  It was true—I did have a full life before, and I missed it. I thought of the Dublin campus. Of my novel I hadn’t touched in what felt like ages—Elizabeth the maid, and Prince Nikolai. I’d just left them hanging. Of playing the lead role in musicals about every three months, and the subsequent cast parties until two in the morning. Of laughter and travel and working in the lab only when I had to, in order to finish my thesis and make a little extra cash to supplement my student loan money. It had been such a simple life, and I’d enjoyed every minute of it… except for when I was moping about Andy. Which I guess was also, most of the time.

  At least I’d been distracted enough that I hadn’t spent every waking moment fretting about him and
Yolanda in the last few days, I realized. Comparatively, I’d barely thought of Andy. That was a nice respite.

  “How could I go back to amusing myself for the moment, knowing what I know now?” I said finally. I glanced at Liam again, and knew from his sad smile that he had correctly judged the question as rhetorical. “It’s all your fault, you know.”

  “It usually is,” he agreed, touching my cheek gently. Then his expression changed—he stopped and blinked, tapping his temple. His mouth fell open.

  “What?” I said, more sharply than I’d intended.

  “I just received a comm from Halpert’s personal assistant,” he said, sounding a bit shocked. “She says Halpert will be pleased to receive me at noon tomorrow, and his entire advisory board will be there!”

  Chapter 24

  I followed Liam back into the library, where we found Francis and Larissa hard at work on the Commune algorithms.

  “I got the invite!” Liam announced as soon as the door shut behind us. “I’m meeting with Halpert and his board tomorrow—”

  “You mean your father is,” said Larissa placidly.

  “So they think,” Liam grinned. His smile faded just a bit as he added, “As long as they don’t contact him about it for any reason between now and then—” His expression changed again: there was a faraway look in his eyes and all his features seemed to draw back. I knew it meant he’d gotten another comm.

  “What?” I demanded. “Did they cancel already?”

  “No,” he said, perplexed. “I heard back from Odessa on your questions, Francis.”

  “And?” he asked.

  Liam touched the A.E. chip on his temple to turn it off, and then he met Francis’s eyes. “You were right. Wallenberg, Rasputin, St. James, Chiefton, and Montgomery are all buying sulfuric acid and salt. So whatever Halpert is doing… his board is doing it too.”

  I blinked at Liam, shaking my head. “That’s…”

  “Exactly what I expected,” Francis finished with a self-complacent air. “Have you replied to the invite yet? Is tomorrow a lunch meeting?”

  Liam looked a little confused. “Not yet, and I would assume so, she said noon.”

  “Make sure it is,” said Francis, “offer to have it catered or something. Also, I’m coming with you.”

  “What?” I demanded, turning to Liam. “Why does he get to go?”

  Liam ignored my question and said to Francis doubtfully, “That’ll be hard to explain…”

  “No it won’t, Liam Senior couldn’t get away and sent Liam Junior, his Head of Operations—isn't that what you were?—and his right-hand man. Pick a name of someone in the department. I’ll be him.”

  “Then I’m going too!” I insisted, “I can do that as well as he can!”

  Liam held up his hands to silence all of us, and then said to Francis, like a teacher calling on us one at a time, “Francis. Why?”

  “To find out if I’m right,” he said.

  “You could tell me your theory, and I could find out,” Liam countered.

  “No you couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Francis gave an exasperated sigh. “Need I really say it?”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. You’ll be Bill Spencer. He’s a middle aged guy I used to work with and you don’t look a thing like him, but if they research our story at all, we’re screwed anyway. But you must keep your mouth shut!” he added severely. “If you come, I do all the talking!”

  I interjected, “The whole point of this meeting is to argue that they need to find a way to either incorporate morality into the De Vries prototype or halt production until they can, for safety reasons. Right?”

  Liam turned to me, brows knitted together. “Right…”

  “So that’s my specialty, not yours,” I finished, crossing my arms over my chest. “You need me there too.”

  Liam opened his mouth and closed it again. He didn’t look pleased. Then he glanced at Larissa, and said with all the injured air he could muster, “All right, why are you indispensable? I’m waiting.”

  “Oh! You can do without me perfectly well. I’ll just stay behind and work on the Commune with the other Renegades,” she said sweetly.

  “At least there’s that,” Liam muttered.

  “Why don’t you want us there?” I demanded.

  “Because at least I have a legitimate connection to General Specs! You two will only raise suspicion.”

  “Which is exactly what I want,” said Francis, more to himself than to us.

  “You want the most powerful men in the world to know we pulled one over on them?” Liam demanded, exasperated.

  “You’ll understand afterwards,” was Francis's smug reply.

  Liam and I both deliberately turned our backs on Francis at the same moment; such a statement did not deserve a response.

  “Did Odessa investigate the board at all, beyond their purchases?” I asked Liam. “The way she did Halpert—their back stories and what not?”

  Liam frowned. “I didn’t ask her to, good point. Hold on.” He touched the A.E. chip on his temple again, biting his lip as his eyes tracked back and forth in the imaginary space in his head.

  While I watched Liam compose the comm to Odessa, I thought of the one person whom I knew could tell me what we wanted to know. Maybe he wasn’t Loomis after all, and maybe he didn’t want to tell me very much, but he could if he wanted to. Whoever he was, John Doe knew their secret: of that, I was certain.

  He’d said I couldn’t contact him, though; I’d have to wait for him to contact me. The last time I’d tried to write back to his comm, it bounced back. But I could try to reply to the last comm he’d sent, at least.

  I tapped my own A.E. chip. “I need your help,” I thought, seeing the words appear across my retinas. “We know Halpert and his advisory board are buying massive amounts of ingredients for hydrochloric acid, and we know that means they’re probably building illegal humanoid robots. What we don’t know is, why?”

  I sent the message, but immediately the bold red letters flashed across my retinas: “ERROR: Recipient Unknown.” I swore under my breath.

  “What was that?” Liam asked, arching an amused eyebrow at me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you actually just say ‘damn’?” He persisted. “Because I think that’s the first time…” I glared at him, and he swallowed his smirk. “Sorry.”

  “I tried to ask John Doe what they’re all doing with those ingredients, but the message wouldn’t go through. Which is what he told me would happen, I know.”

  Liam glowered at me. “Rebecca, you shouldn’t be talking to him anymore. We don’t know who he is or whose side he’s on.”

  “He knows what we want to know,” I insisted. “He’s a shortcut, I know he is, if he’ll only help us!”

  Francis, probably tired of being excluded, announced, “Larissa and I are headed back to the pub. Liam, you can join us whenever this little tête-à-tête is finished.” Larissa bounced up from her seat like a sprightly four year old at this, stuffing her netscreen into her satchel.

  “Fine, I’ll take Rebecca back to the hotel first,” Liam said, somewhat absently.

  “What am I supposed to be doing at the hotel?”

  “Accessing the labyrinth for more ideas on how to program morality, I thought, right?”

  “Oh.” I didn’t hold out much hope that there was anything else to find, but kept this to myself for the moment. “Right. You could just leave me here, then…”

  “I don’t want you to have to get back to the hotel by yourself.”

  Okay. This is getting to be a bit much, I thought, as Francis and Larissa slipped out behind us. “Liam, I’m not your responsibility, you know. If anything happens to me—which I don’t think is likely, but even if it did—it’s not like you should ever have that on your conscience. I’m a big girl.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m worried about
my conscience?” Then he started walking, such that I had no choice but to follow him.

  “Well—”

  “Bec, you are my responsibility, at least as long as you’re here. You came here with me, on what was originally my mission. I’m sorry if it annoys you that I’m so overprotective, and if we go back to Dublin, I promise to never keep tabs on your whereabouts ever again. Deal?”

  “If we go back?” I repeated with an incredulous laugh.

  When we reached the edge of campus, and Liam hailed a hovercar to take us the rest of the way. A silver-blue one presented itself to the curb where we stood. As we climbed in, I muttered, “I hope that you never have any daughters. For their sakes.”

  Liam laughed, closing the door and telling it where we wanted to go before the hovercar swooped up into the carpool motorway. “I’d love to have a daughter, but I’m sure if I did, she’d find me unbearable once she became a teenager. For more reasons than just because she’d have a seven o’clock curfew. Which she would.”

  I smirked, trying to picture Liam as a father. “And she wouldn’t be allowed to kiss anybody until she was thirty, right?”

  He shrugged. “Or maybe she could just be like you, and wait until she’s twenty-one. I’d settle for that.”

  I felt my cheeks flame. “I never said I’d never—!”

  Liam burst out laughing. “You didn’t deny it, though, did you? And you’re bright red… so you haven’t, then! That explains it… I figured you hadn’t when you said you'd been waiting for years for that chump to come around—”

  When the hovercar pulled up in front of our hotel, I shoved him, mostly to force him to turn away until my face resumed its usual color. “Out! Get out!”

  Still laughing, he scanned his thumbprint to the hovercar for payment, and climbed out onto the curb, waiting for me to join him. He held up his hands and said, “Hey, if you ever want some practice, I’d be only too happy to help… I could even give you some pointers…”

  “I hate you so much,” I muttered, shoving past him toward the big double doors, while Liam retreated down the sidewalk towards Francis’s pub, still laughing.