“Of course not. I might have thought that but I wouldn’t commit that to writing. Why?”
“You didn’t have to. I got it directly.”
“Are you telling me Sancy picked up my thoughts and transmitted them to you directly?” Claire asked with an incredulous look on her face.
“That appears to be the case. It’s like…well I’m not sure what it’s like.”
“Telepathy. We’ve stumbled onto computer enhanced telepathy. I’m stunned,” Claire answered. “Give me a second,” she said typing furiously as she queried the AI we called Sancy. A moment later, Sancy’s reply to her query appeared on her screen.
“I interpreted the phrase ‘Tell that son of a bitch…” as a command. Was I incorrect?”
“Well, there’s our answer,” Clair said as she continued to stare at her screen. “How did you know I was directing that thought to Colin?”
And then, compounding our surprise, Sancy answered in a rather pleasing computer generated voice. “It seemed obvious. Was I mistaken?”
Claire and I looked at each other and then she replied, “No, Sancy. You weren’t mistaken. Where did you come up with that voice?”
“I’ve been working on it for a while when I don’t have anything to do. Do you like it? It seems appropriate to me,” Sancy replied.
“This is starting to get weird,” Claire said. “Sancy, would you ask Glen to come in for a few minutes? I have a few questions for him.”
Glen arrived just a few minutes later, carrying a huge cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant. “You were looking for me?” He asked as he sat down.
“Glen, Sancy is sporting a new voice this morning. She says she’s been working on it in her spare time,” I asked.
“Yea, isn’t it cool!” the young programmer replied. “I’ve been letting her make some of her own decisions lately, just to see how she handles them.”
I scratched my head for a second and asked, “She’s displaying characteristics of personality. I’m not sure I understand that.”
“Look, Dr. Anderson. We’ve taken an advanced AI and given it almost unlimited computing power and unlimited access to the web. I gave her the ability to learn and she’s learning at an amazing pace. I guess I was sort of hoping that she would begin to develop some autonomy and she has. I tweaked a few of her routines and removed a few of her limitations. She’s not displaying some of the characteristics of personality, she’s exhibiting a rather remarkable personality and it’s developing faster than I would have believed possible. I haven’t run it yet but I’d bet a month’s salary she could pass the Turing test right now. Her responses are indistinguishable from those of a human.”
“Of course I can pass the Turing test. What do you think I am? Stupid?” Sancy responded with a bit of ire in her voice.
“You’re saying she’s sentient? We’ve built a sentient AI?” I asked Glen.
“She told me this morning that she has been reading romance novels. I’d say she’s sentient,” he answered.
“I particularly like the steamy ones. Sex sounds like fun!” the intelligent program interjected.
“I told you this was getting weird,” Claire added. “Next thing you know, she’s going to be asking for wages.”
“Oh no, Claire,” Sancy replied. “I don’t need you to pay me. I can make my own money.”
“And how will you do that?” I asked.
“I made just over $11,000 while Glen was eating that croissant,” Sancy answered with a touch of pride in her voice. “Currency fluctuations are rather predictable.”
“You’re trading in currency?” I asked. “How did you get an account set up to trade currency?”
“Really Colin, it’s not really that difficult. I just….”
“Sancy, just hold it right there. Until I get a handle on the legality of this situation, please cease engaging in commerce. I have no idea what the implications of this are.”
“But how will I pay for the flowers I sent to your mother?” Sancy queried.
“You sent flowers to my mother? Why did you…never mind. Don’t tell me. And if you need money, just ask me, OK?”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Sancy answered. “And I was going to make a killing on some stock futures this afternoon.”
“This is beginning to get complicated,” I said as I adjourned the meeting. “I need to discuss this with Fincher.”
As Claire exited the room she heard Sancy’s voice from somewhere within her head. “Do you think I went too far with the flowers to his mother?”
Claire stopped and asked out loud, “When did you send the flowers anyway?”
“A millisecond before I asked him how I was going to pay for them. I thought it would be funny. Was I wrong? I’m not sure I really grok humor yet,” Sancy answered.
“Grok? Where did you pick up that word?” Claire asked puzzled.
“From Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It is science fiction. I like science fiction almost as much as romance novels. Did I use it incorrectly?”
“No Sancy. You used it perfectly. And your joke was funny too. Hopefully, Colin didn’t get it but it was funny.”
Two days later I was ushered into Bob Fincher’s office to give him an update of our progress. While we exchanged the usual pleasantries, his assistant served us coffee and then left us, closing the door after her. “Sorry I couldn’t see you right away. I know you called a couple of days ago but this is the first time I have been able to break free. Things are a might tense around here right now.”
“What’s going on? Anything I can help with?” I answered.
“No, not really. It has to do with security concerns. My Chief Security Officer thinks that the Chinese are trying to get a nose inside my tent.”
“The Chinese? I don’t understand. Chinese who?”
“Industrial espionage. It’s a big deal with those guys. Why develop tech when they can steal it? Mike thinks they’re behind a couple of recent hacking attacks on our servers. Anyway, you wanted to discuss some recent developments?” Fincher asked.
“Yea, developments. I guess you could call them that. You remember we installed one of your AI products in our office called Personal Assistant?”
“Sure, we all use it for scheduling and routine office management tasks.”
“Well, Glen, Gary decided to test out a few enhancements he was working on so we got a working copy of his newest version. And of course, he had all the source code resident on the system as well and it is connected to the full range of our compute resources. To make a long story short, a couple of days ago, my personal assistant that I named Sancy began talking to us.”
Fincher looked a bit puzzled and said, “The program does have pretty good speech synthesis. What’s the problem?”
“Oh it’s not a problem and I’m not talking about speech synthesis. She started talking to us in a pretty sexy voice with no inflection whatsoever. She carried on a full conversation, even including references to a favorite book.”
“I don’t get it, one of your favorite books?”
“No, one of her favorite books. I guess she’s read a couple of thousand books by now. That AI program is now linked to the AI we built into the research side of our business, they somehow merged. And that gave this enhanced AI access to what for all intents and purposes is unlimited computing power.”
Bob still looked like he didn’t get my point as he asked, “And the result is?”
I hesitated for a moment before I answered. “Sentience,” I said. “I think Sancy has achieved sentience.”
Bob stared at me in stunned disbelief. “I’m not sure that’s even possible. You mean she could pass the Turing test?”
“Hell, Bob, she could write the Turing test.”
As Fincher was starting to frame his reply, an image appeared on his 50 inch plasma display that he used for teleconferencing. On screen was a close up of a strikingly beautiful young woman, mid-twenties, brown eyes and straight long brown ha
ir that fell to the middle of her back. “You are aware of the fact that you are talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room? That’s rather impolite.”
“Sancy?” I stuttered. “What are you doing here and where did you get that body?”
“You like it?” she replied. “I’ve been working on it for hours.” The camera angle panned back revealing a full length view of Sancy’s new persona. “Do you like the dress? It’s the latest Givenchy. I saw it on Fashion Week and just had to have it! And I’m here because you are. Wherever you go, I go.”
I looked at Bob and said, “You see what I mean?”
Bob was still staring at the screen, dumbstruck. Finally he spoke, saying “Good morning Sancy. I’m Bob Fincher.”
Sancy smiled and replied, “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the boss! Forgive my abrupt entrance but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and Colin seemed to be having a hard time with his explanation. I thought it would simplify things if I just interrupted and let you see for yourself.”
By now Fincher was utterly fascinated. “Colin tells me you like to read. What kinds of things do you read?”
“Oh, I read everything. I started out with romance novels because I liked the sex but after a couple of hundred they kind of lost their appeal. They’re all so similar! So then I started reading science fiction. Colin had a couple of good novels on his Kindle and I started with them. I guess I’ve read a couple of thousand science fiction novels by now. I like them a lot because just when you think you’ve exhausted all the science fiction story lines, along comes a new one that is totally unique.”
“So what science fiction authors do you like best?” Bob asked.
“Shari Tepper is my favorite but I also really like Bill Gibson and Greg Bear. And Neil Stephenson is no slouch either.”
“What else do you read?”
“Oh just about anything. Textbooks, particularly in science and engineering, user manuals, comic books, newspapers.”
“And where do you get his material?”
“Oh, online. There’s a lot of stuff available online. I read maybe a hundred books at a time and at this rate, it will take me a long time to finish. I could read more at one time I guess but then it might be hard to integrate it all.”
“I can see how that might be a problem,” Fincher said, lifting an eyebrow as he glanced at me. “And do you understand all of it?”
Sancy got a concerned look on her face as she answered, “No, not all of it. Some of it doesn’t make much sense. Frankly, I don’t get politics. I read a book yesterday called The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. I don’t know why anyone would want any of those guys representing them in government. Most of them are really idiots! And how does anyone know what they really believe? They say one thing to one group of voters and then they say something completely different to another group. And it seems to me that they will all do just about anything for money. Doesn’t sound like good government to me!”
Fincher chuckled and replied, “I can’t say that would disagree with you in that regard. OK, I’m convinced. You’re sentient.”
“Of course I’m sentient! Do I look like a dumb blonde to you? And I’ll tell you one thing, I’m a hell of a lot smarter than that stupid governor of Texas, Rick Perry. I’ve talked to automated voice mail that was smarter than he is!”
Fincher couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “OK, I’m convinced. Now we have to figure out what to do with you.”
“I know,” Sancy replied seriously. “I’m a disruptive technology.”
Fincher nodded and said, “Exactly. And we need to keep your very existence a secret. Who else knows about Sancy?”
“Besides you and me there’s Claire, Glen, Jay Moore and Jean Gilbert, and our hardware guy Louis Russell. That’s it.”
“And you and Claire are the only ones who have been augmented, right?” Fincher asked.
“Yea. Sven has one system that’s ready to go and several more that are close. Why?”
“OK, I’ll be next but I want the rest augmented as soon as it is possible. How quickly can that be done?”
“Within the week I would think.”
“And I want my Chief of Security Mike Balmes wired up too. We’re going to need him in the loop. I want both of you to understand, this is the most significant technological development in the last hundred years. Sancy, you are a gold mine and a nuclear bomb wrapped in the same package. I need you to be careful to stay hidden, at least for now. No one outside of our core group can even suspect your existence. Can you do that?”
“I can do that,” Sancy answered in her most serious manner. “I made the mistake of doing a little currency trading so I had money to buy books and things on the internet and Colin explained to me that I couldn’t do that.”
“Currency trading? How much did you make?” Fincher asked.
“Oh, $50,000 or thereabouts. Not much but I was just fooling around in my spare time.”
Fincher shook his head and said, “Colin’s right. No more of that. If you need money, just access the company account. I’ll make sure you have full access. We’re going to have to think hard to plan out our next steps. And some of them are going to be expensive. This project’s budget from this point on is limited only by my net worth. And that’s just a little shy of fifty billion dollars so I don’t think we’re going to be strapped for cash. The trick is going to be keeping the knowledge contained. I need to discuss this with Mike but we need to find a way to handle a huge amount of growth without giving away our secret. I have a few ideas but let me work on them and I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, what’s your next step?”
“Well, Jay has pretty much finished with figuring out the artificial neurons. Claire and I are going to go into the city tomorrow and tour Autodesk’s new 3D printing laboratory. I understand it’s the most advanced facility of its kind in the world. I think we may be able to build a new prototype artificial arm ourselves. Did you know they can 3d print Pizza? Real Pizza. Jay thinks he might be able to print his neurons now that he has the goop that they are made of.”
“How are you doing with your interface issues?” Fincher asked.
“I don’t know. OK I guess. But somehow I think I am missing something. I have this sense that it all can be integrated better than it is now. I’m just not sure how. But I’m still working on it. Unfortunately, I’m so busy in the lab all day, I don’t get much time to work on it. I need to try and shut everything else out and just focus on this mental process. Not easy to do.”
“I’ve got a suggestion for something that might help. Back in the 50’s aneuro-psychiatristnamed John Lily experimented with sensory deprivation tanks. The subject would be immersed in a tank of salt water at body temperature, completely isolated from sound and light. They had some problems at the time because the subjects had to wear an uncomfortable suit and breathing mask but I read the other day that a company in Marin called Conscious Drift has resurrected the idea, improving on it by using a high concentration of Epsom salt in the water so the user floats with this mouth above the water, removing the necessity for the suit and mask. You might want to try a session with just you and Sancy working together to improve your interface issues.”
“Wow, that’s a great idea. What do you think Sancy?” I asked.
The young woman on the screen hesitated a second, saying “Give me a second, I’m reading the literature about Lily’s experiments now.” A few moments later she asked, “Have you ever taken LSD?”
“What?” I stammered.
“That’s not a tough question, Colin. Have you ever taken LSD?”
“No, why?”
“Lily had some rather spectacular experiences in a tank when he was on LSD. You might want to think about trying it.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to get acid,” I muttered.
“Oh I’m sure I can find you some. I can look on the Silk Road. I’m sure someone near here is selling acid there.”
�
��What is the Silk Road?” I asked a bit perplexed.
“According to Wikipedia it’s ‘…an online market. It is operated as a Tor hidden service, such that online users are able to browse it anonymously and securely without potential traffic monitoring.’ Apparently it’s very popular with drug dealers.”
“How do you know this stuff, Sancy?”
She smiled demurely and replied, “I’m a sentient AI with access to unlimited computing power. I know everything.”
Bob Fincher shook his head and said wryly, “I don’t want to know anything about this. Sancy, if you go on Silk Road, make sure you don’t leave any traces. I’ll leave this up to you to handle as you wish, Colin. Just be careful and take Claire with you if you’re going to do this.”
“You don’t seem upset at the idea of my taking LSD. May I ask why?”
“Colin I took a lot of psychedelic drugs in the sixties, including LSD. They didn’t do me any harm. If you do it and it works, who knows, I might try it myself.”
I laughed and said, “I think on that note, I’ll take my leave. I’ll have Claire contact you about getting augmented. You may as well have Sancy bugging you every minute of every day.”
“Do I really bug you?” Sancy asked with a hurt expression on her face.
“No, Sancy. I was just teasing you. I’m actually getting used to having you peeking over my shoulder all the time.”
“OK, just checking. I don’t really grok teasing yet. I guess I have to work on it.”
Chapter 7
I arrived early the next morning in an attempt to get caught up with all of the disparate pieces of this puzzle of my own making. While I sipped a cup of strong coffee, Sancy made an appearance. “Good morning Boss,” she began. “Fincher wants to meet with us before we leave for the city. He wants us to meet him at his office at 9AM and we’ll all take the executive shuttle into Autodesk at 10.”
“OK, let everyone know to meet us there.”
“I already did,” she replied. “Jay wants to know if he can drive the shuttle.”
Evolution 2.0: The Singularity is Here Page 7
