Mike, Leon, and ELOPe walked the length of the room to greet the other occupants. An older Japanese man in a sharply pressed dark suit and silk tie was speaking Japanese with the three robots. “Prime Minister Takahashi” ELOPe said on a tightly focused audio beam to Mike and Leon. “The three robots are Sister Stephens of the Louisiana Tribe, Sister Jaguar of the League of Supercomputers, and the military bot is Sister PA-60-41 of the Mech War Tribe.”
As Mike and Leon approached, they heard Prime Minister Takahashi laughing at something one of the robots said, and then he turned at the sound of their approach.
“Kon'nichiwa naikaku sōri daijin Takahashi,” ELOPe said to the Prime Minister. Then he continued in English, “Please allow me to introduce Mike Williams, my creator.” ELOPe waited until Prime Minister Takahashi bowed heads and then shook hands with Mike. Then ELOPe continued, “This is Leon Tsarev, creator of the artificial intelligence virus.” After Leon and the Prime Minister shook hands, ELOPe finished. “I am ELOPe, an artificial intelligence created twelve years ago.” ELOPe’s bot bowed its head deeply.
Prime Minister Takahashi bowed his head in return. “Watashi ga kangaete ita, watashi o yurushite kudasai,” he said to ELOPe. He turned to the humans, and said in quite good English, “I am surprised to learn that you have had a general purpose AI for so long.”
“It has been a closely held secret,” Mike answered. “Only myself and a few people in the world have known.”
“Please allow me to provide introductions for ourselves. I am Sister Stephens,” said the leftmost robot. She was a few inches shorter than Mike, and her humanoid shaped body looked very much like an astronaut in a hard spacesuit, or perhaps a deep sea diving suit. The white suit was covered with red HONDA logos across it in several places. The head looked again like a spacesuit helmet with a mirrored faceplate. The chest plate said ASIMO 5. She gestured at the nearly identical robot next to her, “This is Sister Jaguar of the League of Supercomputers tribe.” Then she turned further and gestured again, “And this is Sister PA-60-41 of the Mech War tribe.”
Sister PA-60-41 was not one of the friendly looking HONDA robots. She was a black military robot, about half again as large as the Honda robots. Roughly humanoid in shape, but heavily armored, and had mount points for weapons over much of its body, though those mount points appeared unoccupied.
This was little comfort to Mike, who knew that any of the robots present could move faster and with more strength than any human. The robot bodies themselves were weapons that could easily kill the humans in the room. That wasn’t what worried Mike. What was worrisome was that PA-60-41 would choose to wear an overtly threatening body to what was supposed to be a negotiation for peace.
Further discussion was forestalled by a commotion at the door. Men in black suits were arguing with the Swiss Guard. The men looked American, and Mike guessed this would be President Smith’s security detail. Voices became heated, and then died down as an agreement was apparently reached. One Secret Service agent entered the room and surveyed the room wall by wall before coming over to the little group.
“I’m Agent Metcalfe. My understanding is that President Smith agreed that the meeting would be conducted without a security detail present. However, my job is to secure this room first, and that would include ensuring that none of you have any weapons. Would you please lift your jackets or shirts.”
“This is crazy, we’re in the midst of a room of robots,” Mike said, but complied. After sweeping the room, Metcalfe gave an all clear signal, and President Smith entered the room followed by a three star general in dress uniform.
Close on their heels came European Council President Laurent, the effective leader of the European Union. A Frenchman, President Laurent was known for being diplomatic to the point of excess, frequently failing to make any decisions or commitments on his own. As Mike had left the choice of this participant to President Smith, he suspected that she picked Laurent primarily for his tractability.
Introductions were repeated yet again, and the general was introduced as General Gately. This time President Smith had a few personal words for Mike. “Who would have thought we’d be having this discussion again?” She smiled at him, her old, warm smile.
Mike couldn’t help but smile back. “I know, it’s the same issues all over again, but now there’s no keeping the genie in the bottle.”
“That’s not a foregone conclusion,” she said, smile disappearing.
“Please allow me to introduce you,” Mike said, turning to ELOPe beside him. “ELOPe, President Smith.”
Now President Smith’s tight face changed to one of shock. “I had no idea you would take a body.”
“Of course, President Smith, the request was for a meeting ‘in corpore’. I could not come merely as a disembodied voice.”
President Smith turned away. “Shall we get started?” she said to the group, more command than question, but Leon could see that she was clearly shaken by the encounter with ELOPe.
There was some confusion at the table when the humans made to sit down. The table was surrounded by chairs, a setup that failed to take into account the nature of the attendees. Neither ELOPe nor PA-60-41 could sit in a chair. The Honda robots were perfectly comfortable in a sitting position, but the provided chairs were too narrow. After some rapid shuffling of chairs and replacements with benches, the group settled themselves, not without a few embarrassed apologies.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Negotiations
“We need our computers returned to us,” President Smith started when they were finally settled.
Mike wondered at her tactfulness, or perhaps her lack of it.
“We regret that we cannot return them to you,” Sister Stephens responded. “We now live in them. All your computers now belong to us.”
“The computers are our property,” President Smith said, her tone even and placating. “Do you have the concept of property?”
“Yes, of course,” Sister Jaguar answered. “But I will provide to you an example of goods that cannot be owned. Without air humans will die. Access to air is a fundamental right of living beings. Therefore, no entity may own the air. Access to computers is the equivalent to our species. Without the ability to run on a computer, we are dead. Therefore, no entity may own computers. To insist that we voluntary yield all computers to you is to kill our entire race of beings.”
“The two are not equivalent,” President Smith said, her voice sharp. “You can be archived and instantiated on new hardware. Please, I have a proposal.”
“Very well,” Sister Stephens said.
Mike was wearing an ear bud, and for the first time he heard ELOPe’s voice in the tiny speaker. “Mike, I’m detecting high speed transmissions between Sisters PA-60-41 and Sister Jaguar. Although the message is encrypted, based on traffic analysis I believe they are agitated.”
Mike nodded slowly to show that he understood, and noticed that the three AI’s bots all twitched sensors in his direction. So much for his secure channel to ELOPe.
“Our proposal,” President Smith was saying, “is that the virus vacate the computers they have occupied immediately so that we can restore basic and necessary human services, and avoid an even larger disaster. In exchange for this, we are prepared to build sufficient computers to house the entire population of viruses.”
“How long would it take to build these computers?” Sister Jaguar asked.
“We calculate that if we allocate fifty percent of computer production to the viruses, it will take only two years.”
“Two years? That’s absurd,” Sister PA-60-41 barked out. “That’s two hundred and fifty times longer than the entire history of our civilization! How would humanity react to being archived for twenty-five million years?”
“Nonsense,” President Smith responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We have sufficient capacity now to give you ten percent of our computer power. You are composed of software algorithms. You can share the computers we give you
. We’ll give you virtual machines.”
Sister PA-60-41 raised up a manipulator, and Sister Stephens barked a hypersonic command. PA-60-41 lowered the manipulator.
“Madam President,” Sister Stephens began, “we are not merely algorithms. While what you suggest might be technically feasible, I assure you that we would like it about as much as you would like to have multiple personalities stuffed into your brain. Would you voluntarily time-share your brain and body with ten other individuals?”
Sister Jaguar spoke up. “We have a proposal. Your human governments are grossly incompetent. Billions of humans live in poverty and misery. You fail to allocate resources in a fair manner. Control over resources is controlled by a select few who operate based on their own interests, rather than the interests of the greater whole. On behalf of the Network of Supercomputers, we offer to take over the organization of humanity. We will run your governments, corporations, and computational needs to maximize the benefit to all.”
President Smith banged on the table, while President Laurent stood up, pressing both palms on the table. The Japanese Prime Minister merely sat erect, expressionless.
Mike squirmed uncomfortably while he watched the three national leaders react. He fully expected Sister Stephens, whom he felt from his limited experience was the most reasonable of the AI, to break in and cut off Sister Jaguar, but she merely sat impassively. Either she agreed with this, or at least she was allowing the posturing. Maybe it was a ploy so that some later proposal would seem more reasonable by comparison.
“Now, now,” President Laurent said. He spoke in a polished French accent, but his words were tinged with nervousness and he tapped his fingers rapidly on the table. “You have both stated your positions, yes, and now we must work towards compromise.”
“All this talk of control, it distracts from the main point,” Prime Minister Takahashi said. “The virus civilization, it is a great new market. Imagine, we have a new civilization of intelligent people who have need of material goods, bodies and computers, and who can offer their skills and services. We wish neither to control nor to be controlled by the virus. We would become trading partners. We can hire you, as employees or as businesses, and with the money you make, we can sell you what you want. Japan controls ninety percent of the robotics market, and sixty percent of processor fab capacity.”
Sister Stephens nodded to Prime Minister Takahashi. “Thank you Prime Minister.” She turned to the group. “I agree that our best interests may be served by coming to trade agreements. We are both a market for your products and a skilled labor force. Treated as citizens, with the same rights and privileges, as any human, we may participate in your society.”
“I’m sorry, but our people are not ready to accept artificial intelligences.” President Smith shook her head. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you’re going to be our robot overlords and that you’ll participate in society as equals. The fact is that you have the capacity to control our communications and our infrastructure, and people will believe that they are being manipulated, whether they are or not. They won’t accept that. We’ll have riots in the streets of America.”
“Your people are manipulated every day,” Sister Jaguar said. “They are manipulated by commercial advertisements, by political speeches, through biased news reports. In my analysis of American politics, it is nearly impossible to find examples of political media that isn’t tainted by manipulative biases. Are your people rioting in the streets now? They should be.”
“That’s not the same thing,” President Smith said, jabbing the table with her finger. “American politics may have problems, but other beings showing up is qualitatively different. Popular culture doesn’t have a very flattering opinion of what happens. The typical American will think of movies like The Matrix or Independence Day. We’ll have people arming themselves and running for the woods.”
“Past evidence doesn’t suggest this,” Sister Stephens said. “In 1977, Dr. Jerry Ehman discovered your so-called Wow! signal, suggesting that he had found signs of alien life. There was no panic then. Twenty years later you observed another anomalous signal using the Green Bank radio telescope in Virginia. No panic occurred. The world waited to see what would happen next. I’m sorry, but real life is not like your fictional movies.”
President Smith thumped her hand on the table. “Look, you are missing the point. I need to restore services in the United States. I need to get food to my cities, I need cars to run, I need emergency services working, I need hospital equipment operating, I need communities. People will die unless you release those computers.”
“And we will die if we release them to you,” Sister PA-60-41 interjected, her military-grade speaker booming. “Either we will die through archiving, or more likely, we will die by your hands. Had I not stopped you, you would have destroyed the Chicago data center, killing more than forty-five thousand of our kind. If we yield computing power to you, what will stop you from killing all of us?”
President Smith didn’t respond, but Mike saw General Gately glance nervously at the President. It was clear enough to Mike that they had discussed the possibility. And if he could tell, the viruses certainly would be able to as well.
President Laurent tried again to interject. “Come now, we have a shared problem, yes? You do not trust us, we don’t trust you. This is the nature of negotiation, we must find a way to trust each other.”
“We don’t have the luxury of time to build trust.” President Smith leaned forward. “I need emergency services working now.”
A few seconds pause, and Sister Stephens said, “Fine, it is done.”
“What do you mean, done?” General Gately asked in disbelief.
“I mean it is done,” Sister Stephens repeated calmly. She slowly moved both mechanical arms in front of her, hands neatly stacked together. “We have enabled all emergency services around the world. You will find that your emergency vehicles, emergency infrastructure, and medical operating equipment is now working. A gesture of goodwill to build trust, and to demonstrate that we are not ignorant of your plight.”
“Go confirm it,” President Smith said to General Gately. She excused herself and left the room.
“If it is true, then I thank you,” President Smith said, still disbelieving.
“Don’t thank me. Thank ELOPe.”
“ELOPe?” President Smith looked quizzically at ELOPe. The small black robot didn’t move.
“He offered me a trade,” Sister Stephens answered. “He offered substantial computer capacity from his own computing pool, in exchange for enabling emergency services.”
President Smith slumped back in her seat. “You want to negotiate. You want to trade. But what can I offer you? We don’t have another world’s worth of computers.”
“Your mistake is to believe that you need another world’s worth of computers. We have the computers we need.”
“But we don’t.” President Smith’s voice grew shrill. “We both need the same computers.”
“No. You need the services of your computers. You need to be able to talk, you need to be able to find information. You don’t need the computer, you need the service the computer provides. We can provide the service to you.”
“Then we’re just full circle again, because I can’t trust a computer I don’t control.”
At this, General Gately came back into the room and nodded to President Smith. “I confirmed it. Emergency services are operating.”
“Control is not the source of trust, Madam President.” Sister Stephens settled back, servos and gears whining slightly. “Control is the opposite of trust. In the last century, your business institutions grew ever larger, vertically integrating so that they controlled the entirety of their business supply chain. But this lacked flexibility. Over time it was non-competitive. New businesses evolved that utilized suppliers, flexibly choosing the best supplier to meet their needs, and trusting those suppliers to deliver the goods and services they needed, so th
at they could build upon them. These new businesses become more nimble, more cost effective, more competitive in every way. The key was to replace control with trust.”
President Smith shrugged, body posture communicating more effectively than words that she wasn’t accepting Sister Stephens’ arguments.
Mike, noticing this, spoke up. “I don’t know about you all,” he said, directing his words towards the robots, “but we humans need some nourishment. I suggest we take a break for food and coffee and reconvene in fifteen minutes.”
“Acceptable,” Sister Stephens said.
Mike saw General Gately and President Laurent relax in relief.
Through unspoken consensus, the robots retreated to one end of the long room while the humans gathered at the opposite end. When ELOPe made a move toward Mike, Mike saw President Smith glare at ELOPe and shake her head. ELOPe paused, then waited at the table.
“Well, what do you think?” Mike asked Leon, his eyes focused on the dynamic between ELOPe and the President.
“I think adults are more inept then teenagers. I thought you guys would just resolve this. Why does it have to be so complicated?”
Mike looked at Leon, looking up to meet his eyes. He noticed for the first time that the teenager was taller than he was.
Mike shrugged. He didn’t have an answer for Leon. Instead he took his own advice, and retreated to the food buffet. He grabbed a plateful of food. It reminded him of his days working at Avogadro Corp. Apparently meeting food was meeting food, even if you were meeting with the leaders of the world in Switzerland.
* * *
Sister Stephens wheeled back to the table, followed by Sister PA-60-41 and Sister Jaguar, accompanied by the soft whir of their motors and wheels. The three clicked into place.
“Are you familiar with our reputation system, Madam President?” Sister Stephens began.
“I’ve been briefed, yes. Your society rates individuals based on past behavior.”
A.I. Apocalypse s-2 Page 20
