The Turing Option

by Harry Harrison

  J.J. verbally confirmed the arrangements with Security Control Central. He hung up and started for the door.

  “The computer is processing the order,” J.J. said. “In ten minutes it will make entry codes available at the outer laboratory terminal. We will then have a one-minute window of access before the entire operation is automatically canceled. Let’s go.”

  If the security arrangements were invisible during the day this certainly was not true at night. In the short walk from the office block to the laboratory building they encountered two guards on patrol—both with vicious-looking dogs on strained leashes. The area was brilliantly lit, while TV cameras turned and followed them as they walked through the grounds. Another guard, his Uzi submachine gun ready, was waiting outside the lab doors. Although the guard knew them all, including his own boss, he had to see their personal IDs before he unlocked the security box. J.J. waited patiently until the light inside turned green. He entered the correct code, then pressed his thumb to the pressure plate. The computer checked his thumbprint as well. Toth repeated this procedure, then in response to the computer’s query, punched in the number of visitors.

  “Computer needs your thumbprint too, Dr. McCrory.”

  Only after this had been done did the motors hum in the frame and the door clicked open.

  “I’ll take you as far as the laboratory,” Toth said, “but I’m not cleared for entry at this time. Call me on the red phone when you are ready to leave.”

  The laboratory was brilliantly lit. Visible through the armor-glass door was a thin, nervous man in his early twenties. He ran his fingers anxiously through his unruly red hair as he waited.

  “He looks a little young for this level of responsibility,” J. J. Beckworth said.

  “He is young—but you must realize that he finished college before he was sixteen years old,” Bill McCrory said. “And had his doctorate by the time he was nineteen. If you have never seen a genius before you are looking at one now. Our headhunters followed his career very closely, but he was a loner with no corporate interest, turned down all of our offers.”

  “Then how come he is working for us now?”

  “He overstretched himself. This kind of research is both expensive and time-consuming. When his personal assets began to run out we approached him with a contract that would benefit both parties. At first he refused—in the end he had no choice.”

  Both visitors had to identify themselves at another security station before the last door opened. Toth stepped aside as they went in; the computer counted the visitors carefully. They entered and heard the door close and lock behind them. J. J. Beckworth took the lead, knowing that the easier he made this meeting, the faster he would get results. He extended his hand and shook Brian’s firmly.

  “This is a great pleasure, Brian. I just wish we could have met sooner. I have heard nothing but good news about the work you have been doing. You have my congratulations—and my thanks for taking the time to show me what you have done.”

  Brian’s white Irish skin turned red at his unexpected praise. He was not used to it. Nor was he versed enough in the world of business to realize that the Chairman was deliberately turning on the charm. Deliberate or not, it had the desired result. He was more at ease now, eager to answer and explain. J.J. nodded and smiled.

  “I have been told that you have had an important breakthrough. Is that true?”

  “Absolutely! You could say that this is it—the end of ten years’ work. Or rather the beginning of the end. There will be plenty of development to come.”

  “I was given to understand that it has something to do with artificial intelligence.”

  “Yes, indeed. I think that we have some real AI, at last.”

  “Hold your horses, young man. I thought that AI had been around for decades?”

  “Certainly. There have been some pretty smart programs written and used that have been called AI. But what I have here is something far more advanced—with abilities that promise to rival those of the human mind.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t mean to lecture. But how acquainted are you with the work in this field?”

  “To be perfectly frank, I know nothing at all. And the name is J.J., if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, sir—J.J. Then if you will come with me I will bring you up to date a little bit.”

  He led the way to an impressive array of apparatus that filled an entire laboratory bench. “This is not my work, it’s a project that Dr. Goldblum has under way. But it makes a perfect introduction to AI. The hardware isn’t much, it’s an old Macintosh SE/60 with a Motorola 68050 CPU and a data-base coprocessor that increases its execution speed by a factor of 100. The software itself is based on an updated version of a classic Self-Learning Expert System for renal analysis.”

  “Just hold it there, son! I don’t know what a renal is. I know a little about Expert Systems, but what was it you said—a Self-Learning Expert System? You are going to have to go back and start at square A if you don’t want to lose me.”

  Brian had to smile at this. “Sorry. You’re right, I better go back to the beginning. Renal refers to kidney functions. And Expert Systems, as you know, are knowledge-based programs for computers. What we call computer hardware is the machinery that just sits there. Turn off the electricity switch and all you have are a lot of expensive paperweights. Turn it on and the computer has just enough built-in programming to test itself to see if it is working all right, then it prepares to load in its instructions. These computer instructions are called software. These are the programs that you put in to tell the hardware what to do and how to do it. If you load in a word processing program you can then use the computer to write a book. Or if you load a bookkeeping program the same computer will do high-speed accountancy.”

  J.J. nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  “The old, first-generation programs for Expert Systems could each do only one sort of thing, and one thing only—such as to play chess, or diagnose kidney disease, or design a computer circuit. But each of those programs would do the same thing over and over again, even if the results of doing so were unsatisfactory. Expert Programs were the first step along the road to AI, artificial intelligence, because they do think—in a very simple and stereotyped manner. The self-learning programs were the next step. And I think my new learning-learning type of program will be the next big step, because it can do so much more without breaking down and getting confused.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Do you have a languaphone and a voxfax in your office?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then there are two perfect examples of what I am talking about. Do you take calls from many foreign countries?”

  “Yes, a good number. I talked with Japan quite recently.”

  “Did the person you were talking to hesitate at any time?”

  “I think so, yes. His face sort of froze for an instant.”

  “That was because the languaphone was working in real time. Sometimes there is no way to instantly translate a word’s meaning, because you can’t tell what the word means until you have seen the next word—like the words ‘to,’ ‘too,’ and ‘two.’ It’s the same with an adjective like ‘bright,’ which might mean shining or might mean intelligent. Sometimes you may have to wait for the end of a sentence—or even the next sentence. So the languaphone, which animates the face, may have to wait for a complete expression before it can translate the Japanese speaker’s words into English—and animate the image to synchronize lip movements to the English words. The translator program works incredibly fast, but still it sometimes must freeze the image while it analyzes the sounds and the word order in your incoming call. Then it has to translate, again, into English. Only then can the voxfax start to transcribe and print out the translated version of the conversation. An ordinary fax machine just makes a print of whatever is fed into a fax machine at the other end of the connection. It takes the electronic signals that it receives from the other fax
and reconstructs a copy of the original. But your voxfax is a different kind of bird. It is not intelligent—but it uses an analytical program to listen to the translated or English words of your incoming telephone calls. It analyzes them, then compares them with words in its memory and discovers what words they make up. Then it prints out the words.”

  “Sounds simple enough.”

  Brian laughed. “It is one of the most complex things that we have ever taught computers to do. The system has to take each Japanese element of speech and compare it to stored networks of information about how each English word, phrase or expression is used. Thousands of man-hours of programming have been done to duplicate what our brains do in an instant of time. When I say ‘dog’ you know instantly what I mean, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know how you did it?”

  “No. I just did it.”

  “That I just did it is the first problem faced in the study of artificial intelligence. Now let’s look at what the computer does when it hears ‘dog.’ Think of regional and foreign accents. The sound may be closer to dawg, or daw-ug, or any other countless variations. The computer breaks down the word into composite phonemes or sounds, then looks at other words you have recently said. It compares with sounds, relationships, and meanings it holds in memory, then uses a circuitry to see if its first guesses make sense; if not it starts over again. It remembers its successes and refers back to them when it confronts new problems. Luckily it works very, very fast. It may have to do thousands of millions of computations before it types out ‘dog.’’”

  “I’m with you so far. But I don’t see what is expert about this voxfax system. It doesn’t seem to be any different from a word processing system.”

  “But it is—and you have put your finger on the basic difference. When I type the letters D-O-G into an ordinary word processor, it simply records them in memory. It may move them around, from line to line, stretch them out to fit a justified line or type them out when so instructed—but it is really just inflexibly following unchanging instructions. However, your languaphone and your voxfax program are teaching themselves. When either of them makes a mistake it discards the mistake, then tries something else—and remembers what it has done. This is a first step in the right direction. It is a self-correcting learning program.”

  “Then this is your new artificial intelligence?”

  “No, this is only a small step that was made some years ago. The answer to developing true artificial intelligence is something completely different.”

  “What is it?”

  Brian smiled at the boldness of the question. “It is not that easy to explain—but I can show you what I have done. My lab is right down here.”

  He led the way through the connected laboratories. It all appeared very unimpressive to Beckworth, just a series of computers and terminals. Not for the first time he was more than glad to be at the business end to this enterprise. Much of the apparatus was turned on and running, though unattended. As they passed a bench mounted with a large TV screen he stopped dead.

  “Good God! Is that a three-dimensional TV picture?”

  “It is,” McCrory said, turning his back on the screen and frowning unhappily. “But I wouldn’t look at it for too long if I were you.”

  “Why not? This will revolutionize the TV business, give us a world lead …” He rubbed his thumb along his forehead, realizing that one of his very rare headaches was coming on.

  “If it worked perfectly, yes, it should certainly do just that. As you can see it apparently works like a dream. Except that no one can watch it for more than a minute or two without getting a headache. But we think we have a good way to fix this in the next model.”

  J.J. turned away and sighed. “What did they use to say? Back to the drawing board. Anyway, perfect this one and we own the world.” J.J. shook his head and turned back to Brian. “I hope you have something to show us that works better than that.”

  “I do, sir. I’m going to show you the new robot that will overcome most of the limitations of the older AI machines.”

  “Is this the one that can learn new ways to learn?”

  “That’s it. It’s right over there. Robin-1. Robot Intelligence number 1.”

  J.J. looked in the indicated direction and tried to control his disappointment.

  “Where?”

  All he could see was an electronic workbench with various items of some kind on it, along with a large monitor screen. It looked just like any other part of the lab. Brian pointed to an electronic instrumentation rack about the size of a filing cabinet.

  “Most of the control circuitry and memory for Robin-1 is in there. It communicates by infrared with its mechanical interface, that telerobot over there.”

  The telerobot did not look like any robot J.J. had ever seen. It was on the floor, a sort of upside-down treelike thing that stood no higher than his waist. It was topped by two upward-reaching arms that ended in metallic globes. The two lower branches branched—and branched again and again until the smaller branches were as thin as spaghetti. J.J. was not impressed. “A couple of metal stalks stuck on two brooms. I don’t get it.”

  “Hardly brooms. You are looking at the latest advance in microtechnology. This overcomes most of the mechanical limitations of the past generations of robots. Every branch is a feedback manipulator that enables the management program to receive input and—”

  “What can it do?” J.J. said brusquely. “I’m very pressed for time.”

  Brian’s knuckles whitened as he made hard fists. He tried to keep his anger from his voice. “For one thing, it can talk.”

  “Let’s hear it.” J.J. glanced obviously at his watch.

  “Robin, who am I?” Brian said.

  A metallic iris opened in both of the erect metal spheres. Tiny motors hummed as they turned to face Brian. They clicked shut.

  “You are Brian,” a buzzing voice said from the speakers also mounted on the spheres.

  J.J.’s nostrils flared. “Who am I?” he asked. There was no response. Brian spoke quickly.

  “It only responds when it hears its name, Robin. It also would probably not understand your voice, since it has only had verbal input from me. I’ll ask. Robin. Who is this? Figure next to mine.”

  The diaphragms opened, the eyes moved again. Then there was a faint brushing sound as the countless metallic bristles moved in unison and the thing moved toward Beckworth. He stepped backward and the robot followed him.

  “No need to move or be afraid,” Brian said. “The current optic receptors only have a short focus. There, it has stopped.”

  “Object unknown. Ninety-seven percent possibility human. Name?”

  “Correct. Name, last, Beckworth. Initial J.”

  “J. J. Beckworth, aged sixty-two. Blood type O. Social Security number 130-18-4523. Born in Chicago, Illinois. Married. Two children. Parents were …”

  “Robin, terminate,” Brian ordered, and the buzzing voice stopped, the diaphragms clicked shut. “I’m sorry about all that, sir. But it had access to personnel records when I was setting up some identification experiments here.”

  “These games are of no importance. And I am not impressed. What else does the damned thing do? Can it move?”

  “In many ways better than you or I,” Brian replied. “Robin, catch!”

  Brian picked up a box of paper clips—and threw them all toward the telerobot. The thing whirred in a blur of motion as it smoothly unfolded and rearranged most of its tendrils into hundreds of little handlike claws. As they spread out they simultaneously caught every one of the paper clips. It put them all down in a neat pile.

  At last J.J. was pleased. “That’s good. I think there could be commercial applications. But what about its intelligence? Does it think better than we think, solve problems that we can’t?”

  “Yes and no. It is new and still has not learned very much. Getting it to recognize objects—and figure out how to handle them—has been a problem
for almost fifty years, and finally we have made a machine learn how to do it. Getting it to think at all was the primary problem. Now it is improving very rapidly. In fact, it appears that its learning capacity is increasing exponentially. Let me show you.”

  J.J. was interested—but dubious. But before he could speak again there was the harsh ringing of a telephone, a loud and demanding sound.

  “It’s the red phone!” McCrory said, startled.

  “I’ll take it.” Beckworth picked up the phone and an unfamiliar voice rasped in his ear.

  “Mr. Beckworth, there is an emergency. You must come at once.”

  “What is it?”

  “This line is not secure.”

  J.J. put down the phone, frowned with annoyance. “There is an emergency of some kind, I don’t know what. You both wait here. I’ll attend to it as fast as I can. I’ll phone you if it looks like there will be any lengthy delays.”

  His footsteps retreated and Brian stood in angry silence glaring at the machine before him.

  “He doesn’t understand,” McCrory said. “He hasn’t the background to understand the importance of what you have accomplished.”

  He stopped when he heard the three coughing sounds followed by a loud gasp, a crash of equipment falling to the floor. “What is it?” he called out, turned and started back into the other lab. The coughing sounded again and McCrory spun around, his face a bloody mask, collapsed and fell.

  Brian turned and ran. Not with logic or intelligence, but spurred on by simple survival—painfully learned from a boyhood of bullying and assaults by older children. He went through the door just before the frame exploded next to his head.

  Straight in front of him was the vault for the streamed backup tapes. Lodged there every night, empty now. Fireproof and assault proof. A closet for a boy to hide, a dark place to flee to. As he threw the door open bright pain tore into his back, slammed him forward, spun him about. He gasped at what he saw. Raised his arm in impotent defense.