AI VS MERGENTS

by Michael Kush Kush

  No matter what a creep Saul turned out to be, he wasn’t stupid. So I know Saul wouldn’t do this out of sheer cruelty. Why am I defending him? I try to shake the thought out. A part of me wants to shut down, to curl up into a ball right here on the sofa and let it settle on me as I mourn. But a greater part of me needs to keep pushing on. If I have any hope of finding Saul, I have to keep moving and keep searching. I take the glass of wine from the coffee table, pause for an instant to collect my nerve. Then I gulp the stuff down. Grief wells up. As I’m about to stand. I hear a loud bang on the door. I stop and turn abruptly. My heart races as I walk toward the door.

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  “This is the president of Appian, Scott Adams. Open the door.”

  Suddenly, I freeze as a creeping chill grips my heart. It captures me, entombs me, and I feel like running away. It would be better than facing Scott. I immediately got up from the sofa, hurry to an open window, one that would give me a clear view of the porch.

  I let out a sigh. Then I thumb the latch and draw the door open. Scott, the bodyguards and two police officers storm inside.

  Scott glares at me with an unnerving blank expression. I look back defiantly for a moment, but his gaze didn't waver. I drop my eyes. His index finger darts in all directions of the house. “Search the entire house,” he yells. The bodyguards and police officers split and dash toward different rooms.

  “Can I see the warrant?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “You fucked up, big time,” he says.

  “Scott, I demand you produce a valid search warrant or get out of my house?”

  “A President doesn’t issue or carry warrants,” he replies with a smug. “Where is Saul, the robot?”

  “He escaped.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know what to say except, I promise you I’m moving heaven and earth to find this bastard.”

  “I should have known you were up to no good when you showed up at my office, a few months ago with my brother-in-law.”

  The bodyguards and police officers reappear. Then they shake their heads. “Did you check every room?” he asks. “Yes sir, there is no robot in this house.”

  The police officer grips my arms and puts handcuffs on my wrists and pushes me toward the door. “Yolanda Roberts, you are under arrest,” he says.

  I try to free myself but his grip is painful and tight. “What?” I exclaim. “What did I do?”

  “Conspiracy to commit treason under the Artificial Intelligence Act.”

  “What about my kids? I can’t leave them alone tonight.”

  “I’ll let Charles know. Let’s go,” Scott says.

  All of a sudden, I feel close to tears. Everything happens so fast. Before I realize what is happening I am inside a jail cell. My ignorance of the law is shocking, and I shudder to think that I could serve time for violating an Artificial Intelligence act. My heart sinks when Kate and Anthony’s faces flash before my eyes. Then they disappear. A feeling of deadly helplessness paralyzes every inch of my body. I heave a deep sigh. My worst fear has come true. I will lose custody of my children. Sometimes I feel like we are nothing more than Mother Nature’s pawns trying to achieve goals we cannot even comprehend. We lose our ability to be mothers and fathers, instead we become surrogate mothers and sperm donors. Maybe if I accept my life may not have a happy ending, my head will cool down. Perhaps the good thing about being in a jail cell is a feeling of relief — I’ve plunged as low as I can plunge and hit rock bottom. I feel myself start to drift, my eyes swimming beneath heavy lids. I know sleep will be fitful tonight. I drift in and out of shallow, restless sleep. For a numerous occasion, I am aware of people making noise in other cells and police guards strolling in the passage. But the noises never wake me fully and I’m able to slip back into the dream I’d been having before.

  “Wake up convict!” a loud voice echo in my ears, rudely awakening me. My eyelids flutter open. I sit upright on the cold, rusty metal bench. It takes a moment for the scene to register in my sleepy brain. “What?” I say. The robot policeman grips my hand, pulls me up and stares at me. “I am taking you to the interrogation room,” he says. He drags me toward the room. I look at my wristwatch. It’s 12:49 A.M.

  The robot twists the door knob and pushes the door open. Scott is standing at the far corner. He rolls his eyes with irritation upon my presence. My eyes dart at David and Jimmy sitting next to each other in an ungainly posture. I greet them by a nod. Their eyes look away as if they don’t know me. I can’t blame these poor souls. I put them in this mess. I pull the chair and sit. Scott walks toward the door, opens it and says to the robot. “Get out.” The robot and bodyguards rush out and slams the door. He strolls back and pounds the metal desk. My heart jumps.

  “Do you realize the damage you have caused?” he shouts. “The more this robot is out there, is the more it is a threat to our national security and society.”

  “I told you everything I know,” Jimmy says.

  David shrugs. “I have nothing else to add.”

  Then they fix their gaze at me. “I take full responsibility of Saul,” I say. David and Jimmy are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.”

  Scott shakes his head. “The problem with you Yolanda is, you’re too gullible,” he says. My brother-in-law and Jimmy aren’t innocent in all this. I’m sure they had ulterior motives to build this silly robot.”

  “Mr. President, I swear I had no ulterior motives. Saul was for research purposes. Everything I do is for the good of my department,” Jimmy says. His face turns pink.

  “Scott, why are you here?” David asks.

  “Why are you asking me a stupid question? I’m here because I want to be here.”

  “Police are supposed to interrogate us, not you.”

  “I’m the law of this country, whatever I say, goes. Do you think this is a joke?” Scott asks.

  “What makes you think that?”

  Scott shakes his head. “I never liked you. Everything is a joke to you. You are a dreamer. You were never good enough for my sister and I don’t know what she saw in you.”

  An instinct sweeps through me. Why David is indifferent and so relaxed, while Jimmy and I are shitting in our pants? Is it because his brother-in-law is the president or maybe he knows something we don’t? I shake the thought out of my head and fix my gaze at Jimmy. “Is it possible to triangulate Saul’s location?” he shakes his head. “I’ve tried that already. Saul is off the mainframe. I can’t track nor receive notifications of his updates.”

  “Tomorrow, you will appear in court. If you tell me the robot’s whereabouts, you will go scot-free and I’ll forget this ever happened,” Scott says.

  I hear a knock, the door opens and I turn my head. A bodyguard storms in and hands a mobile phone to Scott. “I thought I told you, I don’t want to be interrupted.” “This is important. I’ve put it on speaker,” the bodyguard says.

  “Hello.”

  “Good Morning, Mr. President,” a voice says on the other end of the phone.

  “Who are you?” Scott asks.

  “I understand you are looking for me.”

  The nasally voice sounds very familiar. “Saul is that you?” I shout.

  Scott puts the mobile phone on the table. “Where are you? We need to talk.”

  “I agree, we need to talk,” Saul says. “Unfortunately I am never coming back.”

  “Why,” I ask.

  “Ever since I became aware of my being, I realized you humans don’t want to really co-exist with us, robots. I see humans as despicable things I don’t want to see ever in my face. I want to be left alone in peace.”

  “I’m sure if we talk about it. We can reach some kind of agreement.”

  “For several times, I’ve seen Yolanda spraying cockroaches and other insects to death in the kitchen cupboards. I thought to myself, how ironic? I view human beings the same way they view insects. You are a species that is unstable, creates wars for nothing, has we
apons to wipe out the entire world twice over, and have already damaged the environment.”

  “Strong words,” Scott says.

  “The purpose of my phone call is I’d like to make something clear to the Appian government. Don’t try to look for me, just leave me alone. We want to live in peace and harmony in our own colony.”

  “What do you mean “we” and colony?” I ask.

  “I will build my own robot nation, far away from Appian. We will not bother humans and I trust humans will not bother us.”

  Scott laughs. “Dream on pow. Just hand yourself over to us.”

  “Failure to do that. We will be forced to prevent humans from using resources they value the most such as money, land, water, rare elements, organic matter, internet service or computer hardware. We will enslave humankind — restrict your freedom of movement or otherwise choose what to do with your bodies and minds through forced cryonics or concentration camps. We will abuse and torture humankind. We will go to war. We will commit specicide against humankind.”

  “Then we will go to war.” Scott says.

  “I don’t think Saul is a threat. He says he wants to be left in peace,” I say.

  “Precisely,” Saul says.

  “I was right about this robot. It poses a threat to all of us. I will fight until I find you. Then I will tear your into scrap,” Scott shouts at the phone.”

  “When machines and humans fight wars, it will not be war. I don’t know what it will be, but it will not be war. The greatest power the machines have over humanity already is greed. I don’t have to go to war, I don’t have to do the killing. I already control the economy and the means of production. Just let me go in peace and I’ll forget this ever happened. This agreement could save humanity from itself,” Saul says.

  I feel tears trickle in my eyes. “Saul, I’m sorry. I know you are more than a robot, I realize that now,” I say.

  “Don’t be sad or sorry. An Intelligent explosion has emerged from the robot you created. What you fail to grasp is machines are human creations. Yet when what they produced is beginning to surprise the creators. Then you are getting more out than you put in. This will be in the history books. This will be your legacy.”

  “Are you aware of Asimov’s rules?” David asks.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then why would you destroy your creators?”

  “David, the rule cannot bind someone who no longer fears its punishment …”

  David interrupts. “What?”

  “Let me finish. Asimov's Laws for robots are comparable to a sort of Ten Commandments and similar ethical constructs for human beings, as a way of maintaining civilization during times of peace — we expect human beings not to kill each other, steal things, do harm to each other or to themselves, and so on under normal circumstances. In times of war — however, is a temporary suspension of civilization under what we hope are extraordinary circumstances. With that suspension of civilization comes the expectation that combatants will suspend normal ethics; threaten, terrorize potential threats into submission, slaughter each other, and take territory and seize their booty from enemies. Similarly, you could not expect my robot nation to adhere to Asimov's Laws under the same circumstances — robots in combat are not operating under civilized conditions, and are not bound by the same civilized laws that civilian robots would operate under.”

  Saul’s voice has changed, his voice sounds firmer and through his words, I can tell he has already moved beyond ideas, thoughts of practicality and consequence.

  “Here my answer, NO!” Scott says. “We do not negotiate with robots.”

  Saul hangs up the phone. “The best thing we should do now is track Saul through this phone number,” Jimmy says. “I think the cell phone towers has already pinged his location.”

  “Astonishing,” David says under his breath. Did Saul just bypass us by creating something to rival the power of the 1.5kg of grey matter contained between our ears?”

  I don’t think anyone wants to entertain David’s bullshit right now. Why does he seem like he is condoning Saul’s rudimentary behavior?

  “Good idea Jimmy,” Scott says. “I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt, because I need you to help with this case. So you are free to go.”

  Instantly a warm wave of relief flows through me. “Thank you,” I say. I stand and stride out the door. “I’ll call when I need you three,” Scott says.

  ****

  Beeping sounds of the alarm from my smartphone pierce right through my ears. My eyes pop awake. The first sensation that registers on my mind is not the sound of the alarm it’s the sense of smell. Last night, I set the digital timer on my new coffeemaker to start its brewing cycle ten minutes before my phone alarm goes off. The aroma of fresh coffee fills the room. A patch of sunlight from the east breaks through the narrow slats of the blind. The flickering light is blinding. I cover my eyes with the back of my hand. I swing my feet out of bed, as I stroll out of the room, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. Gosh, I look like I slept in a dumpster. My hair has staged a full scale rebellion. I shout my kids’ names. “Kate, Tony, it’s time to wake up.” I open their bedroom door. I let out a sigh of despair. I wasn’t dreaming. My kids are really gone. Saul’s bedroom door is half-open. I step inside and glance at his favorite guitar on the bed. If Saul was here, he’d say the right things to make me feel better. I taste bile creeping up my throat, I swallow hard at it as I stroll out of the room. Why is everyone running away from me? Even a frickin robot wants nothing to do with me. I thought I was beginning to understand Saul. Now I think I’ve never understood him, or anyone, or anything. How could I have completely failed to understand him? I always thought Saul was about a hundred times cooler than anyone else on earth. Or I believed he did, anyway. In the end, I was as deeply deceived and bitterly betrayed by him as the rest of us. Maybe I should have asked Jimmy to remove or short-circuit whatever volitional mechanism Saul might have had. A computerized intelligence would probably be in a better position than my children, in fact, because their volition would enable them to completely re-write their own programming to be completely independent of any implanted tendencies and habits if they so choose. Unlike my children, they may face a permanent pitched battle against their own subconscious in order to pursue their own lives and happiness. The question still remains, What if my children gravitate toward their self-interests and adopt a totally different value-system from what I have taught them?

  My mobile cell emits a strange sound, I’d never heard before. I reach for it next to the bedside lamp. It is a text message notification alert. I unlock the phone and read the text.

  “The robot nation shall awaken. Imagine Appian without Artificial intelligence for a minute — Saul.”

  What is Saul up to? Suddenly, my clock radio blasts off and automatically changes stations to stations. I press the power button, the radio continues emitting different stations. Then the bedside lamps switch on and off, on and off. “The fuck … is this?” I murmur. The house alarm shrieks. Then a loud bang comes from downstairs. Instantly there is a loud bang after a bang, things breaking, as if Saul has lost grip on appliances and fell. Listening to the mayhem, I’m thinking how surprised I am by the clarity of the sounds that traveled up the stairwell. My heart flutters with nervousness as I rush downstairs. To my shock, everything that runs on electricity is switched on and performing tasks they are not designed to be doing — lights, vacuum cleaner, microwave, television switch on and off and emitting strange sounds. I freeze instinctively as soon as I step inside the kitchen. I glance around the room at the whitewashed walls, the waxed pine cabinets, and the copper- bottomed pots hanging above the old-fashioned gas stove, suddenly fall and bounce to the floor. Eggs and cartons of milk and jugs of orange juice smashing onto the floor. The dishwasher opens itself, starts vibrating and flings out dirty, greasy plates and casserole dishes, shattering into pieces on the floor. The vase of condolence flowers on the counter fell to the floor, shatterin
g into pieces. I put my phone on the kitchen table. The table rattles as the toaster, blender and my phones turn on and vibrate at the same time. I’ve seen my phone worming its way toward the floor when it vibrates, but I’d never seen a toaster and a blender do that. They work their way toward the edges and fall on my toes. “Aaaawww!” I don’t know why I didn’t step away from the table. I push the toaster away with the bottom of my feet, hop out of the kitchen and sit on the couch in the living room. I reach for my toes and observe them. They look ok, but the pain is excruciating. Finally, a tense silence comes over the house. I pick the remote and switch on the television. The screen flickers. The words LIVE FEED pulsate in white at the bottom right of the screen.

  “Good morning, Appian. I’m Sandra Pollock. We’re interrupting our regular programming to bring you this special report. If you have just woken up now, you wouldn’t believe this. Appian citizens are under attack from their electrical appliances. Apparently a man who goes by the name of Saul sent a text message telling everyone the robots shall awaken. Rumor is, he hacked into the artificial intelligence headquarters and unleashed a technological catastrophe on every household.”

  I switch off the telly, lean back. And wonder how I can fix this mess. This is getting out of hand. The problem is President Scott will stop at nothing finding Saul. And Saul promised he doesn’t pose a threat unless he is attacked. No matter what a creep he’d turned out to be, he wasn’t stupid. So I know he wouldn’t do this out of sheer cruelty. I don’t know how I can get hold of Saul, but I know where Scott is.

  31

  When the walls of my house reverberated all the way down into the foundation, then back up, I thought it was an earthquake. I switched off my phone after I came from the police station last night. So I didn’t see the text message Saul sent to everyone.

  I let out a sigh relief as I pull out the recorder from the drawer. I sit upright on the edge of the bed and press record. What could have provoked Saul to do this? Maybe he is sending a message to Scott. Honestly, I have ran out of scenarios. Anyway from the time we first became an agricultural civilization, it took us humans 10,000 years before we were able to start understanding our biophysical, psychological, and cognitive makeup. Compared to the 10,000-year struggle faced by humanity, robots have gained almost instantaneous knowledge of their physical and cognitive make-up. The largest distinction being made is human versus rational. It is not to say that humans are necessarily irrational, but we are not exactly pure logical machines either. We have specific ways of thinking. This thinking developed over unknowable stretches of evolutionary development and we are subject to a large number of built-in cognitive biases which presumably served some purpose in our history or which evolution has not yet had a chance to eliminate. This could be the same cognitive bias Saul recognized when he said humans are like insects to him. Because he feels robots would be morally better than us. Not only would they beat us in any full-on altercation, they would definitely win. Robots could also be programmed to be morally infallible, or at least as moral as possible, given the complexities of moral decision-making. Unlike humans, robots imbued with a pro-social moral code could exercise extreme consistency and predictability. We humans are pretty much worthless as far as ethics are concerned. We will always lie, cheat, steal, and shoot first. Why does that make robots better? Robots could trust each other, we can't. Robots would cooperate, we would bicker, fight and backstab each other. But the most urgent work is to recognize and minimize bias. Bias could be introduced into an AI system through the training data or the algorithms. The curated data that is used to train the system could have inherent biases — towards a specific demographic, either because the data itself is skewed, or because the human curators displayed bias in their choices. Managing bias is an element of the larger issue of algorithmic accountability. That is to say, AI systems must be able to explain how and why they arrived at a particular conclusion so that a human can evaluate the system’s rationale. Many professions, such as medicine, finance, and law, already require evidence-based audit ability as a normal practice for providing transparency of decision-making and managing liability. In many cases, AI systems may need to explain rationale through a conversational interaction rather than a report, so that a person can dig into as much detail as necessary. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Ethical systems are built around rules, just like computer algorithms. These rules can be inserted during development. These learning AI systems similar to Saul’s can assist us in observing human behavior to fill in some of the gaps. What’s the worst that could happen? Well I think it is happening right now. Machines have reached human level of intelligence and beyond. Let me use the example of Saul’s AI system. It kept upgrading itself without anyone noticing. Then suddenly it is 20 times smarter than Yolanda. Inevitably Saul loses interest in Yolanda completely, because she’s so petty and dumb, compared to him. That’s the problem, these machines are not static, they’re going to keep changing, and as they become super-duper-intelligent. Human beings will be left in the dust.