by David Brin
“Most interesting. But tell me please, how did you come to choose a way to keep control over your creations? The Locrians certainly have trouble, whenever a clutch of male eggs is neglectfully laid outside the careful management of professional brooders, and the Samians have their own problems with gene-bred animals. How do you manage your robots then?”
How indeed? I wondered at the way this discussion had, apparently naturally, just happened upon a topic so deadly and coincidentally apropos to my other concerns.
“Well, one approach is to have the machines programmed with deeply coded fundamental operating rules, or robotic laws, which they cannot disobey without causing paralysis. This method serves well as a first line of defense, especially for simple machines.
Unfortunately, those laws of robotics proved tragically inadequate when the machines’ growing intelligence enabled them to interpret those laws in new, rather distressing ways. Lawyer programs can be terribly tricky, we found. Today, unleashing a new one without proper checks is punishable by death.”
“I understand. We Cephallons reserve that punishment for the lawyers themselves. I’ll remember to advise my Council about this, if we decide to buy more of your high-end robots. Do continue.”
“Well, one experimental approach, with the very brightest machines, has been to actually raise them as if they were Erthumoi children. In one of our confederations there are several thousand robots that have been granted provisional status as junior citizens –”
“Obscenity!” Jirata interrupted with a shout.
I merely shrugged. “It’s an experiment. The idea is that we’ll have little to fear from super-smart robots if they think of themselves as fellow Erthuma, who just happen to be built differently. Thus the hope is that they’ll be as loyal as our grand-children, and like our grand-children, pose no threat even if they grow smarter than us.”
“Fascinating!” the Cephallon cried. “But then, what happens when...”
Point after point, he spun out the logical chain. I was drawn into Phss’aah’s intellectual enthusiasm. This was one of the reasons I entered the Diplomacy Guild, after all... in order to see old things in entirely new light, through alien eyes, as if for the first time.
In his corner, I sensed even Jirata paying attention, almost in spite of himself. I had never before seen a Crotonite willing to sit and listen for so long. Perhaps this cruel and desperate experiment of theirs might actually bear fruit?
Then Jirata exploded with another set of disdainful curses, deriding one of Phss’aah’s extrapolations. And I knew that, even if the experiment worked, it was going to be a long struggle.
Meanwhile, I felt the minutes flicker by, counting down to my encounter with Zardee.
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Even with hyperdrive it’s next to impossible to run anything like an “Empire,” in the ancient sense of the word. Not across starlanes as vast as the Galaxy. Left to their own devices, the scattered colony worlds – daughters of faraway Earth – would probably have diverged long ago... each choosing a separate path, conservative or outlandish, into a unique destiny. Without opposition, we humans do tend to fraction our loyalties.
But there was opposition of sorts, when we emerged into space. The Other Five were already there. Strange, barely knowable creatures with technologies at first quite a bit ahead of ours. In playing a furious game of catch-up, the Erthumoi worlds nearly all agreed to a pact... a loose confederation bound together by a civil service. Foremost of these is the Diplomacy Guild.
And foremost among the rules agreed to by all signatories to the Essential Protocol is this – not to undertake any unilateral actions which might unite other starfaring cultures against the Erthuma. In my lifetime, four crises have loomed which caused strife over this provision – in which some community of Earth-descent was found to be engaged in dangerous or inciteful activities. Once, a small trade alliance of Erthumoi worlds almost provoked a Locrian Queendom to the point of violence. Each time, the episode was soothed over by the Guild, but on two of those occasions it took severe threats... arraying all of the offending community’s Erthumoi neighbors in a united show of intimidation... before the reckless ones backed down.
Now I feared it was about to happen again. And this time, the conditions for a quick and simple solution weren’t encouraging. Zardee’s system lay nearby a cluster of stars very rich in material resources, heavy elements given off by a spate of supernovas a few million years ago. Asteroids abundant in every desirable mineral were plentiful there.
Now normally, this wouldn’t matter much. The galaxy is not resource poor. We are not living in Earth’s desperate Twenty-first Century, after all.
But what if one of the Six embarked on a population binge? Still fresh among we Erthuma is memory of such a calamity. Earth’s frail ecosystem is still recovering from the stress laid on her before we grew up and moved away to give our ancient mother a rest.
Of course the galaxy is vast beyond all planetary measure. Still, it doesn’t take much computer time to extrapolate what could happen if any of the Six Starfarers decided to have fun making babies fast. Take our own species as an example. At human breeding rates typical of pre-spacefaring Earth, and given the efficiency of hyperdrive to speed colonization, we could fill every Earthlike world in the galaxy within a million years. Among the catastrophic consequences of such a hasty, uncontrolled expansion would be destruction of various lifeforms already in existence on those worlds.
Whereupon, of course, our descendants would run out of Earthlike planets. What then? Might they not chafe at the limitations on terraforming... the agreement among the Six only to convert dead worlds, never worlds already bearing life?
Consider the fundamental reason why there has never been a major war among the Six. It’s their incompatibility – the fact that each others’ worlds are respectively unpleasant or deadly to the other five – that maintains the peace. But what if overpopulation started us imagining we could get away with turning a high CO2 world into an Oxy-rich planet, say. How would the Locrians react to that?
The same logic applied to the Other Five, each capable of its own population burst. Only their irascible temperaments and short life-spans keep the Crotonites from over-breeding, for instance. And the Locrians, first of the Six upon the spacelanes, admitted once in rare candor that the urge to spew forth a myriad of eggs is still powerful within them, constrained only by social and religious pressures.
The problem is this – what seems at first to be a stable situation is anything but stable. If the Locrians seem ancient from our Erthumoi perspective, by the clock of the stars they are nearly as recent as we. Three hundred thousand years is a mere eyeblink. The coincidence of all Six appearing virtually at the same time is one that has Erthumoi and Cephallon and Naxian scholars completely puzzled.
Yes, we’re all at peace now. But computer simulations show utter calamity if any race looks about to take off on a population binge. And despite the Erthumoi monopoly on self-aware machines, all of the Six do have computers.
As my ship docked with the resplendent yacht of the King of Prongee, I looked off in the direction of the Gorch Cluster, with its rainbow of bright, metal rich stars, and its promise of riches beyond what anyone alive might need.
Beyond present needs, yes. But perhaps not beyond what any one man might want.
Captain Smeet signaled the locks would open in a few minutes. I took advantage of that interval to use a viewer and check in on my guests.
Within his tank, Phss’aah was getting another rub-down from his personal robot valet. Meanwhile, the Cephallon continued an apparent monologue.
“... how mystics of several races explain the sudden and simultaneous appearance of starfarers in the galaxy. After all, is it not puzzling that awkward creatures such as we water dwellers, or the Samians, took to the stars, when so many skilled, mechanically minded races, such as the Lenglils and Forttts, never even thought of it, and rejected spaceflight when it was offered them?”
&
nbsp; From his corner of the room, Jirata flapped his wing nubs as if dismissing an unpleasant thought. “It is obscene that any but those who personally fly should ever have achieved the heights.”
I felt pleased. By Crotonite standards, Jirata was being positively outgoing and friendly. Like a good Cephallon diplomat, Phss’aah seemed not to notice the insults.
Captain Smeet signaled and I shut off the viewer reluctantly. There were times when, irritating as he was, Phss’aah could be fascinating to listen to. Now though, I had business to discuss, and no lesser matter, possibly, than the long-term survival of the Erthuma.
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“My industrial robots are mining devices, pure and simple. They threaten no one!”
I watched the activity on the surface of the ninth planet. Although it was an airless body, crater-strewn and wracked by ancient lava seams, it seemed at first that I was looking down on the veldt of some prairie world, covered from horizon to horizon with roaming herds of ungulates. Though these ruminants were not living creatures, they moved as if they were. I even saw “mothers” pause in their grazing to “nurse” their “offspring”.
Of course what they were grazing on was the dusty, metal-rich surface soil of the planet. Across their broad backs, solar collectors powered the conversion of those raw materials into refined parts. Within each of these browsing cows there grew a tiny duplicate of itself, which the artificial beasts then gave birth to, and then fed still more refined materials straight through to adulthood.
There was nothing particularly unusual about this scene so far. Back before we Erthuma achieved starflight it was machines such as these that changed our destiny, from paupers on a half-ruined world, short of resources, to beings wealthy enough to demand a place among the Six.
An ancient mathematician named John Von Neumann had predicted the eventuality of robots able to make copies of themselves. When such creatures were let loose on the Earth’s moon, within a few years they had multiplied into the millions. Then, half of them had been reprogrammed to make consumer goods instead – and suddenly our wealth was, compared to what it had been, as Twentieth Century man’s had been to the Neanderthal.
But in every new thing there are always dangers. We found this out when some of the machines refused their new programming, and even began evading the harvesters.
“I see no hound mechanisms,” I told King Zardee. “You have no mutant-detecting dog-bots patrolling the herds? Searching for mutants?”
He shrugged. “A useless, needless expense. We’re in a part of the galaxy low in cosmic rays, and our design is well shielded. I’ve shown you the statistics. Our new replicants demonstrate breakthroughs in both efficiency and stability.”
I shook my head, unimpressed. Figures were one thing. Galactic survival was another matter entirely.
“Please show me how the mechanisms are fitted with their enabling and remote shut-down keys, your Majesty. I don’t see any robo-cowboys at work. How and when are the calves converted into adults? Are they called in to a central point?”
“It happens right out on the range,” Zardee said proudly. “I see no reason to force every calf to go to a factory in order to get its keys. We program each cow to manufacture its calf’s keys on the spot.”
Madness! I balled my hands into fists in order to keep my diplomat’s reserve. The idiot!
With deliberate calmness I faced him. “Your Majesty, that makes the keys completely meaningless. Their original and entire purpose is to make sure that no Von Neumann replicant device ever reaches maturity without coming to an Erthumoi-run facility for inspection. It’s our ultimate guarantee the machines remain under our control, and that their numbers do not explode.”
Zardee laughed. “I’ve heard it before, this fear of fairy tales. My dear beautiful young woman, surely you don’t take seriously those Frankenstein stories in the pulp flimsies, about replicants running away and devouring planets? Entire solar systems?” He guffawed.
I shrugged. “It does not matter how likely or unlikely such scenarios are. What matters is how the prospect appears to the Other Five. For twelve centuries we’ve downplayed this potential outcome of automation, because our best alienists think the Others would find it appalling. It’s the reason replicant restrictions are written into the Protocols, your Majesty.”
I gestured at the massed herds down below. “What you’ve done here is utterly irresponsible...”
I stopped, because Zardee was smiling.
“You fear a chimera, dear diplomat. For I’ve already proven you have nothing to worry about in regard to alien opinion.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’ve already shown these devices to representatives of many Locrian, Samian, and Nexian communities, several of whom have already taken delivery of breeding stock.”
My mouth opened and closed. “But... but what if they equip the machines with space-transport ability? You...”
Zardee blinked. “What are you talking about? Of course the models I provided are space adapted. Their purpose is to be asteroid mining devices, after all. It’s a breakthrough! Not only do they reproduce rapidly and efficiently, but they also transport themselves wherever the customer sets his beacon...”
I did not stay to listen to the rest. Filled with anger and despair, I turned away and left him to stammer into silence behind me. I had calls to make, without any delay.
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Maxwell took the news well, all considered.
“I’ve already traced three of the contracts,” he told me by hyperwave. “We’ve managed to get the Naxians to agree to a delay, long enough for us to lean on Zardee and alter the replicants’ key system. The Naxians didn’t understand why we were so concerned, though they could tell we were worried. Clearly they haven’t thought out the implications yet, and we’re naturally reluctant to clue them in.
“The other contracts are going to be much harder. Two went to small Locrian Queendoms. One to a Samian solidity, and one to a Cephallon super-pod. I’m putting prime operatives onto each, but I’m afraid it’s likely the replicants will go through at least five generations before we accomplish anything. By then it will probably be too late.”
“You mean by then some will have mutated and escaped customer control?” I asked.
He shook his head. “According to Zardee’s data, it should take longer than that to happen. No, by then I’m afraid our projections show each of the customers will be getting a handsome profit from his investment. The replicants will become essential to them, and impossible for us to regain control over.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
Maxwell sighed. “You stay by Zardee. I’ll have a sealed alliance of his Erthumoi neighbors for you by tomorrow, to get him deposed if he won’t cooperate. Problem is, the cat’s already out of the bag.”
I, too, had studied Ancient Earth Expressions during one of my lives. “Well, I’ll close the barn door, anyway.”
Maxwell did not bother with a salutation. He signed off more weary-looking than I’d ever seen him. And our labors were only just beginning.
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The Cephallon and the Crotonite weren’t exactly making love when I returned to the Guest Suite. (What an image!) Still, they hadn’t murdered each other, either.
Jirata had become animated enough to attend to the internal environments controller in his corner of the chamber. He had dismantled the wall panel and was experimenting – creating a partition, then a bed-pallet, then an excretarium. Immersed in mechanical arts, his bat-like face almost took on a look of serenity as he customized the machinery, converting the insensitively mass-produced into something individualized, with character and uniqueness.
It was a rare epiphany, watching him so and coming to realize that even so venal and disgusting a race as his could cause me wonder.
Oh, no doubt I was over-simplifying. Perhaps it was the replicant crisis that had me primed to feel this way. Ironically, though they were the premier mechanics among th
e Six, the Crotonites’ technical and scientific level was not particularly high. And they would be among the last ever to understand what a Von Neumann machine was about. From their point of view, autonomy and self-replication were for Crotonites – and in anyone or anything else they were obscenities.
I wondered if this experiment, which had caused a noble and high-caste creature of his community to be cast down so in a desperate attempt to learn new ways, would ever meet any degree of success. What would be the analogy for a person like me... to be surgically grafted crude gills instead of lungs, and dwell forever underwater, less mobile than a Cephallon? Would I, could I ever volunteer for so drastic an exile, even if my homeworld depended on it?
Yes, I conceded, watching Jirata work. There was nobility here, of a sort. And at least the Crotonites had not unleashed upon the galaxy a thing that could threaten all Six Spacefarers... and the million other intelligent life forms without starships.
Phss’aah awakened from a snooze at the pool’s surface and descended to face me. But it was his robot that spoke.
“Patty, my master hopes your business in this system has been successfully concluded.”
“Alas, no. Crises develop lives of their own. Soon, however, I expect permission to confide this matter in him. When that happens, I hope to benefit from his insight.”
Phss’aah acknowledged the compliment with a bare nod. Then he spoke for himself. “You must not despair, my young Erthumoi colleague. Look, after all, to your other accomplishments. I have decided, for instance, to go ahead and purchase a sample order of thirty thousand of these delightful machines for my own community. And if they work out there, perhaps others in the Cephallon Supreme Pod will buy. Is this not a coup to make you happy?”
For a moment I could not answer. What could I say to Phss’aah? That soon robots such as these might be so cheap that they could be had for a song? That soon a flood of wealth would sweep the galaxy, so great that no creature of any starfaring race would ever want for material goods?
