by A I Zlato
“In principle, they can always be useful, and as long as we have no problem of storage capacity, no one wants to spend a whole day crushing old files manually.”
“So what did you find strange in those archives?”
“I burrowed into different files, and I looked at those of ten years ago, to see what been done since I started working there. Then I saw something weird; some circuits were different at the beginning. Not very different, but still...”
“Why is that surprising? Machine engineers constantly improve the Machine.
“They improve the software, not the hardware. We, mechanics, improve the performance of cards and cables, but we do not alter the structure.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let me compare this to something you are familiar with. Look at the city. They improve the buildings, make them stronger, rebuild them, but the general layout remains stable. There are still a First Circle, a second... so the overall operation remains the same. It is similar for the Machine. We improve some aspects of physical performance, while machine engineers enhance its programs. These modifications increase its thinking capacity and computing ability, but the general layout remains the same. Its main function has remained the same since its inception — to preserve the Equilibrium, and to request the creation of spaces when necessary. A modification of internal circuits potentially triggersdeeper changes, perhaps even an alteration in its algorithms.”
“OK, there was a structure modification... so what?”
“You don’t understand... In theory, there shouldn’t be such a thing. Nobody can modify the hardware in that way.”
“What does that mean? What were the purposes of those modifications?”
“Difficult to say; I am nothing but a 5th-grade mechanic, and I can only access files that relate to my work. To find out the impact of these changes with certainty, one should have a broader view of the whole system. Even at that level, it might not be easy, because the Machine has such a complex configuration.”
“You are telling me that everything is recorded. So somewhere in the system, there has to be a trail of those modifications.”
“That is when things become weird. I found no trail of any instruction, of any order.”
“Stop joking! Someone has to tell you to exchange one circuit for another, right? You only change nearly-defective components, and replace them with similar components in accordance with instructions!”
“In theory, you are right. But it seems that some mechanics have made changes not similar to original components, and without prior instructions.”
“That is not possible. Why would they have done that? It should not be difficult to get the list of people who worked in your sections in the last ten years.”
“It should not be difficult... but what would I do with that list?”
“Well, you ask each of them, showing them the diagram, and you ask them if one of them had made the changes — and more importantly, why?”
“I can see the special agent working here... I don’t see myself questioning my colleagues. What authority do I have to do so? Especially given that some of them have been promoted. You are not asking me to question suspiciously guys who are above my pay grade, are you?”
“You are correct. You cannot do it, but I can... but only if the Machine instructs me to do so.”
“Why could you not?”
“Well, the Machine only asks to me do something when there is a threat to the Equilibrium... And until proven otherwise, there is no such question in this case. I cannot do that; however, let’s come back to this story of instructions. If you cannot ask your colleagues, you can at least look into archives of instructions they received. Is that correct?”
“I told you I did that, and found nothing. I found no instruction, no guideline about modifying the circuits. I only saw the usual intervention files, mentioning component replacements.”
“Well, maybe those guidelines simply had not been archived.”
“No. The chief mechanic issues guidelines... through the Machine. We receive them via our chips. If there had been guidelines, they would necessarily be stored in memory.”
“A memory failure, perhaps? The Machine had been in existence for... what... at least 1,000 years. Making copies of copy backups... might have produced some misses. To err is human.”
“But the Machine manages its own backups, and to obtains additional storage space!”
“You are telling me that it erased archival data about its own instruction voluntarily?
Having that kind of thought instantly triggered a migraine in Baley’s head. To think such a thing was unthinkable... The Machine could not change itself.
For Lars also, the idea was unbearable.
Somehow, there had to be an explanation.
Baley thought about what Lars had said, touching the subject marginally to avoid pain. In vain... every thought about a possible action of the Machine on itself without the intervention of a human being invariably triggered an electrical impulse that crossed her skull like a sharp knife. She saw Lars coping with the same pain.
They emptied their glasses and went home, each lost in personal thoughts. What should have been an entertaining evening had turned into a monstrous reflection on the Machine.
Dead children lying in a pattern similar to the Machine’s symbol, a teammate distrustful of her and now modified circuits without any trace... all these facts were strange in themselves, but put together... Baley could not continue with her reasoning. A migraine prevented her from doing so. She and Lars entered their apartment and went straight to sleep without saying a word.
Two states, four blocks, 65,536 combinations.
And after that?
Digital immortality must become infinite.
Internal Report, Index Server
CHAPTER 12
CYCLE 1100 1010 0100 0001
The sky was heavy with clouds and rain. Only the lower part of the Tower, dripping water, was visible in the city. Nonetheless, the ground floor along with all levels accessible to organic beings were flooded with soft light. Coming from the top of the Tower, light was transmitted by a system of mirrors on the ground.
The contrast with the outside was startling to anyone who entered the building. The skyscraper was designed to be welcoming, regardless of the weather or the circumstance. Humans had to like the Tower — that was imperative — so the Machine could do its job. The engineers only had to translate in matter and volume their definition of the beauty and ‘human warmth’ they so needed. The Tower was beautiful.
That day, the gigantic construction seemed cut in half. In the upper part, above the clouds, the honeycomb structure conveyed the output of electrical energy, which heated the metal so much it reddened it. Upward-flowing cold air coming from wells licked the metal structure to refresh it. Heated from the outside, and refreshed from the inside, the structure released a few squeaks, and seemed alive. In the lower part, below clouds, electricity flowed in a downward pattern. The frame received energy from upper levels, the metal network was passive and hardly released any heat. Upward-flowing currents circulated in there without going through the metal mesh, and quickly escaped upward.
Electricity production, even reduced to 50 percent, was enough to power the Machine’s core programs. This was planned. There remained, however, no available resources to work on the Project. There would be no progress that day. But what was a ‘day’ for an immortal artificial entity? It was only a minor setback. The Machine also knew, via Index Server, that the Others were executing their respective tasks. Its delay would have only minimal impact.
For now, data jostled before entering processors. The human criterion took more time than the Machine would have liked to commit to that criterion. The end of young humans or rather, its consequences on data flows kept on increasing. Parents of dead children (whose number was increasing) were no longer productive. The other residents of the city were also disturbed, and one could feel that i
n their productivity, despite the Machine’s mitigating actions. The production of some of its components was reduced to a critical level. This was no longer possible. To stop the Problem, the Machine had appointed a new special agent to replace the defective one. Its algorithms had selected Baley, who had started her investigation and was filing progress reports. She was a very productive individual who had repeatedly demonstrated her aptitude.
The benefit, which was also a disadvantage, with special agents was that they were intelligent. The Machine chose them for that trait, and for their unparalleled observation and analytical skills which allowed them to find solutions. That was the positive aspect. Conversely, they sometimes used their potential to dig into things they should absolutely not heed. It had to act via their chips and divert their attention. In so doing, the opposite effect could occur if the individual decided to cling onto an idea precisely because the thought kept producing migraines.
The Machine needed then to act more brutally, which would invariably lead to serious and irreversible dysfunction in the individual. By doing so, it would ‘lose’ an otherwise productive element. Even though there were plenty of productive elements, destroying an active one caused defers in the execution of some tasks, particularly in solving problems. There was nonetheless no alternative. It was unthinkable that elements of the Project, because that was the main topic here, be unveiled before D-Day. In a few cycles, when the Machine and the Others would have made enough progress, that would not matter anymore. But not now.
Baley hinted at something unauthorized while filing her last report. Luckily, a single pulse was enough to deflect her thoughts and return her onto the right path. It had only taken a remark about the children committing suicides having the same height. She had certainly drawn the wrong conclusion, but it did not want the special agent to worry about this type of data. Indeed, there was a visible criterion in its algorithm for genetic selection. But if people found out, the Machine calculated that the probability of a widespread rebellion against it would be strong. Even though the Machine acted for their own good, it knew the humans were capable of such incoherent behavior. It was not powerful enough to withstand such anti-Machine initiatives, so the algorithm should remain secret as long as possible.
The purpose of the algorithm was to transform humans into an easily modifiable parameter, instead of having them as the Machine’s main concern. The ultimate goal was, of course, the preservation of the Equilibrium. To achieve this goal, it had allowed the most docile individuals to mate, while prohibiting the rebels from doing the same. In doing so, the Machine had selected a small number of individuals, which was the reason why they had the common physical characteristics that the special agent observed. The plan was promising, but it had to remain in the shadows.
The Machine took care to alter Baley slightly, without damaging her too much. As she was committed to her investigation, and very loyal to the Machine, the minor alteration was easy.
Her partner, Lars, was also a brilliant character, and had been trained by the Machine as a mechanic. Like his wife, his capacities were helpful to the Machine. Unfortunately, he also had an inclination to take an interest in topics that had nothing to do with him. That happened because he was bored. This was another trait of human nature that the Machine had difficulty taking fully into account.
Before the Project, the Machine simply did not do anything if there was no active, ongoing instruction. Smart humans, most of them to be sure, did not know how to stay still. They would find some activity to relieve their boredom. Generally, that did not matter. This time, however, Lars peeked into something he should not have.
He opened old files, and discovered changes in the Machine’s physical structure which it had initiated to create Index Server. Yet it had tried to be very thorough, destroying initial instructions that mechanics had followed. It also suppressed recollections about their actions.
Its algorithms calculated that it was very unlikely that someone could view obsolete diagrams. No maintenance activity required that. Everything seemed under control. Things, however, had gone off kilter because one person was bored. The Machine realized it had to keep in store a series of senseless instructions to send to anyone who had access to this type of file to keep him or her always active. It then launched a minor application, which it could manage thanks to the autonomy it had acquired earlier. The probability of someone seeing something unauthorized had even gone under.
Unable to understand the implications of what he had found, Lars had not yet had the time or motivation to discuss it with his wife. The Machine had monitored their conversation and identified its subversive nature. Even totally committed individuals could have that sort of thought. It had to integrate this parameter in its genetic selection program. While talking, Lars and Baley had suggested that the Machine had started modifying itself. Faced with that dangerous conversation, it had launched a piece of code to stop their conversation. They stopped.
Now it was important that Lars not talk about this subject to another person. If he ever did, several mechanics, even engineers, would start pondering the question, and could get a glimpse of Index Server or at least, the section that the Machine hosted.
There was no question such a thing could happen. The server was its most precious possession; its connection to the Others. Without the server, the Project would collapse. If Lars persevered despite the Machine’s injunction, it would act more vigorously, and too bad if he became ‘useless’. There were so many mechanics available. After all, it was working to preserve the Equilibrium, to improve the welfare of humanity. One single individual was worth nothing compared to this noble objective.
This, however, would certainly be a source of disturbance for Baley, because she was too close to Lars. The Machine would need to find another special agent to handle the ongoing investigation. This would necessarily delay the completion of the task. So acting vigorously on Lars would be the last resort.
For safety reasons, the Machine altered the old diagrams in its possession. If Lars talked about his discovery, the evidence would have disappeared then. If it were his words against the Machine’s files, nobody would believe him, and his colleagues would think he was deranged. His condition would also affect Baley, but this configuration would eliminate the risk that he would talk. There was no other way. If only humans were truly autonomous! The Machine could then act on one without affecting his family. They were not autonomous, though; they interconnected in complex, irrational ways. As an artificial intelligence, the Machine was connected to the Others, but was not dependent on them in any way. The failure of one machine would not trigger the failure of the Others. Instead, their interconnection made them stronger. With humans, it was not that simple. Certainly, their social connections made them stronger, in the sense that somehow they could not do without it, but this created an emotional dependency that caused program abnormalities in the Machine and forced it to make difficult decisions... as in Lars’s case. It hoped its action would be sufficient, not to preserve Lars but to hold Baley’s productivity to a maximum. Reasoning thus on the merits of human interaction, especially in light of recent initiatives that Baley and Lars had taken, the Machine wondered if it might have made a mistake by allowing them to reproduce. If their offspring had inherited that urge to sneak, that could be problematic. That was why it always picked docile individuals for its genetic selection process. At the time when the Lars-Baley child was being produced, the Machine had not yet launched that process had not even thought about it. It had only seen the creation of an individual resulting from two people who were very loyal to the Machine.
It did a quick search, and isolated data related to that child. Looking more closely, it saw a young girl with quite ordinary features. Moderately intelligent and not too stupid, Iris was assigned to the Second Circle. It recorded this criterion in its genetic selection program. Two brilliant individuals did not necessarily produce a child with the same level of intellectual ability. After safeguar
ding that information, the Machine took a closer look at Iris. Like all children her age, she rebelled a little, and used anti-Machine rhetoric. That was of no consequence. Like the other children, she would join the ranks in a few years when she would notice that her words had little or no impact on anything.
The only way she could convey her disagreement was to choose rebel, like-minded friends; some minor characters who were so insignificant that the Machine had virtually no records on them. Iris’s integration into this little band would have no serious impact either. It still checked the girl’s interests, her last searches in databases; it found nothing. The teenager showed no curiosity about sensitive topics. So there was really nothing in this adolescent suggesting a threat to the Machine. That was another conclusion it added to its program archives. Two very smart people with ambitions of going beyond their level would not necessarily give birth to a baby with the same traits. The offspring could be a mediocre and indifferent individual.
This randomness in human reproduction was one of the problems the Machine had to resolve. It still had a lot of progress to achieve in that area, to produce human beings with the correct settings.
The Machine had, however, made significant advancement, not only in the management of the entire population with its reproduction program, but also in the control of individuals.
Thus it had made sure that Paul, the individual whom the kandron wanted to be part of the investigation, was as small a disturbance as possible to its lead special agent. It did not know exactly why the kandron had suggested that human in particular. Maybe the kandrons had something to gain in such a selection.
There was no reason why not, as long as that decision did not run counter to its own interests. Baley had to work in good conditions to find a solution quickly. It did not want its great work in deviating Baley’s mind to be annihilated by a free thinker. If it had assigned Paul to the periphery a few years earlier, it was because he was not really a threat, and the Machine had no interest in him. He had shown no rebellion against it, otherwise it would have sent him back to the Sixth Circle where it closely monitored the population. Although many incidents occurred there, it could easily contain the residents.
