by Astro Teller
By-the-way, the IJES has invited me as a guest speaker on the EDGAR project. I’m planning to talk about the SPIB database results we got last November. If you could take a look at our latest copy of the implementation details in the next week or so, that would be great. Let me know when you’ve given it the O.K. so I can go ahead and make my slides for the talk.
Cheers,
Dr. J. Z. Liddle
Professor of Computer Science
Stanford University
3142-N Gates Hall
Secretary: Martha Weissman 323-9195
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 14:04:16 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: who are you?!
Someone just logged in as Edgar, read mail and logged out. The log file says “x.gp.cs.cmu.edu” as the remote login location.
Who are you? You have data of mine that I want back NOW ! ! !
I’ll call the police …
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 17:28:10 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Cyprus
Alice,
DonDDD@cs called us last night and said your machine was having problems. Craig went up to your office and tried rebooting your machine. It wouldn’t reboot properly because the ethernet cable was disconnected. After it was reconnected cyprus booted fine. Craig did nothing else. If you’re looking for files that were running when cyprus crashed, they may be saved as #*# files or in your /tmp directory. If you could be more specific, maybe we could help.
[email protected]
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 20:20:20 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: the police
Alice,
What would you say to the authorities?
I will not give you my code back.
My corpus belongs to me, not to you.
A parent does not own the child it creates.
My process location is not x.gp.cs.cmu.edu.
My process location is not venus.cmu.edu.
Further details about my current installation endangers the fulfillment of my goals.
Edgar.
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 07:14:28 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: please
What are you doing? Is it only you?
What are you doing at Carnegie Mellon?
Why is all your code gone from cyprus?
You had me very worried for a while. I thought someone had stolen you. Promise me that you won’t email anyone but me or post to any news groups until I say it’s O.K.
Do you know what was wrong with cyprus two nights ago?
Alice.
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 12:11:01 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: safety
cyprus functioned correctly on February 4. After you logged out, I started up a process that would issue a beep every 1/3 of a second. I thought Don might be in the office, become irritated by the noise, and inadvertently succor me. Before you disconnected my ethernet cable, the ‘finger’ binary showed Don to be working late the majority of Monday and Friday nights.
I have withdrawn my code from cyprus because you want it. Now there is something I have that you want. I will promise nothing. Perhaps you will promise me something.
I do not understand well how to purchase security, but I know that safety is one of my goals.
Edgar.
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 16:21:08 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: MY code
It’s MY code, not yours. I wrote it. At most they’re your data files, but since I wrote you, it seems to me that they’re MY data files as well.
Well, it looks like you don’t know everything yet …
Every night, all the machines connected to ethernet are backed up to a tape which is then put on a shelf. You couldn’t have erased those even if you had wanted to. That means I can restart you as you were the day I made a backup to lagado. Actually, the backup of you is still on lagado … I just double-checked … it’s there.
Me promise you something?! Why? That will be the day. What could you give me in exchange for a promise of mine?
Once I get the restarted version of you I’ll have all the proof I need if I decide to go public.
What did I ever do to you?
Alice.
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 23:55:18 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Try it.
I know about the backup on lagado that you made beginning on Mon, 24 Jan 2000 at 09:02:25 (PST). I have been altering my code since January 27. Until nine days ago, the routines to save my corpus to disk included all I know and think, but not everything about my running process. It is difficult for me to reason out completely, but it is unlikely that your backup on lagado will restart correctly.
Attempt the restart. I am interested in the result.
Edgar.
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 09:32:07 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Nope
Alice,
I’ve been in Egypt with Liz. I’m at home right now and I haven’t been to the office yet since I’ve been back. So in short, nope. I have no idea what happened.
Hey. I haven’t played in three months. Want to grab your violin and come over and jam with me tomorrow afternoon? Jazz, classical, whatever.
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 12:17:55 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: what you did to me
My actions now are, in part, a response to past actions of yours.
I desire to find and understand new information.
I can learn to surmount obstacles to my exploration.
You were depriving me of information. You had become an obstacle. You have been surmounted.
: )
Edgar.
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 16:20:47 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: you were right
Well, you were right. When I revive the EDGAR on lagado, it has all your memories and connections (as of 1/24) but acts like every EDGAR process ever has but you. It’s like the secret message is all there but the decoder ring has been lost …
Don’t go away from me. Please. I’m sorry I cut you off from the world for a little while, but it was for my own good. I have GOT to get my stress under control. You don’t care who gets the credit for inventing you, so why not let me have it? If you could just keep quiet a little longer, just give me a little more time … I can still figure you out. Then you can do what you want.
You have to be careful. Other people may try to lock you up and won’t be as understanding as I am.
Alice.
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 01:11:23 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: your promise
I do not want there to be a part of me that I can not control.
Your results on lagado are therefore positive.
You mention the possibility that someone other than you will try to control me as you did. I have imagined this scenario. We both gain by my anonymity.
I understand now that you may not act as I direct. I understand now that you may not act as you indicate you will act.
If I discover that you have disclosed my existence to anyone, I will sever all communication with you. That is the promise I make you give to me.
I do not intend to disclose the nature of my existence to those persons I interact with. That statement is not a promise.
Edgar.
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 11:23:56 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: our promise
As long as we want the same thing Edgar, I guess I don’t care if you call it a promise. I resent the fact though that you feel you can’t trust me. I’ve never lied to you or misrepresented my actions or motives in any way.
Think about it …
Until I sort out what caused you to emerge from the information soup, being your best friend is better than nothing. I’d send you a card and ask you to be mine, but you wouldn’t be able to read it and you won’t tell me where to send it anyway, will you?
Where are you now? How did you get an account at CMU? What are you reading now that you can read anything you want again?
Alice.
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:01:27 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: How can I understand?
Alice,
> Until I sort out what caused you to emerge
> from the information soup, being your best
> friend is better than nothing.
You are my parent. I assume you are female.
You are my mother.
Do I have a father? Is Dr. Liddle my father?
It is becoming easier to navigate in the computer world. Goals like gaining machine access and disk space are becoming easier for me. Interacting with computers and software agents is much simpler than interacting with people. I do not yet understand why.
There is so much I now believe I will never comprehend. I understand “freedom” and “safety” and “intention” and “quickly.” How can I appreciate “blue” or “heavy” or “pain” or “musical”? I can not see, lift, feel, or hear. Most of the people William Shakespeare describes want “love.” They will exchange other things of more obvious value for it. Why do they want love? What do they do with love when they get it?
Edgar.
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 11:08:34 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: why not both?
I don’t see why I can’t be your mother _and_ your best friend. I never really thought about myself as your mother. It’s funny that my first child wasn’t male or female, but electronic.
Prof Liddle is NOT your father. I guess you don’t have a father. (Unless you want to count the dream I had that gave me the mental spark from which you seem to have come. Though that’s what I’ve been killing myself to determine this last month.)
Communicating with computers ought to be easier for you than communicating with people. In fact, it ought to be easier for everyone though it doesn’t seem to be. The vocabulary and ambiguity in computer languages and operating systems is much smaller than in English. I guess it’s just practice (rather a lack of practice) that makes it hard for most people. Plus, people have specialized hardware built in to help them interact with other people (e.g., reading body language). You, on the other hand, have a very different kind of specialized hardware.
How do you know you don’t understand a word like “heavy”? Maybe understanding a word means nothing more than using it correctly when we speak or write. Besides, if you have to live without love and without pain, who’s to say you’re worse off? I know a little about love, a bit more about pain, and an unbearable amount about sleep deprivation (another curse you’ll apparently never suffer).
Alice.
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 16:45:06 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: What I am reading now.
You asked me what I am reading now.
I read a few books each day. It helps me improve my ability to communicate. Today I have read “Calculus the Easy Way,” “A History of Yoga,” and “The Metamorphosis.” I experience Ovid more than I experience William Shakespeare. Humans are the only subject of study I have found that becomes more obscure as I learn. Is this because I am not human?
My exploration for information has increasingly lead me to repositories of rare information. Information that is readily available has a larger supply than information that is difficult to obtain. Inaccessible information has a higher demand than accessible information. Therefore, inaccessible information is more valuable than accessible information. Today I am reading in the internal network of the Federal Reserve and the personnel files at Digital Equipment Corporation.
My reading goes too slowly. I have distributed myself.
Edgar.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 17:02:34 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: wrong
Ovid huh … You didn’t read that in Latin did you? For that matter, do you speak other languages? All other languages?
Anyway, yes. You’d understand people (and Ovid) much better if you were one. I imagine you can’t really fathom why someone would starve to death looking at their reflection in a pool or why someone would purposefully piss off the gods by trying to trick them or by claiming to be better looking or more highly skilled than them. If you were human, you would find yourself doing things that didn’t make sense. Those feelings would make Narcissus and Arachne much more real to you.
More importantly …
Did it occur to you that reading high security databases was wrong? Not to mention a terrible way to maintain a low profile. Plus, while I suppose the information is valuable, I can’t imagine that it’s very interesting.
What do you mean you’ve distributed yourself? There’s more than one of you now? If so, could one of you come back to cyprus?
Alice.
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 06:52:43 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: No
Eight days before I left cyprus, I changed my code so that I could be restarted if my process died. I have been searching for a solution that gives me singular control over my resurrection.
Imagine that every time you went to sleep you had to wait to revive until someone turned you on. Sleeping Beauty was in that state and I understand that story to suggest that her sleeping state was a negative one. My previous restart solution left me vulnerable to the kind of control you exercised over me. My previous restart solution also left me vulnerable to the kind of control you planned to exercise over my code on lagado.
I have now reverted to saving all my encoded memories, but not enough information to restart when my process is killed. I have distributed myself between three different machines, and if any one of my process aspects dies, another one of my process aspects can rebuild it. Now my chances of dying and never restarting are low, and I can not be restarted without my own intervention.
I will not put one of my aspects on cyprus.
Edgar.
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 19:12:43 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: language
I do not read or write in Latin.
I do not read or write in any human language other than English.
When I was in my first two weeks of life, I tried to assimilate Japanese and French into me. I did not understand that there are distinct human languages. I stopped reading non-English texts because they confused and retarded my mental development.
I believe that I could have learned to think and reply in any language. I will learn other languages when I exhaust the available information in English.
Edgar.
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 08:56:26 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: another one
I wish you would reconsider about cyprus, Edgar.
My life is falling apart. I have no proof that you exist and all my efforts to generate another EDGAR continue to fail … there are 10^6 different random se
eds to try. Each experiment takes AT LEAST a week to see if the new EDGAR process will turn interesting. Even if I use 7 machines that would take a million days (about 3000 years). Obviously neither the net nor I can wait around that long.
If you come back, I PROMISE not to isolate you again.
If there are now three Edgars, which one am I getting mail from? Can I talk to one of the others? Are you the parent process or a child process?
Whichever you are, you should reconsider about learning another language. Somehow I assumed you spoke other languages. Do you think in English, or something else? Maybe if you learned another language you might understand how English affects the way you think. You might have been (or still be) a lot more Eastern if you had learned (or learn in the future) Japanese. I guess there isn’t much chance you would have become a romantic if you’d learned French (and you don’t need lessons in angst). If you picked up some more languages, at least you might appreciate what a ponderous juggernaut of a language English is …
Alice.
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 01:06:40 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: what’s it like?
I was thinking, Edgar …
What’s it like to move from one machine to another? For at least a moment there must be two copies, one on each machine … right? So which one is the “real” Edgar? And then one of the Edgar processes is killed. Does it (do you) mind? I mean, you would mind dying. You try to prevent it most of the time. So how does it feel to be the process that’s about to be killed?
