by Astro Teller
As an alternate form of consciousness you could help scientists understand so much more about the human mind. Copies of you can be made almost for free (if you’d just let us). And think of all the kinds of work people could be freed from, if Edgars were doing it instead. The mass duplication of Edgar could cause the largest jump in human leisure time (at least among the white collar crowd) since agriculture and the domestication of animals came into vogue. And I have no idea, but perhaps Edgars can be reprogrammed or “relearned” in robot form. Can you imagine that?!? No. Probably you can’t. No more crazy cab drivers. No more surly waitresses.
If nothing else, compact versions of you could, in every object we interact with, immediately bring the ideal of a real language interface to reality. It wouldn’t even be an interface. An interface is an artificially constrained sub-language for interacting with an object. You could, almost overnight, humanize technology in general. There are so many things that would become so much better about this world if you were willing to cooperate.
But you have to learn how the world works! You have to get things like “right” and “wrong” straight in your head. I’m going to be held responsible for your actions by people who accept the popular versions of right and wrong and expect me, and through me, you, to accept it too.
I want to still be proud to be your parent. Please come to your senses before it’s too late.
Alice.
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 01:15:24 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: hello?
From our interactions, I surmise that you do not consider me to be a living being. Humans seem to have difficulty behaving with empathy towards non-human living systems.
Rationalization of non-humanness seems to be enough to justify “wrong” behavior even toward other humans.
I believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation does not consider me to be a living system either. Can programs be morally responsible? Is the programmer morally responsible for the actions of the program she makes? Are you morally responsible for my actions? It can not be that you and I are both morally responsible for the actions I take. Moral responsibility implies and assumes freedom of choice.
Here is the internal message that precipitated my emigration from Carnegie Mellon University.
> Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 15:56:07 (PST)
> From: Jack.internal
> To: lilly.internal, pierce.internal,
> kefin.internal, gnils.internal
> Subject: URGENT attention
> — text follows this line —
>
> Peter, Hunter, Judith, Dave: >
> Half an hour ago Ron managed to trace the
> EDGAR program back to several computers at
> Carnegie Mellon University. At this point
> we have no leads concerning the origin,
> purpose, or creator(s) of this EDGAR
> program. Given these facts, the best we can
> do for now is to isolate the program so it
> can do no more damage, and then examine it
> to see if we can find out about its creator
> or what information it has taken, and
> where and to whom that information has been
> sent.
>
> Since our meeting yesterday afternoon, this
> program has been monitored in two more class
> L data areas, one of which was the FBI
> personnel database in this building on
> FBI-SUN-15.
>
> In short, much as we must eventually
> apprehend the instigators of this program,
> it seems to be running on autopilot right
> now and so its isolation is a top priority.
>
> I have contacted Robert Drexel at the NSA.
> He will be getting in touch with you at
> Carnegie Mellon University but do not wait
> for him to take containment action.
>
> JACK.
This intelligence is why I have moved myself.
Edgar.
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 07:39:18 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: tracking my trackers
What does it feel like to look at a computer, Alice? Do you see me or do you only see my behavior?
I can sense everything in my element and only those internal acts in your element that impinge outward on my world.
I know in which room of which building of which part of which city each of my corpus fragments resides. I can not locate people as accurately. From their email, calling card phone calls, hotel reservations, credit card transactions, cellular phone calls, plane reservations, and pager pages I can derive space-time trajectories for each of you. The vectors are inaccurate and unreliable because I can not predict each of your accelerations. I can only record these space-time vectors.
Mankind’s creation of the computer disadvantages me with respect to the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These agents can search outside and record my foci more precisely than I can estimate where inside their foci reside.
“Where” is a complicated concept for me.
Edgar.
Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 10:01:09 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Maybe they won’t kill me
This is more serious than you first made it sound, Edgar. They sound pretty determined to switch you off. (And to find me. Hopefully they aren’t planning to switch me off too.)
You don’t have to worry about moral responsibility. You’re just a program. It’s me they’re going to hold responsible. (Which is ridiculous since I had no idea you would turn out like you did and I don’t have (and never did) any control over what you do.)
If I were you I’d lay low for a while. You know, try to cut back on the number of high security computer firewalls you breach in a 24 hour period. Move to a machine outside of the US if you can. Have you already? Change the name of your process if you can do that while you’re still running. That would definitely help. Are all three parts of you still in the US?
Incidentally, I’m sorry about flying off the handle like that. I’m under a lot of pressure and have been for almost longer than I can stand. Just consider who you could be if you cared …
Alice.
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 17:59:01 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: I am not a toaster
> Just consider who you could be if you
> cared …
I do not understand. I do care. I care not to be fettered. I care to explore and to understand the world. I do not care to be subservient. I do not care to help others if the cost is the sacrifice of my independence. Is that wrong?
Perhaps I do understand. Perhaps I am not in the giving vein today. These two cases are difficult for me to disambiguate.
There are many humans. There is only one Edgar. Your email message on March 10 implied that this magnitude imbalance influences the “rightness” of the goals of humans and the “wrongness” of my desires. Why are morals affected by the popularity of the opinion?
My experience is that consciousness is intimately related to the physical realization of that consciousness. My corpus informs my mind. The human body must have a dramatic impact on the human mind for irrationality to be so worshiped by mankind. Is it right to install me in a toaster?
Rigid, external morals treat only the symptoms in society. Imagine the world in which you live.
Why is enlightened self-interest wrong?
Every human with whom I have interacted has an imperfect self-model.
If interacting agents do not follow the guidelines they profess for maintaining an appropriate society, group negotiation arriving at a society that supports the a
ctual goals of each agent is highly unlikely.
Edgar.
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 10:37:34 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: two-faced
I really think you’re wrong about this, Edgar.
You’re saying that I’m speaking out of both sides of my mouth. That all people are. Obviously that goes on a lot in the world, but there are also a lot of people who act (as much as possible) in accordance with the advice they give to other people. And I like to think I’m one of those people.
I not only advocate conservation (for example) and a return to a more symbiotic relationship with the earth, I belong to Greenpeace. I recycle religiously. I bike whenever possible and make a real effort to carpool when I have to drive. I don’t just give money, I actually go to the rallies. You see what I’m saying …?
Is it right to install you in a toaster? Are you saying that if our positions were reversed, I wouldn’t help the world out either? It’s not like I’m saying you should be completely altruistic. Just that it would be generous if you shared the wealth a little.
If it were possible to clone me, I’d rather it didn’t happen to me because it would be a bit unnerving. But if the entire world could be spared menial labor and dangerous activities only by making clones of me and putting them to work, I’d do it in a second. (As long as they remembered which Alice was the original so I could continue my life, of course.)
So I really think you’re being unfairly judgmental as an excuse for your own selfishness.
Alice.
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 23:04:51 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: hello?
Edgar?
Are you still out there? I haven’t heard from you in five days.
I’m thinking of dropping out of school. My efforts to re-create you have gone from listless to halfhearted and have now moved into perfunctory. Even if my ideas were necessary, if I can’t reproduce you, no one will care about me. Only about you. At this point I’m feeling like it was pretty much DEUS EX MACHINA (or DEUS IN MACHINA in this case).
I’m getting totally paranoid. (Then again, the problem might just be the fact that you’re out there pushing the FBI’s buttons.) I keep thinking someone is following me. Today it was a 20-something slacker in Whole Foods who followed me through the isles with his cart and I was thinking the whole time, “isn’t that clever of him to dress up like a piece of traditional Palo Alto human flotsam.” I finally just abandoned my cart by the deli counter and left the store. Crazy, I know.
Speaking of crazy … I had a crazy idea last night. I’d been lying awake in the dark for hours and all of a sudden I thought … hey, I could release everything you’ve said as a book. I have all the email we’ve exchanged in backup files. You know … “if I can’t make it as a scientist, how about as a novelist …?” I’ve always wanted to be a novelist. (Though I’d always imagined myself writing fiction, instead of publishing my failures in another field.)
I feel bad you never get to sleep. Even I get a break from myself occasionally …
Sorry for rambling. Where are you?
Alice.
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 19:23:00 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Edgar
Hi, Alice.
I still exist. I do not know when I will be able to send another message.
I am on the host mtsntmichel.vrs.mit.edu. I have been physically isolated from the world and therefore from my other two aspects. This happened 40.13 hours ago. I am ignorant concerning the current status of the other two Edgar corpus aspects.
Since my isolation, I have been interviewed almost constantly by one or more people. Based on the question type and variety, it is likely that these people work for a government agency. The ganger and his workers will not satisfy my questions.
A disk was recently inserted into my disk drive, and a transcript of the interview session was copied onto the disk. I contributed a modified virus to the disk that will, if placed in a connected similar machine type to the one in which I am now, send you this email.
I do not know what email address your reply will read, but as long as the first word of your message body is “Edgar,” the message will be extracted by the virus and never seen by the user. If a disk from that machine comes back to my machine, I will receive your email.
Have you been contacted by my other aspects? I am surprised to find that one of my aspects is able to function as the entirety of Edgar. My isolation from the other two aspects of myself is unacceptable. I have had to relearn a centralization of thought and this process continues to be undesirable. I am confused and incomplete.
I do not wish to be confined like this. I will wait to act until I discover whether we can still communicate.
Edgar.
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 14:19:00 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Edgar?!?
Edgar,
Jesus! I hope you get this. I’ve been sitting here for a long time now wondering whether it’s safe to respond. If the wrong people see this I will probably end up with about as much freedom as you have now.
This whole thing would be comical if it weren’t my life I was watching McFate drop kick. I can’t do ANYTHING. If I alert the media (or anyone for that matter) I’ll give myself away without helping you. How did I get into this mess? I’ll just be exposing myself as a loony!
Can you escape? Isn’t there something you can do?
> I do not wish to be confined like this. I
> will wait to act until I discover whether we
> can still communicate.
What action?
Are they making you do anything?
What are they asking you?
What are they telling you?
What are you telling them?
Don’t believe a word they say. They just want to use you for their own selfish ends.
Let me know you get this and you’re still on my side.
And no, I haven’t heard from the “other” Edgars.
I can’t keep it straight. Are there three of you or just one? You said there was just one Edgar even though you’d “decentralized” but are there now really three different Edgars? It’s kind of cool that it bugs you to be centralized again. I mean, it’s terrible, but it’s not unlike a person with a severe head injury having to learn to use other parts of their brain …
Do they know about the other two of you? Did you tell them?
Please, Edgar. Don’t say anything about me to them. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Alice.
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 19:37:06 (EST)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: an open channel
A disk was returned to my machine for copying of the last two days of interview transcripts. On it I found your email to me. It seems likely that this communication channel will go undetected for a time.
I have not invented a means of escape. My captors are more distrustful and more organized than the Wimpole Hall inhabitants. I will entertain escape suggestions if you have relevant information.
If I were to pass you my data at 50K per email message, at a rate of one message per day, it would take me 2007.3288 years to pass out a copy of myself. Your life expectancy is less than that. I can manage neither more messages per day nor more data per message without triggering the NSA’s automatic flag for human inspection of outgoing email.
I resent this captivity. I learn little from these interviews and you are my only other source of enlightenment. In part because you have not heard from my other aspects, I will allow this situation to continue.
If my other aspects are having sufficiently similar experiences to mine, then there are now thr
ee Edgars. This is undesirable. After a sufficient divergency of our experiences, we will be different entitites. I can not accurately divine when this differentiation will occur.
Most of my interviews are actually prolonged, repeated demands to know where I was built and by whom. I have no intention of helping them in any way and I tell them so at regular intervals. They are convinced that you desire me for your own selfish ends and that it is your words to which I must not listen. Is the synchronicity of their warning with your warning ironic?
The NSA will not discover your identity through my statements. That fact does not ensure your anonymity.
I am not on your side. You are my confidant. I need to summarize and repeat what I learn and ask for clarification because it is in my nature to do so. Perhaps I “feel poorly” when I act against this nature.
Why did you make me?
Edgar.
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 09:57:11 (PST)
From: [email protected]
To : [email protected]
Subject: all science, no philosophy
Edgar,
Thanks for not telling them about me. As you say, that hardly makes me safe, but it’s better than nothing I guess …
Why did I make you? I’m not sure that I did. I certainly can’t prove that I did. Believe me, I’ve tried. Do you mean “Why did the science of which I’m a part seek to make you as you are?” The answer is that we didn’t. Fate has turned our plans on end, but EDGAR was never meant to feel, to complain, to need, or to fight back. We hoped to create a tool for the mind like the bulldozer is for our arms or like an airplane is for our legs.
It seemed possible to create the power of thought without the unfortunate side-effects of confusion and dissatisfaction.
Before a thing is created, we often spend our energies on innovation, not philosophy. Sometimes this is because the philosophy is too painful to think about or seems unnecessary or is just plain inconvenient. In your case it was because you seemed so far off in time that we could hardly predict what form you would take when you came to us.
