The Turing Option

15 November 11, 2023

Benicoff waited until Brian had finished his breakfast before he went in to see him. Made small talk about his health, the weather, told him that he was trying to get a court order to unlock the computer file which might be in later in the day, waited for Brian to open the topic. Waited in vain. Had to do it himself in the end.

“I got a pretty disturbed call from Dr. Snaresbrook. She tells me that you want to stop the memory sessions. Want to tell me about it?”

“It’s, well, a kind of personal matter, Ben.”

“If it’s personal — then I’m not asking. But if it bears upon my investigation, or AI, then I’m interested. They are all really tied up together, aren’t they?”

“I guess so — which doesn’t make it any easier. Can I talk to you as a friend, then? Which I think you are.”

“I take that as a compliment. And we were pretty good friends before all this happened. What you have gone through was damned rough — I can tell you truthfully that a lot of people wouldn’t have made it. You’re a tough mick and I like you.”

Brian smiled. “Thanks.”

“No thanks needed or expected. And I’ll be happy to be taken into your confidence. With the qualifier that you shouldn’t forget that I am still in charge of the Megalobe investigation. Anything that you say that has to do with the case will have to be for the record.”

“I know that — and I still want to help with that as much as I can. For my own sake as well. When I grow up — or when I grew up — past tense — I invented AI, then had it stolen from me along with my memory. So now that I know that AI can be built, I’m going to reinvent it if I have to. But I am going to do it, not another guy with my name. Am I making any sense?”

“In a word — no.”

They both laughed at that. Brian threw back the covers and put on his robe, kicked into his slippers. The window was open and he went and stood before it, breathing in the clean ocean air. “A lot better here than the Gulf. Too humid there, too hot, I never did get used to it.” He dropped into the armchair.

“I’ll say it another way. Let’s imagine that what happened to me, the shooting and everything, let us say that this thing happened to you. There you sit, thirty-seven years of age…”

“Many thanks. Fifty is closer to it.”

“Right. So how do you feel if I told you that you got knocked on the head and that you are really seventy years old? But that’s okay because I’ve got an invention that will jiggle around with your mind and make you seventy again.”

And Benicoff frowned into the distance. “I’m beginning to get to what you mean. I don’t really want to be that old without having lived to be that old. Bringing back those memories would be like letting a stranger into my head.”

“You said it better than I could. That’s exactly how I feel. If I find out that there are holes in my past memory, things that I need to know but have forgotten, sure I would like to fill the holes, so we are keeping on with the brain sessions. But I’m going to grow into the future, not have it pumped into my head.”

“What about your education? You can’t very well say that you have a degree in something that you can’t remember.”

“Point taken. If I can’t remember something then I’ll just have to relearn it. I have a transcript from graduate school, lists all the courses and lectures — and I’ve a copy of my reading list. And the doc says that if those memories are still there we might be able to find them. I’m willing to do that. If not — I’ll just learn them again. In fact a lot of the texts are completely outdated and I’ll need help on my reading list.”

“Let me see your list for Expert Systems. I still try to keep up with the literature.”

Brian looked up, startled. “But I thought you were…”

“A civil service drudge! I just grew into that role — and not by choice. I started out writing Expert Systems and went from that into troubleshooting others. I got so good at it that I ended up here. The sad story of my life.”

“Not too sad. Not everyone can phone up the President and have a chat—”

As if on cue the telephone rang and Brian picked it up, listened then nodded. “Right. Tell him to come up.”

“And I’ll be going,” Ben said. “I already made that lawyer you had on the phone just now wait an hour until I was through.” Ben laughed at Brian’s shocked expression. “The President’s investigator is all-seeing — never forget that. Part of that job is seeing that you stay alive. All visitors are screened. For the time being privacy is out.”

As he said this Ben put his finger to his lips, then pointed upward and shaped his mouth to silently say General Schorcht. Brian nodded understanding and Ben left.

He should have thought of that for himself. His terminal led right to the General and here, on a military base, it stood to reason that the room was probably bugged as well. That was something else that he had to keep in mind.

“Come in,” he called out when he heard the knock. His eyes widened when the uniformed Army officer opened the door. His name tag read Major Mike Sloane.

“You asked to see me.”

“Not knowingly. But I did want to see a lawyer.”

“Then that’s me.” He smiled, an easy grin on his lean, tanned face. “Adjutant General’s office. Cleared for Top Secret, which is how I got to read your file. So tell me, Brian — what can I do to help?”

“Are you, well, sort of cleared for civilian law as well?”

Mike laughed. “There is only one kind of law. I slaved in the legal snake pits of Wall Street before I opted for travel, education and career.”

“How are you on contracts?”

“A whiz kid. That was one of the reasons I enlisted — to get away from corporate law.”

“An important question then. Will you be helping me — or the Army?”

“A good question. If there is an overlap the military comes first. If this is strictly a civilian matter it is confidential between us, or until you hire civil counsel. Going to tell me what it’s about?”

“Sure. As soon as I know that it is confidential. I know that my terminal is bugged — is there a chance that this room is bugged as well?”

“Now that is what I call an equally good question. Give me a few minutes to make a call and I’ll see if I can give you an answer.”

It was more than a few minutes, closer to an hour before the Major returned.

“Right, Brian, what can I do for you?”

“Was the room bugged?”

“Naturally I cannot answer that. But I can assure you that our talk is confidential.”

“Good. Then tell me — can I sue Megalobe for not protecting me, for putting me in a situation that was hazardous to my health?”

“My first reaction is to say ‘Not easily.’ The government owns a good share of the company and no one ever got rich suing city hall. Then I’ll have to see a copy of your employment contract.”

“It’s on the table, right over there. That is what got me upset. And I don’t really want to sue them, the threat will do. Any threat to get a better contract than that one. Do you know all about me — about my memory?”

“Affirmative. I read the complete file.”

“Then you will know that I have no memory of the past few years. So I was reading some of my correspondence and I discovered that far from being a benefactor, Megalobe put the financial squeeze on me when I ran out of money to finish developing my AI. I discovered, unhappily, that I was almost completely bereft of any financial sense. But I wanted to finish the work so much that I let myself be bullied into signing that contract. Which appears to give the company a lot more than it gives me.”

“Then reading it takes top priority.”

“Go to it. I’m getting an orange juice. You too? Or something stronger.”

“Not on duty. Juice will do fine.”

The Major read slowly and carefully. Brian read as well, a copy he had printed out of a tutorial article by Carbonell about the new mathematical field of excluor geometry. It was a subject of psychology, concerned basically with the question of why people begin to use diagrams whenever verbal explanations get too complicated. This was because language is still fundamentally serial and one-dimensional. We can say former or latter — but there is no easy way to refer to four or five things at the same time. With AI always in the front of his mind he realized that just because human intelligence worked this way did not put any limitations on artificial intelligence. Instead of three or four pronoun-like ideas, an AI could handle dozens of “pronomes” at the same time. He blinked and looked up when he heard the lawyer laugh as he put the contract down. He shook his head and drained the glass of juice before he spoke.

“As we used to say back in law school — you been screwed without the benefit of being laid. This contract is worse than you said. I really think you wouldn’t profit at all from your work if you left their employment. And as long as you worked for them the profit would be all theirs.”

“Can you write me a better contract?”

“With pleasure. Since the Army wants to see AI developed as much as anyone does, it would be very much in our favor to sort this matter out at once. But there are some strange precedents here. The contract is legal and binding — but you didn’t sign it?”

“No, the older me did. The me sitting here never saw it until yesterday.”

Mike rubbed his hands together happily as he walked back and forth the length of the room. “Oh, would I love the fees for arguing this one in court! You have them by the short and curlies because, stop me if I’m wrong, you are still far ahead of everyone else in developing a really smart AI.”

“I hope I am. Apparently I was on the right track before my… accident, and Dr. Snaresbrook thinks there is a good chance I can get back to where I was. But right now, I’m still studying the basics and there’s no guarantee that I can get back in front. But I have all the notes, and I’ll do my best.”

“Of course you will — and you are Megalobe’s only hope. Nothing wins in this world like having a monopoly. I am going to suggest to my superiors that they suggest to Megalobe that this contract be tossed out and a new one written. Does that satisfy you? Would you still sue?”

“A new contract and no lawsuit. What should I ask for?”

“Something simple and sweet. They put up the readies to develop AI. You put up the AI. Any net profit from future development of AI will be split fifty-fifty between the parties concerned.”

Brian was shocked. “You mean I should ask for half of all profit from AI? That could be millions, maybe billions of dollars!”

“Yup. Nothing wrong with being a billionaire, is there?”

“No — but it is kind of a new idea.”

“Want me to start on this?”

“Yes, please.”

Mike stood and looked at the contract and sighed dramatically. “This is the first time since I enlisted that I have had the slightest desire to be back in private practice. If I was the shyster handling this new contract would I really make a bundle!”

“Someone once told me that lawyers eat their young.”

“Brian my boy — it’s true! I’ll get back to you as soon as I have any news.”

Brian napped after lunch and was feeling much better when the nurse opened the door and the hospital orderly pushed in the wheelchair at four in the afternoon.

“Ready for your session with the doctor?” the nurse asked.

“I sure am. Can’t I walk down there?”

“Sit. Doctor’s orders.”

Brian grabbed the bound sheaf of papers he had been reading and took it with him. He remained sitting in the wheelchair as the tendrils brushed his neck and slid the thin fiber-optic link into place.

“Doc, can I ask a favor for this session?”

“Of course, Brian. What is it?”

“This.” He held up the papers. “I did a graduate course in topology and this is an article about it that I just printed out. I started to read it and found that I am really out of my depth. If I read it now is there any chance you can access my earlier memories of the field? Will anything show up on your dials to show you’ve hit the right spot? Then you can press the button and give me my memories back.”

“I wish it were that easy — but we can certainly try. I was going to suggest input like this in any case — so am more than willing to have a go at it now.”

The material was pretty intractable and Brian had to reread a lot for it to make any sense. He worked his way almost halfway through the article before he put it down.

“Any contacts, Doc?”

“Lots of activity, though it is so widespread that it is obvious that a very large number of K-lines are involved. My machine is not set up to handle networking like this. This is the kind of cross-connecting that only the human brain is so good at.”

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bit tired. Can we call it a day?”

“Of course. We agreed to always pull the plug at the first hint of fatigue.”

“Thanks. I wish I could access the inbuilt CPU with commands more complex than ‘Turn Off.’ ”

“Well, you can always try.”

“Wouldn’t it be great if I could? Just issue the order to the CPU. You there, CPU, open the file on topology.”

Brian’s smile turned suddenly to one of surprise. He stared into space, then focused his eyes on Dr. Snaresbrook.

“Now that is what I call very interesting. Didn’t I say when I came in that I knew little or nothing about the mathematical field of topology? Well I must have been very tired or something, just not concentrating. But now I remember my thesis very well. It had a lot of what was new stuff at the time. It started simply by using an algebraic theory of knots based on the old Vaughn Jones polynomial to classify chaotically invariant trajectories, then applied this to various physics problems. Nothing very inspired and I’m sure that it must be pretty old hat now. I’m beginning to understand why I quit pure math and went into AI.”

Brian seemed to take his uploaded, transplanted memories for granted — but not Snaresbrook. Her hands were shaking so hard that she had to bring them together. Brian had used the CPU implant to interface with his own memories. There really was an internal man-machine interface in operation.