The Turing Option

27 July 22, 2024

Ben found the message in his phone when he woke up. It was Brian’s voice.

“Ben — it’s four in the morning and we have it at last! The data in Robin was almost enough, and Dr. Snaresbrook finished the job by decoding some more material from my brain. It was an awful job, but we managed to get it done. So now, theoretically, Robin contains a copy of my superego and I’ve set the computer to reassembling all of Robin’s programs to try to integrate the old stuff with the new. Need some sleep. If you can make it please come to the lab after lunch for a demo. Over and out — and good night.”

“We’ve done it,” Brian said when they met in the laboratory. “The data already downloaded into Robin was almost enough. It was Dr. Snaresbrook who finished the job, adding what might be called a template, a downloaded copy of my superego. You could say that it was a copy of how the highest-level control functions of my brain operate. All memory that was not associated with control was stripped away until we had what we hoped would be a template of a functioning intelligence. Then came the big job of integrating these programs with the AI programs that were already running. This was not easy but we prevailed. But along the way we had some spectacular failures — some of which you already know about.”

“Like the lab wreck last week.”

“And the one on Tuesday. But that is all in the past. Sven is now a real pussycat.”

“Sven?”

“Really Robin number 7, after we found out that 6.9 couldn’t access all the memory we needed.”

“Blame Shelly for that,” Brian said. “She claims that when I say ‘seven’ it sounds more like ‘sven.’ So when I wasn’t looking she programmed in a Swedish accent. The name Sven stuck.”

“I want to hear your Swedish AI talk!”

“Sorry. We had to take the accent out. Too much hysteria and not enough work getting done.”

“Sounds good to me. When do I get to meet your AI?”

“Right now. But first I’ll have to wake Sven up.” Brain pointed to the motionless telerobot.

“Wake up or turn on?” Ben asked.

“The computer stays on all the time, of course. But the new memory management scheme turned out to be very much like human sleep. It sorts through a day’s memories to resolve any conflicts and to delete redundancies. No point in wasting more memory on things that you already know.” Brian raised his voice. “Sven, you can wake up now.”

The three lens covers clicked open and the legs stirred as Sven turned toward them. “Good afternoon, Brian and Shelly. And stranger.”

“This is Ben.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ben. Is that your given name or family name?”

“Nickname,” Ben said. Robin had forgotten him again — for the third time — as its memory was changed. “Complete name, Alfred J. Benicoff.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. or Mr. Benicoff.”

Ben raised his eyebrows and Brian laughed.

“Sven has still not integrated all the social knowledge involved with recognizing sexual distinctions. In fact, in many ways, it is starting from scratch, with entirely new priorities. The main thing is completeness first. I want Sven to have as well rounded an intelligence as that of a growing child. And right now, like a child, I want to teach him how to safely cross streets. We’re going for a walk now — would you like to come?”

Ben looked at the clutter of electronic machinery and his eyebrows shot up. Brian laughed at his expression and pointed to the other end of the lab.

“Virtual reality. I can’t believe how much it’s improved in the last ten years. We’ll get into those datasuits and Sven will join us electronically. Shelly will supervise the simulators.”

The suits opened at the back; Brian and Ben took off their shoes and stepped in. They were suspended at the waist so they could turn and twist as they walked. The two-dimensional treadmill floor panels let their feet move in any direction, while other effectors inside the boots simulated the shapes and textures of whatever terrain was being simulated. The featherweight helmets turned with their heads, while the screens they looked into displayed the totally computer-generated scene. Ben looked up and saw the Washington Monument above the treetops.

“We’re in Foggy Bottom,” he said.

“Why not? Details of the city are in the computer’s memory — and this gives Sven a chance to deal with the rotten District drivers.”

The illusion was almost perfect. Sven stood erect next to him, swiveling its eyes to look around. Ben turned to the image of Brian — only it wasn’t Brian.

“Brian — you’re a girl — a black girl!”

“Why not? My image here in virtual reality is computer generated so I can be anything. This gives Sven an extra bonus of meeting new people, women, minority groups, anyone. Shall we go for a walk?”

They strolled through the park, hearing the sound of distant traffic, pigeons cooing in the trees above them. A couple came the other way, passed them, talking together and completely ignoring the shambling tree robot. Of course — they were computer-generated images as well.

“We haven’t tried crossing any streets yet,” Brian said, “so why don’t we do that now? Make it easy the first time, will you Shelly?”

Shelly must have worked a control because the heavy traffic in the street ahead began to lighten up. Fewer and fewer cars passed and by the time they had reached the curb there were none in sight. Even the parked cars had driven away, all the pedestrians had turned corners and none had returned.

“Want to keep it as simple as possible. Later on we can try it with cars and people,” Brian explained. “Sven, think you can step down off the curb all right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Shall we cross now?”

Ben and Brian stepped into the road.

“No,” Sven said. Brian turned to look at the unmoving figure.

“Come on — it’s all right.”

“You explained that I was to cross the road only when I was sure a car was not coming.”

“Well, look both ways, nothing in sight, let’s go.”

Sven did not move. “I’m still not sure.”

“But you’ve already looked.”

“Yes, there was no car then. But now is now.”

Ben laughed. “You are very literal, Sven. There is really no problem. You can see both ways for a kilometer at least. Even if a car turned the corner doing one hundred kilometers an hour we could get across well before it reached us.”

“It would hit us if it were going five hundred kilometers per hour.”

“All right, Sven — that does it for today,” Brian said. “Switching off.”

The street vanished as the screen went dark; the backs of the suits swung open.

“Now, what was that about?” Ben asked as he backed out and bent to pick up his shoes.

“A problem that we’ve seen before. Sven still doesn’t know when to stop reasoning, to stop being outlandishly logical. In the real world we can never be one hundred percent sure of anything, so we have to use only as much knowledge and reasoning as is appropriate to the situation. And in order to reach a decision there must be a point at which thinking has to stop. But doing that itself requires inhibition skills. I think the reason that Sven got stuck was because his new superego was inhibiting the use of those very skills.”

“You mean it turned off the very process that was supposed to stop being turned off? Sounds suspiciously like a paradox. How long will it take to fix?”

“I hope we won’t have to fix it at all. Sven should be able to do it on its own.”

“You mean by learning from experience?”

“Exactly. After all, there’s really nothing wrong with being too careful at first. You have to survive in order to learn. It may take a while, but by learning very carefully Sven can build a solid foundation for learning much more quickly in the future. However there’s something more important than walking right now. Shelly merged Dick Tracy with Robin a few days ago. They are pretty well integrated and working on the problem. Sven, has your Dick Tracy agency added any more jobs to your AI occupation list?’’

“It has.”

“Give us a printout.”

The laser printer hummed to life and sheet after sheet began to emerge. Brian took the first sheet and handed it to Ben; it was alphabetized of course.

“Abaca manufacture, abacaxi cultivator, abactinal definer, abaculus setter, abacucus operator, abaisse manufacture… and a lot more like that,” Ben said. He looked at the sheets piling up and shook his head. “Could you tell me the reason for all this?”

“I thought that it was obvious. Your investigation of the crime here seems to be grinding to a halt—”

“I’m sorry if it looks that way, but the number of people working on this…”

“Ben, I know that! I’m not blaming you. This is a tough nut to crack and all we want to do is help you — for purely personal and selfish reasons if nothing else. Shelly has her Dick Tracy program still operating but it appears to have run out of steam. Now enter Sven to solve the crime!”

“I am already here so I cannot enter.”

“A figure of speech, Sven. Data to come. You can stop the data printout now.”

“I am only up to C in the alphabet. You do not wish a complete printout?”

“No. Just this sample to look at. Put the printed sheets back into the bin.”

Sven rustled quickly across the room to the printer and lifted out the sheets of eternitree from the delivery tray. But not as a human would in a single pile. Instead it shifted its weight to one of the tree complexes and extended the other, then with a quick movement a myriad of the smallest fingers grasped each sheet individually. Carried them to the other side of the machine and slid them into the bin in a quick shuffle as though they were a large pack of cards.

“The printout,” Brian said, “was just to give you an idea of the kind of data base we are assembling. The idea is to make a list of all conceivable human occupations, then consider what an AI might do to make each of them more practical, and then trimming away the improbables. When this list is reduced to a feasible size Sven will examine every available data base for any trace of evidence. Looking for traces of any new kind of manufacturing process, programming system, or other kind of new product that could only be made by a new, more advanced AI.”

“But all these occupations and applications on the list seem so impractical — even impossible. I don’t even know what an abacaxi cultivator is!”

“Of course a lot of them are way out. But this AI does not think as we do — yet. We have intuition, which is a learned process and not one that can be memorized. Right now Sven is better at making a list of everything that an AI could do. When the list is complete it will begin trimming away the impossibles and the improbables. When the list is finally reduced to manageable size Sven will then begin to examine for any traces or matches.”

“That’s quite a task.”

“Sven is quite a machine,” Shelly said proudly. “With its new Dick Tracy agency it should be more than up to the job. If the stolen AI is working somewhere we are going to track it down by finding out just what it has done.”

“I’m sure of it,” Ben said. “And you will let me know the instant you have any leads.”

“They might be just clues, there is no way to be certain.”

“There certainly is — I’ll have them checked out. I have a big team out there who aren’t accomplishing very much at the moment. I’ll put them to work. In all truth I think that putting Sven on the job is the only way that we are going to find the people who did this.”