Shadow Tyrants

EIGHTEEN

Romir Mallik watched in silence as Xavier Carlton continued to make his case for Lionel Gupta’s treason. Gupta had remained tight-lipped up to this point, and Mallik certainly wasn’t going to throw him a lifeline. He’d relaxed the grip on the vial in his hand when he realized he wasn’t the one being confronted.

Mallik initially hoped it would be the Colossus 5 damage that was pinned on Gupta. But to Mallik’s surprise, it was the destruction of his own satellite launch that Gupta was being accused of.

“We all know that Romir’s satellite system is critical to the functionality of Colossus,” Carlton said. “That’s why Lionel had to keep the Vajra constellation from being completed.”

Finally, Gupta spoke up. “I did no such thing.”

“To prove it, I even know the name of the man you had on the inside. Eshan Chandra.” Carlton looked at Mallik. “Is that correct?”

Mallik couldn’t contain his shock at hearing the name and nodded. “We discovered that Chandra altered the fuel feed software, which caused the engines to fail. When we questioned him, he told us he didn’t know the name of his employer. He took the job after a million dollars was wired to his account.”

“Where is Chandra now?”

“He committed suicide.” In fact, he was killed during questioning by an overzealous interrogator, but Mallik wasn’t going to mention that.

“I’m telling you I had nothing to do with this!” Gupta yelled.

“Please, Lionel,” Carlton said with utter disdain. “I have records of your correspondence with Chandra instructing him to destroy the rocket.”

“Whatever ‘proof’ you have is faked.”

Suddenly, Jason Wakefield spoke up. “No it’s not.”

All eyes turned to the communications mogul.

“You happened to be using one of my phone networks when you made the plans. You should have realized I built back doors into all of my systems to let me monitor calls and texts.”

Gupta’s jaw dropped. “I… I…”

Carlton smirked in satisfaction at catching Gupta. But his victory was short-lived.

“And I approve of your actions,” Wakefield added.

Carlton looked as if he’d been slapped. Mallik was just as stunned.

“What are you talking about, Jason?” Carlton demanded.

“I’ve been waiting to see if someone else was as disturbed by the Colossus Project as I am,” Wakefield said. “We’ve gone too far. I know we’ve collectively spent a billion dollars on this effort, but it’s gotten out of control.”

Mallik watched as the other members of the Nine whispered to one another at this news.

“You can’t be serious,” Carlton said.

“Dead serious,” Wakefield said. “I’ve been slowing down communications among the ships for months. You just haven’t noticed. Now, I’m glad to see Lionel has taken even stronger steps to stop this project. It’s time those of us who oppose Colossus to come out of the shadows instead of just passively resisting.”

“Staying in the shadows is exactly what we all agreed to,” said Carlton, who now sounded alarmed.

“I didn’t agree to anything,” Pedro Neves said. “My father did.”

“Then he should have told you that Colossus is the most advanced artificial intelligence project ever devised. Once it is fully operational, we will be able to pierce any network on earth without the knowledge of a single person outside the project. The control virus created by Colossus will be undetectable and unreadable by any corporation, government, or military. We will have finally fulfilled Ashoka’s dream: to harness ultimate knowledge for the benefit of mankind.”

“His dream was to protect the world from the power of knowledge, not control it,” Wakefield said.

“We can’t protect it without controlling it,” Carlton replied. “Ashoka couldn’t have foreseen the radical changes in technology that we’ve undergone. The development and perfection of artificial intelligence is inevitable. Who better than us to shepherd the world through this radical change?”

“I don’t know,” Melissa Valentine said, her tone full of worry. “I’m having second thoughts as well.” She looked at Neves as she spoke. “With Colossus’s control virus and pattern matching algorithms, we’ll be able to rig elections, manipulate markets, bankrupt corporations, and disable entire armies. And because it can be done in secret through subtle changes in software, those governments, corporations, and militaries will never even know it’s being done under our direction. We’ll have more power at our fingertips than any group in history. It’s an awesome responsibility and ripe for abuse.”

“Exactly,” Wakefield said. “We will be tyrants operating from the shadows.”

“Isn’t that what we all wanted?” Carlton asked. “We’ve created ultimate knowledge, just as our ancestors wanted, just as Ashoka wanted. And we’re the people most qualified to carry out that vision. Ruling from behind the scenes is the only way it works.”

Volanski, Schultz, Saidon, and Neves all sat stone-faced. Wakefield and Valentine were shaking their heads.

Gupta turned to Mallik. “I’m sorry, Romir. I did have your satellite launch sabotaged. But I’m with Wakefield. The Colossus Project is a mistake. We need to shut it down.”

Then he turned to the rest of the Nine. “Who’s with me?”

Wakefield’s hand went up right away, followed by Valentine’s. Then to Mallik’s shock, Pedro Neves raised his hand.

Mallik felt a swell of victory. Thinking he was the only one with major reservations about the project, he’d been going it alone for months trying to undercut Colossus. Now he had allies he didn’t even know he had.

He raised his hand, tilting the majority in favor of those against continuing.

Carlton gaped at him. “Romir? You, too?”

“You think you can control Colossus,” Mallik said, “but you’re delusional. We’d be unleashing a runaway artificial intelligence that would soon outgrow all of us. The software that you believe will help you control others will actually grow out of our control. Once Colossus becomes self-aware, it will realize it no longer needs us. Then it will do everything it can to protect itself.”

Carlton scoffed. “That old trope? Colossus will launch all the nukes and cause Armageddon? You helped us build in a fail-safe to prevent that.”

Mallik shook his head. “You said yourself that we’re creating the most advanced AI ever built. If that’s true, why do you think we could outsmart it? How do we know it won’t decide that it, in fact, should be making the decisions? We can’t possibly know what’s going to happen with Colossus when it reaches its full potential. We see it every day in unintended consequences from advanced software, software with millions of lines of code that no single person could ever read and comprehend. I saw it myself with my wife’s death.”

He swallowed as he remembered his own personal tragedy, then glanced at Torkan, who simply returned his gaze with a tinge of sadness.

Mallik looked at every member of the Nine. Several heads were nodding. He could feel the momentum swinging to his side’s favor. It was time for his final pitch.

“So I ask you, what happens when Colossus has billions of lines of code that it writes itself? What happens when Colossus reaches the singularity and can improve itself without any intervention from us, at a rate far beyond our imagination? Don’t we become irrelevant at that point? Don’t we become the servants instead of the masters?”

Carlton said, “But your shipboard fail-safe…”

Mallik dismissed that line of thinking with a wave of his hands. “Is a stopgap, nothing more. That’s why I built additional capabilities into the Vajra satellite constellation. That’s why I had the Colossus 5 damaged: to give me more time — to give us more time — to stop this madness once and for all.”

Mallik knew he’d said something wrong as soon as he saw Wakefield’s expression change to anger. On his other side, Gupta shook his head in pity. The rest of the Nine had reactions of surprise and disgust.

Except Carlton. He was beaming with a wide smile. Gupta got up and walked over to Carlton’s side of the table and shook his hand.

“You were right,” Gupta said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“Who else would have sabotaged the Colossus 5?” Carlton said. He focused on Torkan for a moment before staring at Mallik with obvious delight. “They didn’t believe me, Romir. Not fully. Thank you for admitting it.”

None of the other Nine would face Mallik after the revelation he’d so carelessly confessed. His stomach churned when Carlton looked at the six Library guards inside the meeting chamber and said, “Take him and Torkan into custody until we determine the proper method of execution.”