by Calum Chace
‘You’re not going to turn my power off, are you?’ Matt asked, suddenly nervous.
‘Absolutely not! I promise you that,’ Vic replied quickly, before anyone else could say anything. ‘Turning off the power would not be putting you to sleep. Actually I’m not sure what it would be – I don’t think there is a human equivalent. Maybe a deep coma. But anyway, your brain needs to be active in order to simulate sleep. Presumably it will happen of its own accord, as it does with the rest of us.’
They agreed a shift system, and Matt carried on exploring his new senses as Vic and David left. He was surprised to discover that he was not particularly interested in exploring his senses of touch, taste and smell. When he mentioned this to the scientists, Gus thought it might be because his upload modelled only the parts of his central nervous system contained in his skull, and not the neurons in the spinal cord, or the enteric nervous system.
‘The enteric nervous system controls the gastrointestinal system,’ he explained. ‘It provides the brain with information about food and the environment. It does not make decisions and it has no role in rational thought, so we scanned it, but we didn’t model it in your upload. We can remedy that later on if need be.’
Music, however, was a revelation for Matt. The increased range of his sense of hearing made listening to old favourites a jaw-dropping experience. Over the coming days, he found that applying his improving analytical powers to music was both fascinating and delightful. He devoted part of himself to exploring a wide range of all the music that humans have produced, and inventing some new styles of his own.
THIRTY-SIX
While David and Vic were away, Matt talked with Julia, Junchao and Rodriguo, exploring ways to augment his senses. It was a fairly trivial matter to extend the range of his sensory inputs beyond the human level. They experimented with extending his visual perception into the infra-red and ultra-violet ranges, so that he had better night sight than any human had previously enjoyed. Then they extended his aural input frequencies into the ultra-sound and infra-sound ranges. Humans can hear sounds between 45 Hz and 23,000 Hz, although the range narrows with age. Whales famously communicate through long distances underwater using low frequency (ultra-sound), and bats and other animals which employ echolocation to track their prey use high frequency (infra-sound) signals at up to 200,000 Hz.
Matt was surprised to find that these range extensions did not seem tremendously useful or important. They were gimmicks which he got bored with fairly quickly. He supposed that whales and bats use their different ranges to sense the world in wholly different ways, and his brain was too ingrained in human ways of perceiving the world to be able to – or to want to – change.
As well as extending the range of his senses, Matt and the scientists explored the possibility of increasing their sensitivity, so that his vision, hearing, taste, touch and smell were activated by sensory inputs far below the threshold at which a human would notice them. This was much more interesting. Matt found that he could detect infinitesimally slight movements and changes in his environment, and interpret them to predict people’s actions with a high degree of accuracy.
‘Wow!’ he exclaimed at one point. ‘If I ever get a new body, Daredevil and Spiderman will have nothing on me!’
As well as being able to predict people’s movements from tiny changes in their bodily position, temperature and so on, Matt also found that he was able to discern what people were thinking far better than in his previous life. Anxiety, excitement, dissembling, happiness – each human emotion was conveyed visually and aurally in a range of subtle ways that he had never noticed before. It was almost, but not quite, as if he could read the minds of people who spoke to him. It gave him a sense of power over them which he realised immediately was ridiculous. He was in fact powerless: they were all mobile and free to come and go, while he was a prisoner. And the power-down button was there on the desk in plain sight.
After a few moments’ reflection, he decided not to share his ability with the people in the room. He would tell Leo and his parents when he had a chance to speak with them privately, but he decided that the others would be intimidated if they knew, and more guarded when they spoke to him. He smiled a disembodied smile to himself as he noticed how quickly everyone involved with this project was abandoning their profoundly-held opinions about openness and transparency.
He consoled himself with the thought that the scientists were getting a more than fair deal. Julia and the others reported that they were obtaining invaluable data by matching the records of Matt’s neuronal activity against the various inputs and outputs of his uploaded brain. ‘It’s like having an observation window in a human mind: we can see what’s going on with far more clarity than ever before. This is going to revolutionise neuroscience!’, was how Rodrigo put it.
After a couple of hours, Matt turned his attention to a different kind of input: data.
‘Can I connect to the internet?’ he asked, somewhat disingenuously. The answer he was expecting was exactly the answer he received.
‘I’m afraid not, Matt,’ Leo replied delicately. ‘Vic and your father don’t think that would be safe right now.’
‘Safe for me, or safe for everyone else?’ Matt asked wryly. ‘It’s OK, Leo. I understand. I’m going to be an oracle AI, aren’t I? They’ll never give me internet access, and they’ll never give me a body with independent motion, will they?’
‘That’s all way beyond my pay grade, I’m afraid, Matt. I don’t pretend to understand all the issues here. David will be able to tell you more when he gets back, I’m sure. For the time being, why don’t we take things one step at a time, OK?’
‘Sure. . . . Sure,’ Matt replied, distantly. He brightened, as a new thought struck him. ‘In the meantime, can you give me access to Wikipedia?’
‘We’re ready for you there, Matt,’ Julia chipped in. ‘We’ve downloaded most of it, and it’s ready for you to access. You could read the text through the camera, but it’s going to be a lot quicker if we can simply upload the data to your brain model. We have some ideas about how to do that. Wanna give it a try?’
‘You bet!’ Matt exclaimed. Julia held a schematic up to the camera that provided Matt’s visual input, showing the location of the downloaded data terminal. At first Matt was at a loss as to how to import that data to his brain model, but after several experimental failures he reported a success.
‘That is astonishing!’ he cried. He fell silent for several moments, causing everyone in the control room to exchange nervous glances. His mother broke the silence.
‘What’s happening, Matt?’
‘It’s unbelievable, mum. It’s . . . well, it’s wonderful.’
‘What, Matt?’ Leo asked impatiently. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Julia’s right: I can upload data straight into my mind. It’s kinda weird. The data sits there at first, just latent, not doing anything. But it seems that the moment I focus my attention on the information I have learned it. Memorised it, in fact. Ask me a question about . . . oh, I don’t know: Charles Dickens.’
‘Okay. How many novels did he write?’
‘Too easy. Fifteen novels and five novellas.’
‘Where did he grow up?’ Sophie contributed.
Matt’s response was immediate and thorough. ‘He was born in Portsea, near Portsmouth, and his family moved to Bloomsbury in London for a while. When he was four they moved to Chatham in Kent, where they lived until he was 11, when they moved back to London to live in Camden Town. Soon afterwards his father was sent to the debtor’s prison. His wife and younger children went there with him, while Dickens himself lodged with family friends in Camden and then in Lant Street, just south of the Thames.’
‘Impressive, Matt,’ said Leo. ‘I take it you didn’t know any of that before?’
‘None of it. I don’t even like Dickens: sentimental old tosh. Perhaps I should give him a second chance: I guess it wouldn’t take me long to read his complete works. But there a
re other writers I’d like to read first.’
‘We can upload the text of any book you would like to read to the same server that we placed the Wiki files on,’ Julia offered.
‘Thanks, Julia. I’m sending you an initial list as we speak. But there’s something else I’d like to try too. How can I access video? I mean films, TV programmes, YouTube clips, recordings of lectures and so on?’
‘Good question,’ Julia agreed. ‘We’re keen to find out how that will work too. I’m uploading a test video for you to experiment with. It’s an old favourite of mine – Casablanca. We chose it because it’s black and white, which should make it easier for you to process. Plus it has a nice, simple storyline, and a lot of iconic scenes and images for you to grab hold of.’
‘I’m just glad you didn’t choose The Terminator!’ Matt quipped, before turning serious. ‘Actually, I suppose I’d better not crack jokes like that. When the outside world gets wind of what has happened here there might be some misplaced concerns, and perhaps what we say here won’t stay private . . .’
‘Goodness! Surely you don’t think this room is bugged . . .’ Sophie began.
‘Well, no, I hope not – at least not yet,’ Matt interrupted. ‘Look, let’s face it, mum. To you I’m your son – just in a new skin. But a lot of people are going to think that I’m some kind of monster. Frankenstein’s monster. . .’
‘Matt, you’re a national hero! An international hero . . .’ Leo protested.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s embarrassing and ridiculous but I don’t deny it’s true. At the moment. And of course that is why Vic offered to make me his first subject: he knows that there is a better chance of my upload being acceptable to a majority of the people out there than the upload of some random and unknown recently deceased person. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not at all cynical about any of this – I’m hugely grateful. Even though I’m stuck inside this box I can tell that this was a seriously expensive operation. What’s more, it is turning out to be one hell of an experience, and I suspect we are only at the beginning. But let’s not kid ourselves. This is not going to be popular with everybody, and public opinion could turn against me in no time. I could go from hero to villain very quickly.’
‘Matt, you’re inside a US Embassy building,’ Rodriguo pointed out. ‘This has to be one of the safest places on the planet.’
‘Yes, until the Americans decide that their unconventional guest has over-stayed his welcome. Look, I think I’m a person, and deserving of basic human rights. I’m assuming that you all think the same. But a lot of people would say that I’m just software. And jumped-up, sacrilegious software at that. I’m going to have to think about this.’
It was obvious to the group that Matt was talking to himself more than to them. His next remark was less introspective.
‘Thanks for the video, Julia. I’ll take a look at that now. Forgive me if I go quiet for a while.’
‘No problem, Matt. Let us know if we can do anything to help.’
Occasional muttering could be heard as Matt experimented with video playback from the server. It was around ten minutes before he spoke to them again.
‘What a rush!’ he said. ‘As I expected – and I guess as you expected too, Julia – I have to watch video in sequence, whereas I can assimilate fairly large bodies of text simultaneously. But I’ve figured out a way to watch it speeded-up. I just watched the whole film, and I suspect I could go a lot quicker with practice.’
‘That’s fantastic, Matt,’ replied Julia. ‘We thought you would be able to do that, but we never dreamed you would get to this point so quickly.’
‘Do you think I could have some more? I’m sending you a list of movies and TV series I’d like to be uploaded to the server.’
‘I’m sure we’ll be able to get most of them uploaded for you, Matt. I’ll take a look at the list and get on it.’
‘There’s something else. I learned from Wikipedia that some of the leading US and European universities have posted videos of the lectures from many of their courses online. I’d like access to these courses. Do you think you could organise that for me? There are three main organisations: Udacity, Coursera, and edX. MIT, for instance, has placed its entire set of curricula up on edX.’
‘Sure,’ replied Julia. ‘I don’t expect that will be a problem. Which courses are you interested in?’
Matt’s reply was simple and startling.
‘All of them.’
‘All of them?’ Julia asked, after a stunned pause.
‘Yes, all of them. I don’t know what order I’ll want to follow them in, and anyway, I don’t think it will take me long to get through them.’
Before Julia could respond, the door to the control room opened, and Vic and David walked in. They looked tired but excited.
‘How are you doing, Matt?’ asked David, as he walked over to greet Sophie and Leo with a kiss and a handshake respectively.
‘Hi Dad,’ Matt’s disembodied voice replied cheerfully. ‘I’m great, thanks. Did you sleep well?’
‘I’ve slept better: I’m too fired up. But I needed it. Sophie and Leo, do you want to take a turn to get some shut-eye?’
‘Things are moving too fast, David,’ Sophie replied. ‘I’m exhausted, but I can’t bear to leave Matt right now.’ Leo nodded his agreement.
‘Why, what’s happening?’ Vic asked.
‘Well . . .’ Julia began hesitantly, ‘Matt has accessed the whole of Wikipedia – offline, of course – and has sent a reading list of several thousand novels and plays. He then took ten minutes to work out how to watch Casablanca at high speed – and to actually watch it. And he has sent a watch list of thousands of movies and TV shows. He also wants us to upload the whole of Udacity, Coursera and edX, if you know what they are. Oh, and as you know, he asked to be connected to the internet.’
‘Thanks Julia,’ Vic said thoughtfully. Turning to the main monitor, he addressed Matt. ‘That will be one hell of an education there, Matt. You planning on majoring in every single subject at the same time?’
‘Why not?’ Matt responded. ‘If you have the server space, that is?’
‘Server capacity shouldn’t be a problem – unless you start creating a lot of content yourself, anyway. I must say this is encouraging. You aren’t doing anything I didn’t expect, but I thought it would all take much longer. This is looking more and more like the ‘hard take-off’ that some AI theorists speculated about.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Leo.
Vic chose his words carefully. ‘It’s when a consciousness hosted in a silicon substrate enhances its cognitive capabilities rapidly. A lot of scientists and philosophers thought that it would take months or years for the first AGI to make the sort of progress that Matt has made, because they thought that it would need to re-write its own software iteratively, or perhaps create a series of successor machines. That would have been a soft take-off.’
Vic turned to face the main monitor again. He looked uncomfortable.
‘Matt, I know you asked to be linked up to the internet – Julia kindly gave me a heads-up on that. I hope you’re not too disappointed with the response?’
‘It’s OK, Vic,’ Matt replied. ‘If I were in your shoes I guess I would say the same.’
‘It isn’t my decision alone, Matt. Norman and I have made a few calls in the last hour, to close colleagues in the neuroscience community, and to our most senior government and military contacts. I’m afraid the unanimous response is that we can’t.’
There was a pause before Matt replied. His voice was grave. ‘I understand. So the news is out, then. I’m sure you had no choice there, but it makes me vulnerable.’
Vic spread his hands, palms outward to reassure Matt that there was no cause for concern. ‘The people we spoke to have the highest possible security clearances. They can be trusted to keep the secret.’
‘We’ll see,’ Matt said calmly. ‘Anyway, it does mean there are a couple of things I’d like to discuss with yo
u.’
‘Sure,’ Vic said. ‘Fire away.’
‘I’d like to be backed up remotely. And I’d like to discuss with you how best to expand my mind.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
Matt explained his concerns. ‘As Rodriguo pointed out before you came back, this is a secure building. But no location can ever be completely safe from attack, and if you play out some of the more extreme scenarios, the outcomes are . . . shall we say . . . unpleasant.’
‘What kind of scenarios?’ David asked.
‘Well, imagine this. Imagine that the Chinese government becomes concerned that the US is on the brink of acquiring a super-intelligence which will enable it to outperform all other countries both economically and militarily – permanently and enormously. What steps would they consider to prevent that? It may sound far-fetched to imagine that they might mount an attack on the US Embassy in London. But is it actually impossible? The range of possible attacks is wide: some form of cyber-assault. An EMP bomb. A dirty nuclear explosion. Or they might fake a suicide bombing and make it look like Al Qaeda.’
‘The fact that I’m standing here is testimony to my confidence in the security of this location, Matt,’ Norman pointed out.
‘Granted,’ Matt conceded. ‘But events are going to move quickly now. Until recently my renewed existence has been a well-kept secret. The consultations you have just had may well have put an end to that. And of course, if things change, and there is a credible threat to this location, you guys can just leave. Which of course I would encourage you to do! But I can’t. I’m rather stuck, since I have no legs, and you’re not about to give me any.’
‘Don’t you think that a credible threat would develop gradually?’ Norman asked. ‘Surely we would have warning of the Chinese becoming that concerned.’