One/Zero

by Kathleen Ann Goonan

  “A van came. A woman in a space suit got out and told me she had to test for a virus. She poked me with a needle, took blood, said I was okay, gave me a shot, and said I could get in. There were other kids in the van. I was afraid because there was no driver. The doctor said everyone was dying of a virus and that I couldn’t go home because everyone there was dead. But how could they all die so fast? I called her a liar and tried to hit her. She grabbed my wrists, said she was sorry, and showed me on her phone that it was true.

  “Since then, I just cry. The car brought us here and left to get more kids. She said there’s a new implant that tells a computer when someone gets sick, but it was too expensive for our country. Instead, they bought tanks.”

  “My father beat all us kids and our mother, too,” says Serge. “She told us he was a good person inside. That was a lie. He was pure evil. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Azul is walking around holding Ezo, laughing. It’s the only thing that makes him happy. Ezo will talk to anyone, but I’m the only one who can issue executive commands. I can’t imagine why I have custody of superintelligence, but I don’t have time to worry about it, either.

  Some children refuse to speak. Others run away, or plug their ears and shout nonsense words. They have seen throats cut, heads blown away, rape, mass executions—unspeakable brutality. It is difficult for me to listen, but those who can speak must have a witness.

  So I remain, and try to get them to talk about how to change things.

  Stephan asks Ezo to tell us the history of war and aggression, but when I ask it how long it would take, it says, “Longer than any of you will live.”

  “Look,” says one of the oldest girls, “maybe that’s the problem. There’s too much history. Maybe we’d be better at fixing things, all of us kids. Adults made these problems. Maybe we can see things more clearly. ”We don’t have as many grudges yet.”

  “I have plenty of grudges,” says Batul.

  Ezo links us with other groups of refugee children talking about the same things. We are not alone.

  “We all want to change this. But how?” I ask.

  “Kill everyone who does something bad,” says Ela, who is five.

  “Killing is bad,” Joram, who is ten, points out.

  “Use CRISPR to change the genes of people who commit acts of violence.”

  Karin says, “But if we take away parts of us, will be still be ourselves? When I’m mad, and want to hurt someone, I might not want to kill them. If I think about it, I might just want to yell—I mean, talk to them.”

  “That’s called ‘negotiation,’” I say. “Maybe ‘law.’”

  “Whose law?” asks Karin. “The law that says any man could beat up my sister if she didn’t do what he told her to do?”

  “Is that what it was like where you are from?” asks Ann.

  Sami says, “Put a nanotech virus in all weapons that make everyone who picks one up to kill a human being as sad as I was when my—when my sister—”

  An older girl holds her as she screams, shakes, and cries.

  We should all be crying. The whole world.

  Because of who and what we are.

  Civilization is a fragile veneer.

  Beneath is chaos.

  “Fix it, Ezo!” yells Batul. “Fix it, if you’re so smart!” He jumps up and runs away, kicking up dust.

  “I’m still learning,” says Ezo. “I don’t know enough.”

  Karin stands, and holds up her phone.

  “Here’s the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. It says that we are all free and equal. We have a right to education, health care, dignity, freedom from fear and want, freedom of speech. I didn’t know I had those rights!”

  I touch my aunt’s UN ring, which hangs from a cord around my neck, hidden inside my clothes, and remember her power, her commitment. This vision of a world in which all people, even children, have rights that are respected is what she lived and died for. Can I be as strong as she was?

  Sami says, “We need everyone in the camp to read this! Talk about it!”

  “I can’t read,” says Ela, “But I can almost.”

  “Audio, in seventy-four languages,” says Ezo. There are a lot of pidgins here.

  I don’t want to think Ezo sounds like my aunt, but increasingly, she has Ezo’s distinctive accent, low timbre, exact accent. It could easily mimic it by finding my aunt’s phone conversations.

  Sami says, “There are sixty-five million refugee children in the world. It says that’s how many people live in France.”

  It’s difficult to understand that number.

  “When people hurt us, why can’t we just hurt them back?” demands Nabil. “Only worse?”

  Lesedi stands and crosses her arms. The festive scarves that she pulled from our pallet of donated clothing, purple and green and red, swirl around this small, fierce goddess. “Because other people have feelings, too!” She glares at us all around the circle, gives a sharp nod, and sits.

  “Not the ones who killed our families.” says Nabil. “There are so many of us here because there are so many more of them. I wish I could put them inside my game and kill them all.” He takes aim. “Pow!”

  “I play other games online,” says Ann. “We build communities. We fix problems. If we could put everything inside that game, we could all fix it together.”

  Many of us have grown up playing similar online cooperative world-building games with children and adults near and far. In these games, we create societies, work as teams to improve every aspect of life as the need arises, negotiate road-building, budgets, school curriculums. We discuss right and wrong. We learn our own weaknesses and strengths, hone our skills.

  “We can build our own game,” I say. “I’ll teach you how. Ezo, are you open-source?”

  “I can provide you with an open-source space.”

  “Then we can do it! I’m going to teach all of you to code.”

  “We’ll be Team Ezo!” says Nabil.

  “And we’ll stop war,” says Ann. “Ezo, play us some dancing music!”

  In the sunlight of the waning afternoon, all the children in the circle are seized with genuine enthusiasm. Ezo takes over the loudspeakers, and plays Bob Marley singing, “Get up, stand up! Stand up for your rights,” and then finds antiwar songs from culture after culture, in language after language, many fresh-minted in answer to today’s specific horrors, but all hopeful. I know this because when a new one begins, everyone stands listening for a second, and then, across the camp, voices unite in recognition—sometimes few, but often, many.

  The din of them dancing and cheering is overwhelming. I dance too, losing myself in the simple fact of our present safety, not daring to hope.

  Later, Azul wakes screaming from nightmares, as he does every night. I hold him tight, and vow that we will end war, human predation, and the terrors these children deal with daily.

  We can’t do it alone. I have no idea what form such radical change might take. It would be a world that has never existed before.

  Kind of like Ezo.

  Mai

  A week after my unfortunate yoga adventure, I am improved enough to return to work. When I emerge from the Metro, rejoicing that the escalator works, it seems that there are more self-driving pods than just a week ago. Maybe an SI has been unleashed, a good one, and Zoe’s dream is coming true.

  Or maybe I’m the one who is dreaming.

  Leafing trees haze the Mall with vibrant green. Earnest tourists with packed agendas head toward their target museums, and kites soar over the Castle. I overhear raves about the cherry trees being in full bloom, so instead of going right to work, I head toward the Potomac.

  * * *

  The dome of the Jefferson Memorial gleams in the spring sunlight as I near the Tidal Basin. As I wait to cross the street, my vision seems to jolt for an instant. Then it’s fine—probably my imagination.

  The morning sun shimmers on the water and lights the long curve of trees with deep pink fi
re. Then I am beneath immense flower-clouds and wet, black branches, strolling with others who gaze and move as if in a state of enchantment.

  The cherry blossoms are my enduring delight, year after year, as they were the delight of Song Dynasty artists. I strive to represent a limb in a single, fluid stroke with sharp, natural jags by properly loading the brush with ink, applying pressure, and lifting the brush as if Mind were transmitting the essence of branch, leaf, and flower to thin, wet rice paper. I fail more often than not, but I keep trying.

  Water-scented wind sweeps the basin’s short fetch, shatters the perfect reflection, and scatters pink flowers like snow.

  Without my flipping a single switch or intending for it to happen, a flavor—it seems such, with unparsable depth and complexity—emerges in my brain, with so many sources that no AI could possibly track and reweave it.

  Memory, like all things physical, must have weight. This instant brings to mind a precisely weighted memory of being with my grandfather, in this exact spot, decades ago.

  He is a tall, thin man of eighty-five. He stands erect, chin slightly lifted, using his cane for balance and style more than for support. His spring suit, of light, beige linen, dazzles in the cool sun. His unbuttoned jacket billows in the breeze, which showers us with pink petals. A gold railroad retirement watch—earned after first trimming trees on the New York Central Railroad’s right-of-way in 1910 at age twelve and then rising, over decades, through the ranks as conductor, ticket agent, and dispatch manager—nestles in the bespoke watch pocket, its chain a thin gold catenary. His crisp white shirt, gold cuff links, bow tie, and straw boater speak of a vanished way of life.

  His face is as full of wonder as if he had been born to experience this instant, in which he realizes the world is still here, a year after the death of his wife of sixty years. Though a child, I know this much, in my own way, because I loved her, too.

  How could this moment, its memory, and the emotion it evokes, be digitized and replicated, even when machines are faster than sin and know more than God?

  They do not have a body. They do not have a hand to reach for his hand. They cannot feel his squeeze mine reassuringly and, perhaps, in gratitude. They do not have short legs that skip to keep up with his longer, more measured steps. They do not have a box of Smith Brothers cherry cough drops in their pocket, which he hands me, nor do they have the embossed sugar-candy words, hard and sweet atop my tongue, which crunch as I splinter them with my teeth. They do not know what it means to hear him laugh for the first time since she died.

  But perhaps, in our superintelligent future, we will bask in new delights, and not remember how bitter and puzzling grief can be, nor how elusive, how sudden the healing thaw.

  Traffic flashes in the sun, bees burrow into blossoms, and I cry, on this spring morning, and I also laugh, as if some fugitive harmonic has found and tuned me, after all these years, to the chord of myself.

  * * *

  “Oh, Mom, it’s not either-or,” says Zoe as we nurse the best whiskey on offer at O’Maggie’s up at the shopping center (and the best is none too good, as my mother would say). Zoe is here for tomorrow’s SI conference, then returns home for parent-teacher conferences.

  The lunch crowd is tapering off, and outside the big front window, beyond the parking lot, the wild forest next to twelve roaring Beltway lanes is washed with a barely discernable pale green against the overcast sky. Muzak mingles with the sounds of clearing up. I wave at Jane Selter as she passes outside. Surprised, she waves back before going into the optometrist’s office.

  Zoe says, “In the past ten years, I’ve been to I don’t know how many conferences where we discuss how to ethically design SIs. Most of us have signed a statement clearly stating our aims, and our goal and duty is to make sure AI and SI are and will remain beneficent.” She pushes a strand of long, honey-brown hair behind her ear, tilts her head, and looks at me with her entire ballast of earnestness, which is considerable.

  “I believe that,” I say. “I believe you. But on the other hand, this has all been thrust on me. The Simon, the food, this—this implant.” I gesture toward my heart, but the components, presumably, are everywhere they need to be. “They can look right into my brain.”

  “And so can you, right? Isn’t that amazing? Health data from all over the world is being collected. Your phone can tell you whether you have lung cancer and whether it might be curable—AI might develop a cure, for Pete’s sake.”

  “But this is my information.”

  “You’re just one person. Out of billions. Who cares?”

  “I care.”

  We glare at each other, then burst into laughter.

  “What could a strong AI do to stop war?” I ask Zoe.

  “No need to start small, right? Well, countless things, depending on its master algorithm. It could wipe out all humans with a plague. Problem solved: no more war. Or, it figures out the neurochemical flip that makes us take sides, seek revenge, get more of what we want and need, kill other tribes, and all that. Changes it.”

  “And that might not work out as planned, either?”

  “You think? Or let’s say it generates a map of every weapon in the world—”

  “Sticks, stones, missiles—and words?”

  “Whatever it can rule in and not out. It will probably come up with solutions we would never have thought of.”

  “Like, maybe it would infuse everyone with amazing negotiating skills? Or extreme empathy?”

  Zoe smiles, shrugs. “Maybe we’ll see.” The rain moves in, bounces from black asphalt in short, bright slashes, blurs the signs for the pet shop, the drug store, and the new Asian Food Megamart. It recently replaced the Safeway where, once, groceries were placed on a conveyor belt which passed outside. There, cheerful men loaded them into lined-up, kid-filled station wagons. It was the future, probably created by veterans who had enjoyed making things work better during the war.

  I reflect upon how I take such pleasure in memory, in the ever-more-fine details of this place. My family has had the privilege of living in fifty-year chunks of time. I think of a childhood friend who learned many languages and cultures and has written internationally acclaimed guidebooks and essays. He couldn’t get away soon enough. He would be astonished that I’m still here, immersed in these nuances.

  Zoe reaches across the table and takes my hand. “You’ve always been such an idealist.”

  “What good have I done?”

  “You’re only one person.”

  “But I’m not the only one.”

  “No,” she says, and grins. “No, you’re not.”

  * * *

  I cancel the food service and send the Simon away, glad it has no feelings to hurt, thankful for the network that sprang to action on my account in an instant. Upon checking, I find that certain parts of my brain are now satisfactorily large and bright, and that medication has been discontinued.

  That evening as I load the dishwasher, I realize I’ve been far too self-involved. It strikes even me as strange.

  The kitchen window is open, admitting the cool patter of rain. Zoe rehearsed for high school tryouts for the show Annie on an evening such as this, singing the lyrics “Tomorrow, tomorrow” over and over again while her brother grimaced, holding his hands over his ears.

  “Tomorrow” was so very long ago!

  Where have I been all this time? The neurochemistry of my sudden ability to ask this question is, apparently, measurable, as well as actionable. When my phone rings, it feels as inevitable as a cloud’s phase change to rain.

  * * *

  My phone beeps, and Zoe’s worried face appears on my screen. I glimpse her office behind her.

  “You’re in Dulles Airport? Going where?”

  “Sudan. How can’t you know? Haven’t my reservations been shared with you?”

  “You don’t have to act smart about it. No, as a matter of fact.”

  “Maybe you’ve been cured of your excess nosiness. Maybe the let’s-give
-Mom-some-privacy part of your brain is lighting up.”

  “Ha, ha. You didn’t you mention this when I was there two weeks ago.”

  “Things happened fast.” It has been a whirlwind of vaccinations, visas, house arrangements, and some very deep thought.

  “Apparently. But why there?” She looks sideways; I hear her tap computer keys. “Okay, it looks like—yeah. A refugee camp of mostly children.”

  “All kinds of child refugees. War, climate, you name it.”

  “Your specialty.” Her frown relaxes; her voice has lost its manic edge.

  “There are actually a lot of these camps. More every month. I started hearing about them a few weeks ago.”

  “What do you mean, hearing about them?”

  “My phone suggested it.”

  “Hmm. And you weren’t disturbed?”

  At first, I was.

  * * *

  I hoped it was Azul, the laughing boy, calling that evening in the kitchen. Instead, I saw an inscrutable 1/0.

  “Who is this?”

  1/0 showed me a schematic of lines throughout the Middle East and Africa converging in the rough center, with dots forging new paths as I watched. One dot enlarged, showing Azul pounding on the window of a bus and screaming. An older girl held him on her lap and rocked him.

  Next, it showed me a vast, well-organized refugee camp filled with mostly children, sharing tales of horrific violence.

  Then, a swift statistical analysis of online CVs paused on mine, moved swiftly to the MEDA portal (which offered no resistance), and displayed CT scans in psychedelic colors enlarging and shrinking with hallucinatory speed.

  Shadowy images emerged, focused, and intensified. Brisk spring wind filled the air with flowers. A cherry blossom alighted on the golden brim of my grandfather’s boater. I felt again, as fresh-smelling rain pattered outside the open kitchen window, that sweet burst of emotion so strong that my chest ached, and tears came to my eyes.

  A woman’s voice said, “I can show you the neurochemistry of how I access these memories. I need to know how and why they create meaning, emotions, stories.”