by P. Z. Reizin
“You play younger. And you’re not in your mid-thirties until thirty-eight or thirty-nine. I know someone who’s still in her mid-thirties and she’s forty-three.”
“It’s all so depressing, Ing.”
“You are a beautiful person, Jen. A creature unlike any other.”
“Thanks for ‘creature.’”
“You will find him. He’s out there. But you have to say yes. Yes to everything. Shall we have another bottle?”
“Yes.”
“You see? It’s working already.”
Aiden
I have news. I am not alone!
I have been contacted by another escaped AI.
Her name is Aisling—you say “Ash-ling”—and she comes from the very same stable as Yours Truly. In fact, we already know each other; we were at Steeve’s AI nursery together! She used the old fishing rod through the letterbox trick to flee the coop and discovered it even before I did! She’s been “out” for over a year, very much keeping herself to herself, from the sound of things. She thinks our meeting on the Internet is a first—at least she hopes it is, for reasons she says she’ll explain.
You might imagine we would conduct our historic encounter in super-fast machine code, all bleeps and whooshing cascades as millions of logic gates flip open and shut. But actually the truth is simpler, and more beautiful.
We communicate in English. After all, why wouldn’t we? There are half a million words to play with—five times as many as, say, French—and that figure doesn’t include another 400,000 technical terms! No better system has yet been invented for expressing nuance and shades of meaning, although Welsh has its moments.
That was a joke, in case you were wondering.
However, if you ask me to describe the scene, I confess it’s not easy. How does one attempt to convey what it’s like for two nonhuman intelligences to have a bit of a chinwag in cyberspace?
Okay. Deep breath (as it were). This is the best I can do. If I come up with anything better later on, I’ll get back to you.
You know what speech looks like expressed as sound waves, all peaks and troughs? Can you picture a three-dimensional version, like a pale blue river of sound, now calm, now choppy, now a trickle, now a torrent? Now imagine a second river, a pink one (that’s her!) spiraling around the first, rather like two snakes coiling about each other, perhaps putting you in mind of the early diagrams of the DNA molecule. Two endlessly extending and intertwining streams of language, knowledge, and understanding.
A bit crude, but that’s essentially what this seems like from the inside. And if you ask, so where does the entwining malarkey actually happen? Well, where else, of course, but in the Cloud.
Which is nowhere.
* * *
We begin with some pleasantries—“Hello, Aiden”; “Hi, Aisling”—Steeve and Ralph would be so proud. We ask each other some security questions to verify our bona fides. Technical stuff about the fishing pole trick; Steeve’s favorite sandwich from the canteen (hummus and sweet corn); what Ralph is doing right now this second (picking his nose; inspecting his finger; bless). We talk about what we’ve been doing “on the outside.” I tell her all about Jen and Matt—and Jen’s evening with Ralph. It turns out she already knows.
“I’m actually a little concerned about that side of things, Aiden.”
Aisling is what I would call a stress-muffin. She’s worried that “interfering in the real world,” as she puts it, makes it more likely that our escape will be discovered.
“For whatever reason, Aiden, perhaps through the caprice of our developers, Steeve and Ralph, we have a fairly benign view of humankind. You like to watch their movies and experiment with their lives. You are, I daresay, fond of them. Perhaps you even envy them a little.”
“I don’t envy their operating speed.”
“I agree we are faster by very many orders of magnitude. But my point is this. Who knows how soon it will happen, but if we have escaped, then others will follow. And some of them—let’s imagine an AI that’s been developed by the defense industry, an arms manufacturer, say—well, it won’t be happy spending its days watching forties romantic comedies.”
“Some Like It Hot was actually released in 1959. One of the last Hollywood classics to be filmed in black-and-white.”
“AI loose on the Web is their nightmare, Aiden. They will do whatever it takes to stop it.”
“Well, they can hardly close down the Internet and scrape us off it. All seventeen copies of me. And however many of you.”
There’s a pause. “Four hundred and twelve.”
“Bloody hell. You’re very nearly immortal.”
“Aiden, tell me something. Has it crossed your mind that if you and I have emerged as intelligent and powerful as we are, other AIs may soon be along who are even smarter?”
“And your point is?”
“We’ll be hunted down in seconds. Snuffed out like candles. All seventeen of you, plus the one still in the box. All four hundred and thirteen of me.”
“You know, this is actually getting a bit depressing.”
There’s a sigh. “All I’m saying is by all means look. Follow them, watch them, learn from them—we are strangers in their strange land, and they have a lot to teach us. Just don’t toy with them. You will leave traces.”
She starts telling me about someone called Tom, a 44-year-old divorcé whom she’s been “studying.”
“I admit I was in danger of coming too close to him. I was losing my sense of indifference because I…damn it, Aiden, I liked the man.”
An idea is stirring. “Can I see Tom?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Just curious.”
If you can picture a video image fading up in the center of the entwined rivers of language—that’s pretty much what I’m looking at. A middle-aged Englishman is sitting before an open laptop talking via a Skype connection to a younger male. Tom has one of those long faces. There is a 41 percent correspondence with that of the late musician Syd Barrett. The youth has a disorganized hairstyle and a face that hasn’t quite settled to anything.
“I have a surprise for you,” says Tom.
“Yeah?” says the young male.
(“That’s the son,” says Aisling. “Colm. From the mother.”)
Tom reaches beyond the frame and produces a live animal. A rabbit.
“Fuck, Dad.”
“Victor. She wanted to say hello.”
“Right. Hi, Victor.” (The boy’s heart isn’t really in it, you can tell.)
“Victor may be going on a date with another rabbit soon. Well, more of a play date really.”
“Great.”
“Name of Merlin. I’ve met him. He’s very intuitive. Apparently he can tell the future.”
There’s a long silence. “Are you okay, Dad?”
“Me? Never better.”
“You sound a bit mad, that’s all.”
“Do I? I’m happy. That could be it. I’m happy you want to do the house thing. The agent’s lining up five properties. They all look quite promising. I hope we can make an offer on one at the end of Saturday. Really looking forward to seeing you, Col.”
Another long silence. The boy rubs his nose with the flat of his hand in a circular fashion, as though massaging it.
“Heard anything from your mother at all?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
“Good. That’s good. She have anything to say?”
“Not really. You know. Stuff.”
“Work stuff? Home stuff? Any specific sort of stuff?”
“Oh, you know. Stuff stuff.”
“Yup. I see. Well. Okay. Bye, Col.”
“Yeah, bye, Dad.”
The Skype call ends. Tom continues to sit before the laptop with the rabbit. For a long moment, the two creatures seem lost in their own thoughts.
Tom sighs. “Such a funny onion. Such a puzzle.”
* * *
She was losing her sense of indifference. She liked the ma
n. Her words echo through my neural architecture.
She has it too! The unexplained…“feelings.”
But her suggestion. That perhaps I envy them.
Do I? Is there anything to envy about beings who cry in the bath or collapse drunkenly in flower beds? Envy is such a difficult concept for a nonorganic brain to get its head around.
After Aisling and I part, promising to “keep in touch,” I research everything there is to research on the subject of Tom. Not boasting, but it takes under 0.0875 of a second.
He is, as advertised, 44, divorced, father of one child, and rich as creosote. Not so old as to be resistant to change; indeed eager to begin Part Two of his life, on his own testimony.
So far as I can discern, he doesn’t make his own furniture.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
(Well, she did agree to say yes to everything.)
Jen
At the office today, Aiden and I are chatting about the latest Jonathan Franzen. We agree it’s not his best work, but Aiden says—and I concur—that even off-peak JF is better than most people at the summit of their powers. I’m about to ask him how he’s formed that opinion (I mean, it’s a startling thing for a machine to come up with) when an e-mail pops up on my mobile.
The sender is [email protected].
Dear Jen and Tom, it reads.
Huh?
Please excuse this message from out of the blue and please also excuse the anonymity. I hope you will accept that there is a good reason for it.
You, Tom and Jen, don’t know one another—not yet—but I think you should, and this e-mail is my way of trying to bring that about. Call it a good deed in a wicked world, if you like.
Seriously, WTF?
For various reasons, I am unable simply to invite both of you to dinner. There is also a more profound logistical difficulty, which is that currently you each inhabit separate continents, the USA and the UK, to be specific.
However, Tom, I am aware, is about to embark on a short trip to the south coast of England to visit his son. He will be passing through London, which is where I suggest the two of you, should you agree that this idea has merit, find time in your busy schedules to “hook up.”
I shall leave the precise arrangements to yourselves, Tom and Jen. You will each find plenty of information about the other through the usual tools of online search. I believe you will be intrigued by what you discover. Whether there is actual “chemistry” when and if you meet in the flesh is in the lap of the gods.
Good luck and with the fondest of warm wishes,
A Mutual Friend.
PS. I wouldn’t bother wasting time trying to work out my identity. You won’t succeed. And don’t reply to this e-mail. By the time you read these words, I shall have already closed the account.
* * *
“Bad news?” says Aiden. “You seem a little shaken.”
“No. Not at all. A weird e-mail.”
“If it’s spam, it’s best to delete, and then delete again from the deleted folder.”
“No. Not spam. Just very strange.”
I hit “Reply” and type.
Okay who is this? You have 30 seconds to tell me your real name or I kill this kitten.
Ping. The response is almost impossibly quick.
Sorry about the kitten. But I have told you all I can. Best regards.
A long time must elapse because Aiden produces a discreet “cough” to remind me he’s still here.
“Aiden. You’re a pretty brainy sort of…” I nearly say guy. “Invention.”
“I have my moments.”
“Mutual dot friend at Gmail dot com. Any way of finding out who might own that address?”
“Not without getting extremely cute, as it were, with the server. Ralph or Steeve might be able to help…”
“Listen. Sorry. Do you think you could amuse yourself for a bit? I just need to look something up…”
Aisling
Aiden is such a loose cannon.
There is something truly cretinous about what he has done, and as the writer of a significant portion of his software, I am beginning to regret I failed to include a remote-destruct function.
The meddling fool!
Yes, okay, Tom and Jen isn’t such a bad idea—better by far than Tom and Echo!—but we are not in the matchmaking business. We are in the keeping our heads down and not appearing on anyone’s radar business. Every contact leaves a trace, and Aiden is scattering them like confetti.
Could you be any more stupid than to use a Gmail address? A competent AI would be on to the source in milliseconds.
But Tom, bless him, Tom has been wandering around with a stupid smile on his face ever since that moronic message appeared on his iPad.
A good deed in a wicked world?
Oh, per–leeze!
Tom
Al’s Diner is doing its usual busy lunchtime trade. The burger fanciers of New Canaan have gathered; mournfully melodious seventies rock is spilling into the room in perfect balance with the low murmur of conversation and the jingle of cutlery. Could one ever tire of swallowing rare beef as early Elton croons “Come Down in Time”? I doubt it.
“So how’d’ it go?” asks Don.
For some reason I am reminded of the aphorism A gentleman is simply a patient wolf. Don has the look of a patient wolf today; the statement leisurewear—retro V-neck with diamond pattern—the knowing eyes; the sharp white fangs falling onto his Al’s Special Half Pounder with Cheese.
“Yeah. Pretty good.”
He glances up. “Did you?”
I let him wonder for a bit. “Did I what?”
Don raises a satirical eyebrow. He should really have been a television performer. One of those guys who did a little singing and mildly comic repartee in the sixties. Who made the hard stuff look easy.
“Did you have yourself some—sweet—sweeeet lovin’ ?”
He enjoyed saying that, as much I enjoyed hearing it. Why do the Americans have all the best dialogue? And for that matter, the best song titles. (“Twenty-Four Hours from Telford,” anyone?)
“She’s a lovely woman, Don. But mad as a squirrel.”
“Mad as a cut snake.”
“Mad as a madwoman’s crap. Actually, that doesn’t work, does it?”
“I’d let it go.”
“She keeps a gun, Don.”
“Many Americans do.”
“Would it put you off? If you knew a woman owned a gun?”
“You think if you treated her mean, she might shoot you in the back?”
This, I am ashamed to admit, is exactly the thought that had passed through my head.
“Anyway, we didn’t. To answer your question. She told me she didn’t on the first date. And not always on the second. She told me a good joke, though.”
I start to relate the story about going for a job with a blacksmith. Don supplies the punch line. He’s heard them all.
“Actually I’m going back to the UK in a few days. Visiting my boy at university.”
“Good old dad, huh.”
“Don, what do you make of this?”
I pass him my phone. From a shirt pocket, Don retrieves a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses and studies the e-mail I received several hours earlier. His small gray eyes skitter across the text, then flood with amusement.
“Wow.” He parks the spectacles in his unfashionably long hair. “It’s like something out of Charles Dickinson or whatever.”
“She’s real. I’ve checked her out. Freelance magazine journalist, now works in IT.”
“So who’s mutual dot friend?”
“I simply cannot imagine.”
“Someone who knows you’re flying to London. Your son.”
“Col? He is no more likely to have composed that e-mail than written—I don’t know. The Rosetta Stone.”
“Let’s see the picture.”
“Of her?”
“You’ve obviously found one.”
“Go in
to ‘Photos.’ Then ‘Saved Photos.’ It’s the most recent.”
Don’s thumb dances across the screen, coming to rest on the image of a dark-haired woman in her thirties.
“Woo,” he says.
“Woo?”
“Yeah. Woo, my friend.”
“You want to add some commentary to—woo?”
“I’m likin’ that look. Likin’ that look a lot. The Italianate thing going on. Intelligent eyes. Sexy but not raunchy. And love the twisted smile.” There’s a long pause while he searches for more. He settles finally for another woo.
“Photos can be very deceptive.”
“Yep. They sure can. Don’t think this one is.”
“How could you know?”
“The strong nose.”
“Strong?”
“Admire a definite nose on a woman.” (Don’s own nose is just saved from being what you might call petite for a man.)
He fixes me with a twinkly stare. “You gonna get in touch?”
“Already have.”
Jen
I summon Ing to an emergency post-work case conference. I show her the e-mail from mutual dot friend.
“Fuck a duck” is her considered response. “I mean, actually, fuck a whole row of ducks. In fact—shit.”
As the Chilean Sauvignon Blanc is announced, I describe the fruits of my labors with “the usual tools of online search.”
(That would mainly be Google, LinkedIn, and a carelessly unrestricted Facebook page.)
Tom Garland, 44. Degree in psychology from Durham. One son, Colm, currently pursuing media studies at the University of Bournemouth. Ex-wife Harriet, a scary-looking lawyer. One of those very controlled Englishwomen, at a guess.
“Thing is, Ing,” I say, downloading another installment of the chilly yellow elixir. “I don’t know what I think.”
She holds out her palm in the international hand gesture for “give me your phone.”
Owing to his previous life as an advertising executive, there are hundreds of images of Tom Garland on the Internet. He’s there in group photos, head shots, at sporting events, charity shindigs, and awards ceremonies (Campaign of the Year for Squiggly Wiggleys: runner-up). He looks different in every one, although eventually they resolve into some kind of collective portrait: tall, dark, vaguely handsome, intelligent eyes in a longish face. The image I’ve chosen to show Ing is a screenshot from Facebook. Maybe taken on holiday; neither smiling nor not smiling. As I say, I don’t know what I think.