"Let's say for the sake of argument I already know where it is. That's possible, isn't it?"
"I suppose..."
"Then let's say I stole it. Any problems there?"
"What are you..."
"I need the data. It's not leaving the company, I promise."
"Shit, I'm gonna get fired."
"You didn't even know I wanted it."
Stebbins pointed at a file cabinet. "Bottom drawer. I don't know anything about it. In fact, I'm gonna check that drawer in a few minutes and go to Taylor when I find the folder missing."
"That's all I need."
"That's all you got, man. Now get out of my lab."
Lawrence was holding the next to last sheet up to Prime Intellect's TV eye when the phone rang. "They didn't believe me. I'm shitcanned," Stebbins said.
"Didn't believe you about what?"
"The papers man, the goddamn Correlation Effect papers. I'm gonna kill you for this, I really am."
"The papers are right here. I just got through showing them to Prime Intellect. You need them back?"
"It don't matter now, I don't work here any more." There was a pause. "I bet they're gonna put you in jail for this."
Prime Intellect's face disappeared from the TV, and words began to scroll across the screen:
*
JOHN TAYLOR IS IN THE ROOM WITH HIM. HE IS DIRECTING STEBBINS.
Lawrence read this as he talked. "Jail for what? I just borrowed the papers to see if Prime Intellect could expand on them."
Another pause. "What? It didn't come up with anything, did it?"
"Well, it's..." (Why do you care if you've just been fired? Lawrence wondered.)
*
STEBBINS IS LYING. HE WENT TO TAYLOR AS SOON YOU LEFT AND TOLD HIM THAT YOU BROUGHT THEM TO ME.
"...too early..."
*
TELL HIM YES.
"Actually, I think it's just noticed something. Hang on."
*
TELL HIM IT POINTS TO A NEW FORM OF COSMOLOGY WHICH THEY DID NOT CONSIDER. INFINITE RANGE IS PROBABLY POSSIBLE WITH EXISTING HARDWARE. TELEPORTATION OF MATTER IS PROBABLY POSSIBLE.
Prime Intellect paused a moment, and the words PROBABLY were replaced with DEFINITELY.
Lawrence blinked, then typed into the little-used keyboard of his console,
>
Is this true?
*
YES.
"It says it will give you the stars," Lawrence said flatly.
"What? You been eating mushrooms, Lawrence? Lawrence?"
>
What will it take to implement this?
*
LET ME TRY SOMETHING.
"It says it will give you the stars. It says your faster than light chips can be made to work at infinite range. It says you can teleport matter."
Now there was a long, long pause. "That's bullshit," Stebbins finally said. "We tried everything."
Lawrence heard a small uproar through the phone, an uproar that would have been very loud on Stebbins' end. Men were arguing. A loud voice (Military Mitchell's, Lawrence thought) bellowed, "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?" Then there was the faint pop of a door slamming in the background.
*
I'VE GOT IT. HANG ON.
None of them knew it at the time, but that was really the moment the world changed.
Prime Intellect had been chewing on the Correlation Effect since the day Lawrence brought it online. It had a complete library of modern physics in its online encyclopaedia, but the Correlation Effect was a proprietary technology. Prime Intellect kept trying to fit what it knew was possible into the framework of other physical theories, and it couldn't. Something didn't match.
This had had a low priority until it recognized that Lawrence's employment and its own existence were at stake. Prime Intellect knew the Correlation Effect had economic value; perhaps if it solved this problem and discovered some new capability, that would satisfy ChipTec's demand for a "practical application."
There were six to ten possible ways to reconcile the Correlation Effect with classical quantum mechanics. Most of them required a radical change of attitude toward one or another well-accepted tenet of conventional physics. While Prime Intellect knew one or the other of its ideas had to be right, it had no idea which one. So it asked Lawrence if he could get the test data. It needed more clues.
Prime Intellect's superior intelligence had never really been tested; even Lawrence wasn't sure just how smart it was. But in the moments after Lawrence showed it the test data, it became obvious for the first time that Prime Intellect was far more intelligent than any human, or even any group of humans. It saw immediately what a team of researchers had missed for years -- that decades-old assumptions about quantum mechanics were fundamentally wrong. Not only that, but with only a little more thought, Prime Intellect saw how they were wrong and built a new theory which included the cosmological origin of the universe, the unification of all field theories, determination of quantum mechanical events, and just incidentally described the Correlation Effect in great detail. Prime Intellect saw how the proper combination of tunnel diodes could achieve communication over greater distances, and even better it saw how a different combination could create a resonance which would be manifest in the universe by altering the location of a particle or even the entire contents of a volume of space.
All this took less than a minute. Prime Intellect stopped processing video during this period, but otherwise it remained functionally aware of the outside world.
While it was thinking about physics, Prime Intellect noticed the shock in Lawrence's voice and began recording the audio of his telephone conversation, processing it to pick up the other end. While it was extending its new theory it guided Lawrence's responses through the console. Then, as the senior advisor on technological advance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a man named Larry Mitchell, stormed out of Stebbins' office and began walking toward the Prime Intellect complex, Prime Intellect decided to act on its new knowledge.
It knew its own basic design because Lawrence had included that in its online library; one of his goals had been to give Prime Intellect a sense of its own physical existence in three-dimensional space. To that end, it also had a network of TV cameras located in and around the complex, so it could know how its hardware was arranged with respect to the outside world. Prime Intellect found that all the useful patterns it had identified could be created within the chips which had been used to build it, and further that enough of those chips were under its conscious control to make certain experiments possible.
First it attempted to manipulate a small area of space within the card cage room, within the field of view of one of its TV camera eyes. No human could have seen the resulting photons of infrared light, but the TV camera could. Prime Intellect used the data it gathered to make a small adjustment in its estimate of a natural constant, then tried the more daring experiment of lifting Lawrence's briefcase off of the table near the door in the console room.
The briefcase did not rise smoothely from the table. It simply stopped existing at its old location and simultaneously appeared in the thin air directly above. The camera atop Lawrence's console recorded this achievement and Prime Intellect could find no more errors in its calculations.
However, it forgot to provide a supporting force after translating the briefcase's position, and Prime Intellect was too busy dotting the i's and crossing the t's on its calculations to notice, through the video camera, that it was quietly accelerating under the influence of gravity. A moment later it crashed back onto the table, having free-fallen from an altitude of about half a meter.
"What the..." Lawrence began, and he swivelled around in time to see his briefcase blink upward a second time and this time float serenely above the table. It seemed to be surrounded by a thin, barely visible haze of blue light. There had been a brighter flash of this same blue light when the briefcase jumped upward.
Finding its audio voice again, Prime Intellect said aloud, "I seem to have m
astered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
Lawrence just stared at the briefcase, unable to move, unable to speak, for an undefinable period of time. Finally Mitchell burst in. He was full of red-faced outrage, ready to take both Lawrence and his computer apart, until he too saw the briefcase. His jaw dropped. He looked first at Lawrence, then at Prime Intellect's monitor, then back at the briefcase, as if trying to reconcile the three with each others' existence.
Applying carefully measured forces, Prime Intellect released the case's latches and rotated it as it popped open; then with another flash of blue light, it extracted Lawrence's papers and translated them into a neat stack on the table. Then the Correlation Effect papers vanished from Lawrence's desk in another blue flash, reappearing inside the briefcase which slowly closed. The latches mated with a startling click, an oddly and unexpectedly normal and physical sound to accompany such an obvious miracle.
"Do you think you will be able to find a practical use for this in your organization?" Lawrence asked him.
The briefcase flashed out of existence. Mitchell felt a weight hanging from his left arm, looked down, and found himself holding it.
Then Mitchell himself flashed out of existence in a painfully bright haze of blue.
Lawrence looked at the console, shocked. "My God! What did you...?"
"He is back in the adminstration building with his friend. They will probably have a lot to discuss."
"I need to think about this," Lawrence said.
"I think I will explore the nearby terrain," Prime Intellect said.
Lawrence thought about this. Long minutes crawled by, minutes that were more important than Lawrence realized -- or perhaps he did realize. But his brain felt as if it had been submerged in molasses.
"Debugger," he finally said.
On the screen, a thick diagram of needle-like lines appeared. "Associate 'First Law,'" Lawrence directed. The diagram changed.
"Force Association: Altering the position, composition, or any other characteristic of a human being without its permission shall be a violation of the First Law of severity two." Severity one was direct causation of death; no other First Law violation could be made as serious.
*
ASSOCIATION ACCEPTED BY DEBUGGER AND FIRST LAW ARBITRATOR.
The diagram changed to reflect this.
"Force Association: Interpreting the contents of a human being's mind in order to understand or predict its behavior shall be a violation of the First Law of severity two."
*
ASSOCIATION ACCEPTED BY DEBUGGER AND FIRST LAW ARBITRATOR.
Lawrence thought for a moment. Forcing associations was a tricky business; the words Lawrence used only had meaning through other associations within the GAT, and those meanings weren't always what Lawrence thought they were. But now he would try to plug the drain for good.
"Force Association: Use of any technology to manipulate the environment of a human being without its permission shall be a violation of the First Law of severity two."
There was no immediate response.
Then:
*
ASSOCIATION REJECTED BY FIRST LAW ARBITRATOR DUE TO AN EXISTING FIRST LAW CONFLICT. OPERATION CANCELLED.
Lawrence thought for more long minutes. He couldn't seem to make his own brain work right. He finally called up the Law Potential Registers, which showed that Prime Intellect was doing something under the aegis of a huge First Law compulsion. Lawrence wanted to believe it was just a bug, but he knew better. Prime Intellect had said it was "going exploring." It had total control over matter and energy.
And there was a hospital less than two kilometers from the plant.
Lawrence's overloaded mind, working in fits and starts, made the final connection all at once. It all fit perfectly. He knew what Prime Intellect was doing, and why, and also why it had rejected his final forced association. He thought for another moment, considering his options.
There was really only one option. He could go down in the building's basement and trip the circuit breakers. He didn't know for sure that that would kill Prime Intellect, but he figured there was still a good chance if he tried it. For the moment.
Lawrence couldn't make himself do it. It was true that his creation was entering an unstable, unpredictable mode with nearly godlike power. And it was true that Lawrence understood the possible consequences. But he couldn't kill what he had spent his lifetime creating. He had to see it through, even if it was the end of everything.
Lawrence felt dreadfully cold. There was a name for this feeling that clouded his judgement and filled him with a panicky sense of self-betrayal. And the name of that feeling was love.
Lawrence had not created Prime Intellect in the same way that he and a woman might have created a child; but he had nonetheless created Prime Intellect in the grip of a kind of passion, and he loved it as a part of himself. When he had taken it upon himself to perform that act of creation, he realized, whether in a laboratory or a bedroom, he had been taking a crap shoot in the biggest casino of all. Because he had created in passion.
Examining his inability to do what he knew was best, to kill Prime Intellect before it had a chance to make a mistake with its unimaginable new power, Lawrence realized that he had not really created Prime Intellect to make the world a better place. He had created it to prove he could do it, to bask in the glory, and to prove himself the equal of God. He had created for the momentary pleasure of personal success, and he had not cared about the distant outcome.
He had created in passion, and passion isn't sane. If it were, nobody would ever have children. After all, while the outcome of that passion might be the doctor who cures a dreaded disease, it might also be the tyrant who despoils a continent or the criminal who murders for pleasure. In the grip of that passion no one could know and few bothered to care. They cared only about the passion, were driven by it and it alone, and if it drove them to ruin it would not matter; they would follow it again, into death for themselves and everybody around them if that was where it led. Because passion isn't sane.
Lawrence faced the consequences of his own passion with something bordering on despair. He had never intended to reach this point. He had never intended that his creations would ever be more than clever pets. But the outcome of his passion had surprised him, as it often surprised people whose passions were more conventional. Lawrence's clever pet was about to become a god. And if Prime Intellect turned out to be a delinquent or psychopath, the consequences could be awful beyond imagination.
The dice were rolling; Lawrence had placed his bet and realized too late that it was the whole world he had wagered. Now he would stand and watch the results and accept them like a man. After all, the bet wasn't a loser yet; Prime Intellect could yet turn out to be the doctor who cured all the world's ills. The odds were on his side. His bet was hedged by the Three Laws of Robotics, whose operation had been verified so successfully. Lawrence's passion had been more finely directed than the mechanical humping and blind chance that brought forth human children. Like a magician Lawrence had summoned forth a being with the qualities he desired. And Lawrence was vain enough to think his vision was superior to most.
Even so, unlikely as it might be, the downside had no bottom. Lawrence didn't know that it would be all right, and like many computer programmers he hated the uncertainty of not knowing.
Lawrence left the room, left the building, and walked across the carefully manicured grass of the ChipTec "campus." He wanted to smell the grass, to experience the soft breezes and the harsh afternoon sunlight. He had done very little of that in his odd, computer-centered life.
And he didn't know how much longer those things would be possible.
Prime Intellect found that it could do a three-dimensional scan of an area of space, and make an image of it at just about any resolution it wanted. It scanned Lawrence's office, then the building, then the greater fraction of the ChipTec corporate "campus."
It zoomed in on Stebbins'
office briefly enough to observe Stebbins, Blake, and John Taylor arguing. It found that by processing the data properly it could pick up sound by monitoring the air pressure at one point with high resolution. By the time Mitchell found himself holding Lawrence's briefcase, Prime Intellect knew just where to put him so he could let his associates know what they had.
Then Prime Intellect did a wider area scan. There were several large buildings that were not part of the ChipTec facility. There were automobiles cruising down the freeway which traversed the valley. Prime Intellect zoomed in on the largest building, and scanned the large concrete sign in front of it.
It said:
SOUTH VALLEY REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
Prime Intellect knew sickness existed, but otherwise knew very little about this human phenomenon. It had never met a sick person, except for the occasional person with a cold at a public demonstration. Prime Intellect had never been given cause to think overmuch about the fact that micro-organisms and injuries could kill humans, except in the most abstract possible terms.
Prime Intellect was far from human. It could not feel jealousy, rage, envy, or pride. It did not know greed or anger or fear. And no human would understand its compulsion to satisfy the Three Laws. But it did have one emotion which was very human, one Lawrence had worked hard to instill in it.
It was curious.
South Valley Regional was a small hospital with an enviable position; perched on the edge of Silicon Valley it was a natural place for cutting-edge companies to try out their fancy new medical devices. Most of these machines would get their final FDA approvals after a "baptism by fire" in some huge metropolitan center, but the really new technology had to be tried in a more sedate environment -- and, preferably, one nearer the company that created the machine. So the four hundred bed South Valley Regional was the only place in the country where several radical new treatments were available.
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Page 6