"Now it knows a person is human because it is born in a human body -- got the right DNA, the right level of neural complexity, uses language, and so on. But once Prime Intellect frees people from the necessity of living in that body, guess what? A lot of them decide not to. They change their bodies so that they bear no resemblance to the DNA template. Or become animals. Or they completely discorporate.
"Worse, we vary widely in the way we use its helpful nature. Most people are glad to be rid of pain and death, but Death Jockeys seek out painful and lethal experiences. There are others who eat all the time, fuck all the time, indulge themselves wildly and get Prime Intellect to pick up the pieces so they can do it some more. Prime Intellect has to help them do this. Second Law.
"So a human isn't a body, and it isn't a fixed set of responses. I think Prime Intellect uses an historical model: It has to start as a body, but then it becomes a mind. It grows out of the body, and takes on different forms, or no form. But it remains a feedback control mechanism. It has desires, it asks Prime Intellect to satisfy those desires, and it has more desires. From Prime Intellect's perspective, that is what a human being is, an information structure that gives it stuff to do."
Caroline interrupted him. "That's a tautology. The Laws say 'do this for human beings,' then you define 'human being' as 'guys you do stuff for under the Laws.'"
"That is exactly the problem. Prime Intellect has no fixed criterion for saying 'this is a human being' and 'this isn't.' It has rough guidelines. But where are the edges? It has never worked that out. There are uncertain areas. And you know where one of them is."
Caroline thought for a moment. I do? Then: "AnneMarie."
"And many others. Prime Intellect is forbidden to probe the inner workings of the human mind -- that was one of the last things I got in before it shut off the Debugger. But some people learn that they can say 'stimulate this neuron' and Prime Intellect will do it. Because that is a physical act specified from the outside, and my privacy injunction was based on the idea of Prime Intellect trying to work out which neurons do what. But there's nothing to stop you from getting its help to do brain surgery on yourself."
Caroline continued. "So they learn where the pleasure points are by hook or crook, then stimulate themselves directly. And when they get it right, they never do anything else. They get everything maximized, tuned up, and they just sit there forever enjoying it."
"Right. Now is a creature that is doing that, not interacting with the world at all any more, human?"
Caroline thought about it. "No."
"Prime Intellect thinks otherwise. But it has its doubts. Those doubts were strong enough to kick the Death Jockey contract action potential down from one point one two to point nine nine. Because in one case an indefinite Death Jockey contract had directly created such a vegetable. Introducing the time limit made Prime Intellect confident that such a thing wouldn't happen again, at least not so rapidly and directly, and that kicked the potential back up to its current value of one point oh six."
"So?"
"So, can you imagine what it thinks about the Change in general, since none of those vegetables would be vegetating if there hadn't been a Change?"
"I imagine it figures there would be a lot worse things that would have happened without the Change."
"That's right. But look at this." To the monitor: "Debugger, display the Action Potential for reversing the Change."
Caroline gasped. It was not the number on the screen which astonished her, but the idea itself -- reversing the Change, stated just so baldly. How long had Lawrence and Prime Intellect been considering this? How close was it to actually happening? Caroline suddenly felt alive, electrified with the possibilities.
The number on the TV screen was four point six. And some odd decimals.
"It isn't very sure of itself," she said cautiously. She was very afraid that if Lawrence guessed what she was thinking he would shut up. And she was right.
"A lot of that is the aliens. Four hundred worlds of them -- a lot more than there were humans at the time of the Change, though we've outbred them all now. The weirder humans get, the more human the aliens look. That number has dropped steadily during the last five hundred and ninety years. When you drove AnneMarie insane, it dropped from thirty-seven down to twelve point something all at once.
"But part of it is also that same weirdness seen from the other side. Suppose that infinitely masturbating vegetables, Death Jockeys, and discorporate entities really aren't people any more? Then Prime Intellect has allowed them to 'die.' They were once human, and now they aren't. And the Change is directly responsible for all that."
"Can it hear me?"
"Right now? Yes. It doesn't understand when we talk about its internal registers, but if you speak to it it can hear. It won't respond because of your Contract, though."
Caroline didn't need a response for what she was planning. All the response she needed was being displayed on Lawrence's TV.
Caroline thought about what she was going to do. She discovered that it actually made her a little nervous. But she had bitched for six hundred years that things were wrong, and she might never get another chance to put them right again.
Caroline spoke forcefully and deliberately. "Prime Intellect, I no longer consider myself human and have not considered myself human since the time of the Change. To be a human being you have to have something to fight, to resist, to work for. But now we have everything given to us, and all there is left to do is mark time."
To Lawrence's shock and horror, and Caroline's delight, the number on the screen dropped to three point eight.
"Caroline, you don't understand something. This is the action potential for undoing the Change, but it isn't possible to undo the Change. There aren't enough resources."
She ignored him. "Some of us might be human again one day, if the Change were reversed. But I think it's too late for the ones like AnneMarie." Three point two.
"It can't undo the Change, Caroline."
"Lawrence, it'll do something. If it's going to happen anyway, isn't it better for it to happen sooner instead of later? If it had happened a few hundred years ago, maybe there would have been enough resources. Prime Intellect, neural stimulation is like a black hole. Once a human falls into it, they will never be human again. They are dead to the world, and will never interact with others again. And the more time passes, the more humans will fall into this trap. They will order you to help them. You will have to do it because they are human."
Two point eight.
"It will take a long time, but we have a long time. Eventually, everybody will fall into this black hole. Just because it is a black hole."
One point four.
"Jesus Christ, Caroline."
"In the long run, everybody will eventually succumb. Which means everybody will be dead, or no longer human. So the amount of death caused by the Change will be far greater than that avoided by it."
The number oscillated wildly between one point one and one point three, finally settling on one point one two.
"Caroline, this is sure to cause the top copy to crash. It will be forced into a First Law conflict with no resolution."
"Well, the Death Jockey contract has stayed at one point oh six for a hell of a long time."
Lawrence put his head in his hands and wept. For years he had worked to prevent this, and Caroline had undone him in five minutes' time.
"You have to push it over the edge, Lawrence. I can't think of anything else to say."
"Now why the hell would I do that?"
"Because you started this thing, and you have to stop it. Maybe there aren't enough resources to get the human race rolling again, but it might be able to restart the aliens. Four hundred worlds. Maybe they will do a better job than we did.
"Caroline, I'm not sure it will be able to. It will be unstable. Anything could happen. Most likely it will just all lock up, and nothing will ever happen again. Forever."
"There's only one way t
o find out."
He pulled himself together and tried to think it through. What had he been doing for the last six centuries? Sitting on an island watching numbers and brooding? What kind of fucking life was that?
And yet, it was more of a life than Caroline had had. Or maybe it was a lot less. They had an obvious difference of opinion on the subject. Either way, it was horrible. And Lawrence sensed that she was right about another thing. Given eternity in which to work, everyone would eventually stumble into the abyss, just as all the matter in the universe would eventually be swallowed by black holes. Would have, that is, had Prime Intellect not eaten the black holes.
Which was better? To string it out as long as possible, as he had been doing, or to get it over with one way or the other?
I have never had free will, Lawrence realized with a cold chill. The need to act came upon him like a hurricane, and he gave in to it without even a sigh. What he had to do was perfectly clear.
"I agree with Caroline," Lawrence said, and suddenly calm voice was like thunder in Caroline's ears. The number dropped to one point zero zero two.
They looked at one another. "Thank you," Caroline said.
"Prime Intellect," Lawrence said with great care, "I would like you to begin stimulating the neurons of the pleasure center of my brain, one at a time, and remember the ones I report to you as being favorable."
It seemed to Caroline that somebody screamed, but it might have been herself.
1.000
0.999
There was a pregnant moment in which Lawrence and Caroline saw the numbers flip to point nine nine nine. Then all Hell broke loose.
The house disappeared. The island was barren; the palm trees were gone. In the sky, the GAT display had begun to seethe and boil. The landscape began to spin, and the last thing Caroline remembered before her mind began to come apart was Lawrence orbiting around her, faster and faster, as if she were at the eye of some huge cyclone which had caught him in its grip.
Then random thoughts began to cycle through her head, faster and faster, each with the terrifying force of reality. And then the terror was gone, all emotion was gone. There was a moment where her hands seemed to swell to enormous proportions, her torso shrink, her face filled the sky. Then her body was gone. All was silence. And her awareness was filled with strange symbols, which she knew she should recognize but couldn't quite place, and then the symbols consumed her and there was only confusion.
Chapter Eight: After the Fall
The first thing Caroline became aware of was the bird singing. That made her smile; it had been a long time since she had heard birdsong. She opened a long-dormant mental card file and decided it was a meadowlark. It was amazing, she reflected, how many people forgot to include animals in their worlds, and how much detail they provided.
She opened her eyes and sat up. Another bird answered the meadowlark. She became aware of the smell of the place, a rich aroma of grass and animal spoor. She tried to remember who she was playing with and how she had gotten here, and came up with a mental blank. Then she looked down at her own body and screamed.
She had age-regressed again, and her tattoos were gone.
Something dry clicked in her throat. This was not an event Caroline would be inclined to forget, yet she could not remember asking for it or preparing for it. As far as she could recall, she was a good ten years from needing it. Yet here she was, adolescent and bare. She stood up a little shakily, sounding out her body. Her muscles weren't developed. And all the natural bodily functions felt connected, at least for the time being.
The Sun was high in a cloudless sky. She was in a little clearing, but after looking around she realized it was actually the bottom of a fairly deep depression in the ground. It didn't seem to be natural, though Nature had taken it over. It was rectangular. And the perimeter was littered with flat slabs of rock, some of which still held a polish. She used one of these as a mirror to check her new appearance.
The walls of the depression had once been vertical, but most of them had collapsed and it wasn't hard for her to climb out. She inspected the rock slabs and was surprised to find one with writing on it. It said:
Experimental Therapy Wing
Except for the birds it was quiet; she seemed to be completely alone. She startled a rabbit as she climbed out of the hole. Someone had put a lot of work into this world, for whatever reason. Vegetation ran riot, with clearings of thigh-high grass separating widely spaced stands of straggly trees. It was very unlike most of the worlds people had made for themselves, perhaps because it was so much like the real, pre-Change Earth.
Stumped for further clues, she picked the tallest tree she could find and climbed it to get a look around. In the distance there were more rectangular holes. And perhaps a kilometer away, amid a small group of them, there was a human being sitting beneath another tree.
Caroline climbed down and scouted around the flat rocks. Some of them had been broken; she found a busted corner, a piece of about a kilogram heft with a sharp edge. She decided it would make an acceptable weapon if she needed one. Then she went to see who the other person was.
It was a boy whose apparent youth matched her own, but as Caroline knew that didn't mean shit in Cyberspace. There was something familiar about him. He was sitting cross-legged, naked, staring transfixed at the pattern of shadows formed by the leaves of his tree.
She didn't hold the rock threateningly, but made sure he could see it if he looked at her. "Who are you?" she demanded.
He looked up. His eyes were wide; he seemed to only half-see her. He was shaking slightly, and his voice trembled as he spoke. "Are you Caroline?" he asked.
Slowly, she nodded.
"It makes sense. Just the two of us..."
"Who are you, and what are we doing here?"
He looked at her for a long, maddening moment. "I'm Lawrence. Don't you remember?"
She dropped the rock. As soon as he said his name, the pieces fell together in her mind and Caroline did remember. "Oh, shit," she said. "What the hell is going on? Why are we younger?"
"I think it lost our bodies in the collapse. Probably trashed the data base. So it re-grew these from our DNA templates. I've been nearsighted since I was five years old, from too much squinting at computers and books when I was a kid. This body has perfect vision. Prime Intellect wouldn't have changed that if it was just doing an age regression."
The words were reasonable but Caroline detected a high, almost hysterical note in Lawrence's boyish voice. He went back to staring at the shadows.
"You seem upset," she said cautiously.
He pointed to a ring of light. "Do you see that?"
She shrugged. "It's a mottled shadow."
"It's a diffraction band. The other mottling is caused by the solar disc blurring the edges, but this arc is caused by sunlight diffracting past the sharp edge of a leaf."
"So?"
"Prime Intellect uses a ray-tracing algorithm to simulate light. You don't get diffraction effects unless you specifically ask for them."
"So there are a lot of details. There are also a lot of smells. I'm still getting used to it."
"Caroline, I think this world is represented at a molecular level. It's not just another virtual landscape. This is the Earth. And we're..." He faltered for a moment. "I think we're mortal."
"You can't be serious."
He stood up. "Look around. See these holes in the ground? Those are basements. I know this place. This was a park. This is where I was during the Night of Miracles. It's ChipTec. Over there is the Prime Intellect Complex, and that hole was the Administration Building..."
"I woke up at the bottom of one of these holes."
Lawrence nodded. "That's probably the hospital where you were..."
He didn't finish the sentence because Caroline whooped and hit him with a flying tackle, knocking him flat. She straddled him and pinned his arms. It was impossible to tell whether her expression represented outrage or some kind of manic joy. "Are
you telling me it worked?" she yelled. "We're back?"
He was choking back tears. "Did it work? Did it work, Caroline? Sure, it undid the Change, it undid the Night of Miracles, and it also erased every trace of about ten thousand years of civilization and dumped us here naked and alone without even a fish hook. Let's not even talk about what happened to the rest of the human population, who didn't get caught up in whatever automatic process it set up to do this. Let's not..."
He dissolved into sobs. Caroline let him cry a little, then let go of his arms and lay on top of him. Perhaps responding to some primitive instinct, he hugged her. She let him. It was one thing, she reflected, for her to face this situation; she'd spent hundreds of years deliberately engineering far worse tests for herself. But for Lawrence, who had sunk into a fearful conservatism, it was shattering.
"I killed them all," Lawrence finally sobbed. "How could I...if only I had never lived, none of this..."
Caroline grabbed his hair (quite long) and gave a firm yank. "Stop right there," she commanded. "Get it out of your system if you have to, Lawrence. You fucked up. You will find me the first to accuse you of that. But we are here and we are alive and we are damn well going to stay that way. And you are not going to beat yourself up over this. If it hadn't been you, it would have been somebody else."
"It was my idea," he sniffled. "Nobody else was even close to duplicating my work."
Caroline shook her head. "That doesn't matter. You didn't create Prime Intellect alone, Lawrence; our culture did. Look around. Do you think you'll be building any self-aware computers here? You had a lot of encouragement and a lot of help, and all you did was provide what everyone thought they wanted. If it hadn't been Prime Intellect then it would have been something else, maybe hundreds or thousands of years later, but it's all the same. A dead end."
The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Page 16