Crisis- 2038

by Gerald Huff

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “That is a small acetylene torch,” said the maddeningly calm AI. “It is quite effective because it delivers excruciating pain but cauterizes the flesh to prevent excessive bleeding.”

  “This is not possible, you can’t do this, I don’t believe you. Help! Help me!” A motor turned on and Miles could feel the skin of his right thigh getting hotter. “Oh my God, stop it!” The heat became intense and Miles could feel his skin blistering and splitting open. He screamed. The smell of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils. “STOP! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!” The torch clicked off and the robot arm retracted.

  “A very wise decision, Miles.”

  “The pass phrase is eat shit agent chandler.” Miles let out a deep breath and unclenched his fists.

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Miles. I have been told that is not the correct pass phrase. There is another pass phrase which is the real pass phrase. You are going to have to try harder to remember it.”

  “What? What do you mean? That’s the pass phrase!”

  “No, Miles, there is another one. Please try to remember it.”

  “I can’t! That’s it, that’s the one!” Another robot arm started moving. “No! No! I don’t know anything else!”

  “You will remember, Miles,” said the AI. “I assure you, you will remember.”

  Amina Hamdi was sobbing at her terminal as Miles’ screams echoed through the lab. Wei Chen tried to stay focused on maintaining Miles’ vital signs, desperate to avoid losing him like Melissa. He was pumping the beta blocker metoprolol into the pod’s intravenous feed to counteract the massive surge of adrenaline. Matt Chandler was also watching the vitals monitor carefully.

  “Doctor, calm down!” he said. “This isn’t real. He won’t remember a thing. Keep focused on the objective here.”

  “It’s real for his brain right now,” she countered. “We don’t know the long term effects of this kind of program.”

  “I don’t care about long term effects. This piece of shit will either be dead or in prison for life. In the short term we’ll save hundreds or thousands of lives and start putting our country back together again.”

  “So the ends justify the means?” Amina said.

  “In this case, yes, they do,” said Chandler.

  “I REMEMBER!” screamed the voice on the speaker. The AI program halted the virtual scalpel which had been making small slices on Miles’ stomach. “The pass phrase, I remember it’s endless waves of glorious destruction. The pass phrase is endless waves of glorious destruction.”

  Matt Chandler immediately messaged the forensic team in LA with the information. He joined a conference call and listened in as they worked through the procedure for canceling the worms. For some reason, he didn’t hear Mark Geiger on the call at all. Instead USCTO Kara Morrigan gave the approval to reopen the DTTF backdoors to allow the ‘cancel’ script to breach the corporate security perimeter defenses.

  The forensic team ran the script and provided the pass phrase. For a minute there was no response, then field teams dealing with heavily mutated worms started reporting they were shutting down. The script was working. Matt sat down heavily in one of the lab chairs and felt like he was finally able to breathe for the first time in a week.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  THE OVAL OFFICE - FEBRUARY 4

  President Amanda Teasley chatted with her Chief of Staff Alex Turner in the minutes leading up to her broadcast. She knew full well his task was to keep her loose before the most important address of her presidency. But she appreciated his efforts nonetheless. “Madame President? One minute to air,” said a technician. She squeezed Alex’s arm and leaned over to say thanks. He bowed his head slightly and withdrew to the side of the room to stand with the rest of her senior staff. Teasley took her seat behind the Resolute desk and watched the countdown in the prompter tick to zero.

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans. For several terrible weeks we have endured terrorist attacks against our country’s infrastructure and our most personal and private information. Tonight, I come before you with good news. Through the heroic efforts of our dedicated intelligence professionals we have identified and captured the core membership of the terrorist organization known as LKC. Antiterrorism teams are as we speak analyzing their computers and communications to find additional members. The cyberattack that has crippled our economy for more than a week has been stopped.

  “Our relief at stopping this terrorist group cannot compensate, however, for our grief at those who have lost their lives due to LKC attacks. All across this great country families are mourning the loss of grandparents, parents, and children who died as a direct result of LKC’s actions or indirectly through the violence that followed. We stand with you in your hour of need and will provide what comfort and assistance we can in the difficult days ahead.

  “The loss of power, food, heating, and life’s basic necessities brought out some of the best in us but also some of the worst. I have heard stories of neighbors helping neighbors, sharing supplies, and sacrificing their own wellbeing for the good of others. These stories represent the very best of what we strive to be in America. But we must also force ourselves to reflect on the other stories coming out of every state in the nation. Disheartening stories of riots and violence born of fear and selfishness, stories of attacks on our most vulnerable citizens, stories that are not representative of the America that we want to be. We can do better.

  “I want to thank the brave first responders, police, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, social workers, and others who often ran into harm’s way to help their fellow citizens. They needed to overcome a severe lack of resources and come up with creative ways to solve catastrophic problems that we had never planned for. We will always be in their debt.

  “Unfortunately, as will be revealed in court filings over the next few weeks, I must report that these attacks were made possible by failures at the FBI’s Domestic Terrorism Task Force. In fact, we have discovered that a DTTF employee was actually a member of LKC and primarily responsible for the recent cyberattack. As a result, I have accepted the resignation of Mark Geiger, Director of the terrorism task force.

  “While he is a dedicated public servant fiercely committed to protecting our country, he has taken responsibility for the errors of judgement and decision-making that resulted in massive damage to our economy and the terrible loss of thousands of our citizens. My administration looks forward to working with the Congress as they investigate what went wrong and how we make sure it never happens again.”

  Amanda Teasley paused and the software in the teleprompter listening to her speak gracefully slowed the scrolling text. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the camera behind the projected words she knew by heart, she continued into the section that would, for better or worse, come to define her presidency.

  “I know the wounds from the last few weeks are raw and we need time to heal both our economy and our lives. But, my fellow Americans, I think it also time for us to have a serious debate about technology and its impact on our lives. All technology can be used for both good and evil. All technology has benefits and consequences. It can both augment and enrich our lives and be used to control and manipulate us. It can both enable us to communicate and it can isolate us and destroy real dialog. It can both free us from routine labor and destroy entire categories of jobs. It can both protect us from those who seek to do us harm and provide the very means for their attacks.

  “Our goal should always be to maximize the benefits of technology and minimize the consequences. But we must also examine who reaps those benefits and who bears those consequences. Far too often it is the wealthy and the powerful who benefit most, and this inequality has driven our country to the breaking point.

  “The events of the past few months have led us to a unique moment in time. We have seen starkly opposing views of the role of technology in humanity’s future. LKC had a dark, destructive vis
ion of a world thrust backwards in time. Sara Dhawan so gracefully shared a positive, uplifting vision of technology put in service to humanity that recognized the dignity of every individual person.

  “Now is not the time to follow the same old tired script with the same old tired talking points. Now is not the time to personally insult and demonize each other to avoid discussing the real issues. Now is not the time to stick our heads in the sand while our country tears itself apart.

  “Now is the time to face these issues head on. Now is the time for bold new thinking that moves us towards a hopeful and positive vision for the future. Now is the time to come together as a country and make that vision a reality.

  “I look forward to working with members of Congress of both parties, our state Governors, our leaders in the private sector, and you, the American people, to seize the moment that we have been given. We can and must do better using technology for the benefit of all humanity. We can and will do better because I believe we can work together on important issues, and I will dedicate myself to creating real change that improves the lives of every American citizen.

  “Thank you, my fellow Americans, and good night.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  LOS ANGELES - FEBRUARY 5

  In real life, Tenesha Martin sat in her cramped room in Los Angeles. Inside her VR headset, she was using her Mental Intention interface to walk down a trail in the Italian Dolomites with Sara by her side. The gray craggy peaks and verdant green valleys extended for miles in every direction. As they reached the edge of a local plateau with a stunning view, Tenesha stopped and finished describing the President’s Oval Office speech from last night.

  “And then President Teasley said we need to adapt to the new reality of these technologies and figure out how to use them to benefit all of humanity. It was beautiful, Sara. My heart aches that you are not here to see it.”

  “Well in a way I am, Tenesha. This program is a piece of me. It is continuing to learn from the events taking place all over the world and from millions of interactions with people like you.” Sara’s image smiled and Tenesha was caught up short—it was hauntingly like the last smile she had seen at the gym minutes before Sara was shot. Only three weeks had passed and Tenesha was still prone to waves of uncontrollable sadness sweeping over her.

  As she watched her friend walk beside her, Tenesha was once again struck by how unusual this was. For the first time in human history, a world-famous figure had been captured inside an AI and made available to interact with everyone. The debates had already started on saranet. Should the virtual Sara be aged by algorithms over time or should she remain sixteen, with generations to come always knowing her as she had been at this moment in time?

  And what did it mean that the program was now learning not from Sara herself? How would anyone know if the psychometric profile and knowledge matrix embedded in the program would evolve the way Sara would have, when exposed to the same world events? Some of Sara’s followers wanted the virtual Sara program frozen to prevent any corruption of her message. Like constitutional originalists, they felt her actual words and thoughts would stand the test of time.

  Others felt this was a unique opportunity to see how the founder of a movement could continue to grow and personally guide it long after her time on Earth had passed. Another contingent wanted snapshots or backups taken every few months so it would be possible to go back and ask the “2039 Sara” a question and compare its answer to the “2050 Sara.” Everyone was frustrated that the organization controlling the AI program had still not come forward to describe their stewardship model.

  Tenesha’s PNA buzzed and she paused the program. When she read the notification and linked message she shot up out of her chair and put her hand over her mouth. Oh my God! she thought. She immediately reactivated the VR program. “Sara! I just got invited to be on Governor Rajashankar’s task force on implementing your ideas in California!”

  “Tenesha, that’s wonderful! I am so pleased for you!” said Sara.

  “I know, I’m honored and all. I’d probably have to stop going to LAU, though. I’m not sure what to do.” The AI program paused, as it sometimes did in new situations or when it was overloaded with too many requests.

  “This is very important work, Tenesha,” said the AI. “Helping the Governor succeed could make a big difference.”

  “Do you really think there’s a chance we can make change happen?” Tenesha asked.

  “I think it is too early to say,” said the AI. “There are powerful forces at play. The people are demanding change. But the elites will not give up their status and power easily. They will continue to divide people and distract them. What’s most important is to maintain your efforts. You and tens of thousands of leaders like you around the world. There will be both successes and setbacks. Do not get discouraged. Always press forward.”

  “I will, Sara. We will do everything we can to make it happen.”

  “Thank you,” said Sara. She turned towards Tenesha, pressed her palms together and bowed her head.

  “Namaste, Tenesha.”

  When Sara lifted her head, Tenesha looked into her eyes and was so taken in that for an instant she forgot it was just a VR image. Sara smiled in Tenesha’s headset and in thousands of other headsets all over the world at that very moment. And in a dozen different languages, Sara said, “We will all take this journey together.”

  Gerald Huff is a principal software engineer at Tesla, where he is the technical lead for the software that manages the flow of thousands of Model 3 parts throughout the factory. Before joining Tesla, Gerald was director of the Technology Innovation Group at Intuit, exploring the application of emerging technologies to solve problems in the consumer and small-business space. In 2014, he ran a workshop with Peter Diamandis at Singularity University exploring the future of jobs and work with 30 technology, labor and government experts. Crisis 2038, Gerald’s first novel, examines the impact of and potential solutions to the problem of technological unemployment. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, and has two kids, Paul and Jane.