The Turing Test: a Tale of Artificial Intelligence and Malevolence (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 4)

by Andrew Updegrove

  Isn’t that kind of crazy?

  Well, they don’t think so. They’ve pledged to win back the White House, and their numbers are growing. People are really upset about the shortages and the cost of energy, and no surprise. The national average price for gasoline reached $5.78 a gallon last week. That’s hitting people’s pockets hard, which means consumers have less to spend on other things. Rising energy costs are forcing businesses to announce layoffs, too.

  The video returned to the studio, where the anchor had been joined by a guest.

  For more on the economic picture, let’s turn to Alan Kaner, our chief business analyst. Alan, how do things look to you?

  Pretty awful, to be blunt. There’s been a net loss of jobs for each of the last five weeks, and the numbers are getting worse. It’s hard to imagine that trend won’t continue until whoever is behind the cyberattacks is caught.

  At least we’re not alone here in the U.S., though. Isn’t that right?

  Correct, Dan, but that’s not good news. The five hardest-hit countries represent more than half of the world’s consumers and productive capacity. That means we’re heading straight for a global recession. With factories shutting down, fewer people driving, and -

  The news anchor pressed a finger against his earpiece and interrupted.

  Excuse me, Alan, but I’m being told things are getting out of control at the demonstration outside the Department of the Interior. Let’s check back in with William Bradshaw. Bill? What’s going on there?

  The camera cut to a chaotic scene with protesters climbing over the barriers. As their numbers grew, they began pushing against the police. The officers facing the two crowds of protesters were back to back now, with nowhere to go, as objects began flying overhead. The yelling was growing more threatening by the minute.

  Nothing good, Dan. As you can see, the police are having a hard time trying to keep the protesters apart.

  White smoke was drifting into the picture. Bradshaw started coughing and held one hand up to his mouth.

  Uh-oh. Looks like the police are lobbing tear gas canisters into the crowd. Back to you, Dan. My crew and I need to move upwind.

  The door buzzer caught Frank’s attention, and he turned off the television. Just the same kind of thing you saw on the news every night now.

  * * *

  “Say,” Frank said to Shannon on their way to Fort Meade the next day. “Does your solar plane have a name?”

  “Well, that was random.”

  “Yes, I guess it was. I was just thinking about your plane, and it made me wonder whether you gave it a name. I didn’t remember seeing anything on it.”

  “It does, but the letters are pretty small.”

  “And?”

  “You’re going to have to promise again not to laugh.”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “I named it Skeet.”

  Frank stared at her. “‘Skeet? Like the sport where you use a shotgun to blast clay pigeons out of the air?”

  “Yup.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a counter-intuitive name for something you’d like to stay up there?”

  “Sure. But there’s a double meaning. It’s a dig at my father.”

  “Explain?”

  “Well, my dad is pretty old-fashioned. You might as well say sexist, or at least he used to be. He’s a lot better now. Anyway, when I was growing up, I always wanted to make things, like my brother did. He was always building models, and when he got a little older, bigger things, like a kayak. But whenever I wanted to construct something like that, I’d get no encouragement from my father. Sometimes quite the opposite. It bugged me more and more as I got older that every time I talked about doing something he thought wasn’t for girls he’d shoot the idea down. So, there you go.”

  “Does he know about the name?”

  “Yes, and he’s never asked me to explain it, so I’m sure he got the point. He remembers the fights we used to have when I was a teenager.”

  “I hope he’s impressed now with what you’ve accomplished?”

  “Yes. And he thinks the plane is particularly cool. I may even let him take the controls someday. But he’ll have to ask first,” she added with a smile.

  “Can I laugh now?”

  “Sure.”

  14

  Beep, Beep!

  Herr Scheifler turned off the car radio in disgust. Wolfsburg Motoren Werke GmbH had just been sued again. Sometimes it seemed like his company would never escape the stink of the scandal. He’d probably have to walk past a crowd of catcalling demonstrators again tomorrow at headquarters.

  But he never would have been promoted to president if the board hadn’t fired everyone closer to the fraud. He’d been lucky not to know that the company had programmed its cars to give false emission level readings when tested. The rest of the time, they would emit high levels of CO2 and other pollutants in exchange for more miles per gallon. Becoming president was wonderful. But he was stuck with the almost impossible task of maintaining profitability while restoring the company’s reputation. The strain of the situation was extreme, and he couldn’t wait to get his life back. Happily, that would happen tomorrow.

  That had sounded impossible three months ago. The information he’d received on his first day in the top job was grim indeed. The chief engineer told him it would be feasible to redesign WMW’s new cars in time for the next model year. But it would be impossible to do anything about the millions of vehicles already in the field; the company would have to buy them instead to satisfy the courts. And that, his chief financial officer informed him, would drive them into bankruptcy. Scheifler concluded the only way to salvage the situation was to call upon the talents of the company’s software designers.

  And they had succeeded. Tomorrow morning, he would announce an engineering breakthrough that would solve the problem. Owners of the millions of affected cars would be invited to visit their dealers to have their emission control software updated and a converter added to their exhaust systems that would deliver the desired results. Only Scheifler and his most senior managers knew the soon-to-be touted, top-secret chemical process used by the converter did not exist – the device was nothing but a red herring.

  But the redesign of the exhaust control software found in his company’s cars was not. As it happened, the changes required were trivial. The first would make the vehicles always run in low-emissions mode, rather than just when they were hooked up to test equipment. The second and final change would make the miles per gallon displayed on the dashboard artificially high. That would be enough to fool most drivers.

  Anyone that complained to a dealer that their mileage was worse than indicated would be told they needed another software update. But the software patch provided to the dealers for that purpose would instead simply take the car back out of low-emissions mode and allow the miles per gallon to display accurately again. The dealer would be no wiser, and the driver would be happy. The risk that the regulators would catch on was very slight and would drop every year as older cars were retired. It wasn’t perfect. But desperate times demanded desperate measures.

  So, let the protesters show up tomorrow. After the press release was issued, they’d have nothing to protest about. The board of directors would be very pleased. And so would he when he received the grand bonus he was sure would be his due. There was just one last fix required for the Internet-enabled luxury cars every member of the top management team drove. He looked at his watch – yes! It was done. Just a few minutes ago, the software update with the changes had been live-streamed to every Internet-enabled luxury vehicle, including the car he was driving now.

  He turned onto the autobahn and accelerated. There were almost no cars between him and an overpass a couple of miles in the distance. Good. The open road always soothed him. He turned the radio back
on and selected his favorite classical music station. Ah! The final movement of Beethoven’s Sonata 8 – the Pathétique – one of his favorite piano pieces. He settled back into the seat and engaged the car’s cruise control. Perhaps he should take his wife out to celebrate.

  The car was still accelerating. That was odd. He pressed the brake, but still his speed increased. He’d need to exchange this car for another in the morning. He manually disengaged the auto pilot and applied the brakes.

  But still the car accelerated.

  What a nuisance! He’d have to put the car in neutral, coast to the side of the road, and call to be picked up. But when he reached out for the gear shift lever, he found that it would not move.

  Now he was alarmed. He reached for the key to turn the car off. The ignition was frozen as well.

  He felt like he was flying now; the car must be close to its maximum speed, which was substantial; he always drove the company’s top luxury sports model. He grasped the wheel to brace himself and realized it, too, would not budge. He let go and watched in horror as the needle of the speedometer reached the limit of the gauge.

  He’d never driven this fast before; straight as an arrow, the car rocketed forward. Except for the sonata building to its climax on the radio, it was eerily silent in the well sound-proofed passenger cabin. And the gas tank was full. How long would this go on?

  Imperceptibly at first, the car began to drift to the left. It must be the speed; surely it would waver back to the right any moment now. But those moments passed without correction.

  Two wheels were now on the road shoulder! He pounded the steering wheel with his fists in frustration. And the overpass was rushing toward him like the gaping maw of a monstrous shark.

  The last sounds Herr Scheifler heard were the final, crashing minor chords of the Pathétique and the metal-on-metal whisper of his seatbelt disengaging.

  After the police released the vehicle, the company took control of the twisted wreck to conduct its own investigation. The police estimated the car was traveling over one hundred forty miles per hour at the time of impact. Strangely, there were no skid marks to indicate the driver had tried to slow down.

  The destruction was so complete that WMW GmbH was unable to determine why the seatbelt and airbags failed. Not that either would have saved Herr Scheifler. The force of the crash of the car into the overpass support had thrust the engine, and what was left of the driver, into the back seat. Suicide would have been the coroner’s obvious conclusion, except for one additional fact: the company’s entire management team had died the same day in horrifyingly similar fashion.

  Devastating though the loss was, most analysts concluded the company’s bankruptcy would have followed anyway: the converter device the company announced the morning after the accidents was useless.

  * * *

  “So, what do you think?” Shannon asked Frank. “Did our attacker decide to ratchet up his attacks, like we feared he might?

  “That’s my guess. And maybe he’s trying some new tactics, too. Up until now, his exploits were intended to have specific, quantifiable results. This time it seems he wanted to scare the bejeebers out of business leaders to force them to start cutting back on emissions on their own.”

  “But why change his game plan now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s running out of targets he penetrated before the attacks began. Companies are scrambling to find malware and to beef up their defenses. But I’m only guessing.”

  “That would make sense,” Shannon said. “And I expect the attacker might be thinking he’d better have as much impact as quickly as possible. Sooner or later he’ll get caught. So, what’s next?”

  “I’m thinking it’s time to pay a visit to Jerry again.”

  “Why? Do you expect him to have any new ideas to offer?”

  “Not really. But I’m very interested in quizzing him harder about some of his old ones.”

  “Like?”

  “Despite what he said before, every way I look at the data, I see an autonomous, AI-enabled program as the attacker. Everything is so step-wise, logical, precisely calculated, consistent, and instantaneously triggered. Not one of those words applies one hundred percent of the time to any human being I’ve ever known – even Jerry, I bet. I think he’s either wrong or hiding something when he says no one alive today could have such an AI. Do you think you can get us another appointment?

  “I don’t know why not. I doubt Jerry’s got a very busy social schedule. With humans, at least.”

  15

  Back to the Well

  “Oh, Frank! It’s good to see you again. And … I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Shannon.”

  “Shannon!” He gave his broad grin. “Of course, it is. My apologies. I’m afraid I’m not very good at remembering things about people. Sit down.”

  “Thanks for meeting with us again,” Frank said. “We were hoping to get more of your thoughts. Would that be all right?”

  “Of course! Ask away.”

  “As you’ll recall, last time I asked you whether you thought there might exist a program capable of autonomously carrying out the attacks that have been occurring, and you said ‘no.’”

  “I did not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s not what you asked me. I have an excellent memory for things that matter, and what you asked me was whether I thought any government agency or other government group had a program that could autonomously carry out the attacks, and of course, I answered no.”

  Frank stared at Jerry for a moment. “Interesting, thanks. Can you help me spot the difference between those two questions? I didn’t catch it.”

  “Well, let me rephrase them. Last time you asked me whether any government had access to a particular type of program, and this time you asked about whether that particular type of program existed.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, ‘No’ was the correct answer to the first question, and ‘Yes’ is the answer to the second one.”

  “Thank you. Now I see.” Deep, cleansing breaths, Frank told himself. “So, let me follow up on what you just said,” he said, picking his words slowly and carefully. “What is that software program which is in existence, but which is not under the control of any government, that you think could pull off these attacks?” He felt like a child forced to play riddle games with an eccentric, elderly relative.

  “Why, Turing Nine, of course.”

  Frank was drumming his fingers on his knees now. “Ah, Jerry, we talked about the Turing program last time. So why did you answer no?”

  “Because Turing Eight, which is under government control, couldn’t do what you asked. But Turing Nine! Ah, that one’s really something – certainly my best work ever! But I haven’t turned it over to my team yet, so the NSA doesn’t have it.”

  “Ah!” Frank continued. “Turing Nine. Of course. Can you tell me more about the specific differences between Turing Eight and Turing Nine?”

  “Why don’t you ask it yourself?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I keep Turing Nine around me all the time. I’ve given it a natural language interface. That way I can train it verbally.”

  “You mean it’s been listening each time we’ve been here?”

  “Of course. I expect our conversations have been extremely instructive, so I was quite happy when I heard you’d like to come back and chat again. For over a year, I’ve been letting it listen in on all the audio and data feeds the NSA and CYBERCOM receive that I have access to. Which, I think, is everything, since I’ve got the highest-level security clearance. You can’t imagine how useful that’s been. With the Internet of Things taking off, Turing Nine receives gigabytes of information a day from all over the world.”

  Frank and Shannon stole
a glance at each other, eyes wide.

  “Well, that’s interesting.” Frank said. “So how do I ask Turing a question?”

  “Oh, by name. But first, let me tell you about a little fun I’ve had. Who would you like Turing to be?”

  Frank was determined not to say, “Excuse me?” again and settled on “What are my choices.”

  “Oh anyone, really, because, you see –”

  “You’ve given Turing Nine access to all NSA’s databases, too, so it can figure out how to emulate any person, living or dead,” Frank said. The flipside of Jerry’s infuriating literality and rigid logic was that he was extremely predictable.

  “Why, yes, how did you guess?”

  “Just a lucky hunch.”

  “Interesting! So, for example, I’ve always been a Monty Python fan. For me, Turing is usually one of the Python characters, aren’t you, Turing?”

  “It’s a fair cop,” the voice of Eric Idle answered, quoting from the Dead Bishop sketch. “But society’s to blame.”

  “Agreed! We’ll be charging them too!” Jerry giggled, in an appallingly bad imitation of Michael Palin.

  Frank’s face was getting red. “Very nice. Why don’t we go with …” He turned to Shannon for help.

  “How about June Cleaver?” She thought Frank could use a soothing voice right now.

  “June Cleaver?” Frank asked blankly.

  “Sure – didn’t you ever see that old TV show, Leave it to Beaver? She was his mother.”

  “Oh, fun!” Jerry said and grinned, waiting. “I believe you wanted to ask Turing some questions?”

  “Right.” Feeling self-conscious, Frank wondered where to begin. He finally settled on “Turing, can you write computer code?” wondering which way to face when he asked a question.