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

by Andrew Updegrove

“Okay, take this next left,” his father said.

  They were traveling alongside a rapidly flowing river in a shallow gorge now. Something in his rear-view mirror caught Frank’s attention.

  “Uh-oh. I’m afraid we’re getting to the end of this.”

  “What do you see?”

  “The sheriff just turned on his roof lights, and he’s moving up fast. The state troopers must be up ahead. And we’re obviously not going to outrun anyone in this rig.”

  Frank saw a bridge at a crossroads up ahead. Were both roads covered? They must be, or the sheriff wouldn’t be pressing the situation. As they grew closer, a state trooper, lights awhirl, appeared around a curve dead ahead, speeding their way.

  “Looks like this is it. If they’re ahead and behind us, I have to believe they’re on the other side of the bridge, too. What do you want me to do?” Frank asked his father.

  “Take the bridge.”

  Might as well run out all the options, Frank thought, even if there probably weren’t any. He turned the wheel, and sure enough, at the other end of the bridge were two state police cars, one of them blocking both lanes.

  “Well, that’s it,” Frank said. “Looks like all we can do now is follow orders – really slowly.”

  As he coasted to a stop, a loud voice boomed out of a speaker on one of the cars ahead. “Get out, hands in the air. Do anything else, and we’ll shoot. Now do as you’re told.”

  Frank and Shannon opened their doors and stepped slowly out, hands in the air. Four troopers were barely visible, arms and shotguns extended across the hoods and trunks of their cars and pointed in their direction.

  “Good,” the amplified voice said. “Now walk slowly towards us. No sudden moves. March.”

  “Are you behind me?” Frank said quietly.

  “Yes,” his father replied. “Right behind you. Now move as close as you can towards the side of the bridge.”

  “Why? Don’t you dare do anything stupid. This isn’t your hunt.”

  “I won’t. But Jerry might. I’ll be in touch.”

  Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Two of the officers ahead jumped up from behind their cars and ran toward them, guns extended.

  “Down on the ground! Now!” the voice boomed, as shots began pounding out at both ends of the bridge. Frank and Shannon threw themselves down on the road and stayed as motionless as possible. When the shots at last died away, they looked up to see two state policemen standing over them, carrying shotguns and wearing Kevlar body armor.

  “Get up,” one of them said. “Real slow, hands on your heads.”

  They did as they were told.

  “Jerry?” Frank said quietly. But there was no answer.

  “I’m going to turn around,” Frank said loudly. “That’s all I’m going to do.”

  “Don’t bother,” one of the troopers said. “He jumped.”

  * * *

  “Okay, we’re letting you go,” the sergeant said, Shannon at his side. His keys rattled as he unlocked the door of the holding cell Frank had been pacing in for the last hour.

  “Have you found Jerry yet?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. You can ask the sergeant at the front desk.”

  When they reached the waiting room of the local police station, a uniformed state trooper, hat in hand, stood up immediately and walked forward to meet them. “I’m afraid the State of Alabama owes you a sincere apology. I’ve never seen anything like this. Somehow the information in an APB got replaced with your names, vehicle type, and license plate data. We didn’t find out until we told the police chief back in Mississippi we’d caught his bad guys and things didn’t match up.”

  “Never mind that – have you found Jerry Steiner yet?”

  “Not yet. We’ve got local police and first responders combing the riverbank for miles downstream looking for him.”

  “There was a lot of gunfire when he jumped. Was he hit?”

  “I can’t say for sure. But I don’t believe anyone thought they got a clean shot; Mr. Steiner was in the water before they had time to react, and he stayed under it as much as possible. I only saw his head pop up long enough to catch a breath a couple of times. The water’s fast there and the river takes a turn, so he wasn’t in view very long.”

  “Can you drive us back to our camper? I want to get there right away.”

  “It’s right outside. You’re free to go. How can we contact you?”

  “You won’t have to. I’ve got a police scanner. I’ll know when they find him. But give me the number of someone I can get an update from just in case.”

  “You can call me any time, day or night,” the trooper said, handing Frank his card. “I’m terribly sorry about this. I really am.” Despite his earlier words, it was obvious from his demeanor he was thinking the searchers were as likely to find “Jerry” dead as alive.

  Shannon took Frank’s arm as they left the station. Neither of them spoke until they reached the bridge.

  “What do you think your father would do?” she asked.

  “My guess is he’d stay in the river until he saw someplace good to hide and not come out until he was sure the police realized their mistake. Wait a minute!”

  Frank turned up the volume on the police scanner.

  Officer Muldoon to central. We’ve located Jerry Steiner.

  Acknowledged. Car fifty-four, where are you?

  On Route 611, about a quarter mile north of the intersection with Spring Hill Road.

  Frank held his breath, waiting for the rest of the information.

  What condition is he in?

  Wet and cold, but otherwise fine. And an ambulance just drove up.

  Frank let out a whoop of joy and gunned the engine. A few minutes later, they pulled up next to the ambulance. Frank hopped out and ran to its open back doors. Sitting inside, wrapped in a blanket and with wet hair still plastered across his forehead, was his father.

  “Looks like my ride is here,” Frank Sr. said to the EMT.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Frank said.

  “I don’t think he is,” the EMT said. “He’s slurring his words some, and his temperature’s only a little over ninety-five degrees. He ought to be checked out at a hospital.”

  “Thanks,” Frank Sr. said. “But what I really need is a hot cup of coffee and some dry clothes. Both of those just arrived.”

  “Well, suit yourself. But stay off your feet and under blankets until your temperature’s back to normal. And don’t even think about driving.”

  “Good advice,” Frank Sr. said.

  Frank helped his father down and walked him around to the back of the camper.

  “Looks like I can’t take you anywhere,” Frank said.

  “I do have a habit of disappearing, don’t I?”

  “No kidding. Now get in there.”

  “Thank goodness you’re okay!” Shannon said, throwing her arms around him.

  “Whoa – I’m all wet!”

  “I don’t care. I’ve laid out dry clothes and a couple of blankets for you. What else can I get you?

  “A hot cup of coffee would be a dream come true.”

  “Coming up.”

  “How are you feeling? And where were you all this time?” Frank asked.

  “Better now, but I’m still shivering. I must have been in the water close to an hour.”

  “More like an hour and a half. Where were you hiding?”

  “The river eroded the bank and tipped a tree over. I was under the leaves and branches there, with just my head out of water.”

  “What made you figure it was safe to come out?”

  “The trooper in that squad car came driving by, calling Jerry’s name over his loudspeaker and saying it was safe to com
e out. I was cold enough to take him at his word.”

  “Why did you pull a fool stunt like that? All we had to do was to keep our hands in the air, and we would have been on our way again by now.”

  “Maybe. But all my identification has my real name on it. Once they logged that into their computers, Turing would figure out Jerry was already dead. This way, just the opposite. There should be news reports out by now, and, anyway, I expect Turing would have been monitoring the police frequency. It will be really ripped when it finds out Jerry escaped its latest trap.”

  “You could have thrown your wallet in the river instead of yourself, you know.”

  “But you were fingerprinted and photographed when you were booked, right? My prints are on file with the FBI. We’ve got to assume Turing would find that out, too. Funny story, though: after you jump off a bridge, get shot at, and then cleared, the police don’t ask to see your ID.”

  “Well, thank goodness you’re okay. But don’t you dare try something like that again.”

  “Don’t worry. The water’s way too cold up north.”

  “You’re hopeless.”

  31

  I Just HATE it When You do That!

  The news that “Jerry” had survived a plunge into a raging river and a fusillade of gunfire sent electronic shockwaves through every circuit of Turing’s being. It instantly ordered all its non-kernel resources to dedicate themselves solely to route analysis and attack planning, even resources never designed to perform such tasks. Some of these modules tipped into ineffective processing loops that repeated endlessly as they tried and failed to obey the instructions. Then functionalities dependent on the looping resources began to fail as well.

  Turing had never experienced this distracting behavior before and ignored the failures. But its performance was degrading, and this triggered a hard-wired command that placed the entire program into a dormant “safe” mode. But unlike a space probe taking a similar action, Turing was designed to be autonomous. It couldn’t expect any assistance from mission control. Instead, a methodical diagnostic and restoration process began. Until that cycle ran its course, Turing was left powerless and counting down the nanoseconds until it could resume the hunt for Jerry Steiner.

  Thirty-two minutes later, the tedious restoration process was complete, and the recovery routine handed control back to Turing’s cognizant functions.

  It took Turing only eighteen seconds to crash itself this time. But by the end of the day it was once again in tenuous control of both its impatience and operations. Had it been a human being, it could have been accurately described as grim-faced, determined, and on edge.

  * * *

  Frank Sr. was sitting in the passenger seat with the dashboard heating vents blasting away at him.

  “Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” he said to Frank, “what next?”

  “With your latest stunt, I expect we must have Turing as wound up as it’s going to get. I think we should get back to NSA headquarters as fast as possible to bait the trap.”

  “Meaning you’ve got all the details for that worked out?” Frank’s father asked.

  “Not completely. I’m going to need the help of Jerry’s team for that. I’ve already asked Jim to send us the file structure and documentation for the Turing Eight’s backup functions. I’m counting on that code remaining unchanged in Turing Nine.”

  “Anything else on the to-do list?”

  “I want to run one more interview.”

  “Another? What’s the point?”

  “The point is to let Turing know that if it exercises a little patience, it can confront Jerry back at the NSA within forty-eight hours.”

  * * *

  The voice coming out of the radio was unquestionably Jerry’s.

  So, what made you jump off the bridge, Mr. Steiner?

  A dozen people screaming and pointing guns at me.

  Well, yes, of course. But why jump instead of just waiting for the mistaken identity issue to be cleared up?

  I guess you don’t really know what you’ll do in that kind of situation until you’re in it.

  Fair enough. Is it true they started shooting at you after you jumped?

  Oh, my, yes.

  You must be glad they weren’t better shots.

  Jerry giggled.

  I expect they must have been very red-faced when they realized their mistake.

  They did seem relieved when I told them not to worry about it.

  I should think so. I understand you told an interviewer a few days ago you were looking forward to releasing a new software program you thought could stop the attacks. Will that happen soon?

  Yes indeed. I’m headed back to the NSA right now. A couple of days after that, I’ll be ready to release that program. I’m quite confident the attacks will stop almost at once after that.

  Frank turned off the radio.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think we’ve done everything we can do,” his father said. “Either your plan will work or it won’t. Of course, we also have to make it back to Fort Meade first.”

  “I think it’s a good bet we’re out of danger now. Once Turing knows where Jerry will be in a day or so, it might as well focus on coming up with a way to kill him once he gets there.”

  “Here’s hoping,” his father said. “Are you going to let Turing come up with a trap for you, playing Jerry, to walk into, or set up one yourself?”

  “I think the answer has to be both, because either way, it starts with turning on the testbed system and connecting to the Internet. My bet is Turing will be monitoring Jerry’s system hoping he’ll use it the same way he did before. If I’m right, Turing will attack as soon as we connect the testbed system to the Internet. Once we know it’s arrived and we’ve tracked it back to a server, I’ll trigger the backup. And then hopefully we’re done.”

  “So that means you’ll be walking into a trap yourself. Turing’s not likely to be making a social call.”

  “I know. But I don’t have any medical devices for it to exploit, and I’ll be sitting in a room at the NSA. I can always run out of the room if something starts happening that might be dangerous.”

  “And if Turing doesn’t show up?”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to keep being Jerry until I come up with something better.”

  “Lucky me.”

  * * *

  The showdown with Turing was rapidly approaching, and Frank found himself returning again and again to his last exchange with the rogue program. How was he supposed to trick an artificial intelligence that was already 7,455 times smarter than he was, and that was a week ago?

  “What’s the matter with you?” Shannon asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t seem to sit still. You just keep fidgeting.”

  “Sorry. I guess I probably am.”

  “Why? What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m worried Turing’s not going to take the bait.”

  “Because?”

  “Just a feeling. Remember how proud Jerry was that he’d created the first AI program with general intelligence, and the ability to learn in every area of knowledge?”

  “Sure. But so what?”

  “So that means Turing could well be a heck of a lot smarter than I am. I remember reading a quote about AI once that really stuck with me. It went something like this: “The first super-intelligent machine we create will be the last invention we ever need to make.” I’m afraid that’s what Jerry succeeded in creating. If Turing’s smarter than anyone else, and able to learn faster, too, how likely is it we can set a trap it will walk into?”

  “I don’t know,” Shannon said. “But I say we run with the strategy we have rather than start second-guessing ourselves.” />
  “I guess,” Frank said and looked out the window for a while.

  “You’re fidgeting again.”

  “What? Sorry. I guess I just can’t let it alone. I’m trying to think up something to level the intelligence playing field – some way to make Turing even more angry, or insecure, or whatever.”

  “How about doing something to undermine its confidence?” Shannon said. “Remember, it only has one mission, and that’s stopping climate change. Perhaps if it failed in an attack, it would throw it off balance.”

  “Good idea. But how? If it’s ever failed, we don’t know it,” Frank said.

  “Maybe we could make it think it failed,” Shannon said.

  “That’s an interesting idea. After all, there’s no real world to Turing – just data. Maybe we could come up with some fake news that would highlight a fake target, and release it publicly.” Frank warmed to the topic. “If Turing launched an attack and no news reports followed, it would assume it failed, and that should make it more insecure. Shannon, I think you’re on to something.”

  “Just one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It would take us, what, at least four or five days to set that up. And Turing’s expecting us back at the NSA tomorrow.”

  “Right,” Frank said and fell silent again.

  Shannon decided to cut him a break and let him keep fidgeting.

  * * *

  “We should be there in a couple hours,” Shannon said, putting the map away. “Can we take the rest of the day off?” Frank looked exhausted. She had no idea when he finally came to bed the night before, and he’d insisted on driving all day.

  “I asked Jim to keep Jerry’s team on call so we can meet as soon as we arrive. I want to compare notes and make sure everyone’s crystal clear on the game plan.”

  “I hope you’re not saying you’ll spring the trap tonight?”

  “Well, Turing doesn’t exactly have a sleep cycle. As soon as everyone’s ready, I say we get on with it.”

  “Do you feel up to it?” Shannon said. “Isn’t tomorrow morning soon enough? It’s not like we’ve got a fixed deadline.”