by Erik Hamre
“When a nuclear device is detonated above the Earth’s atmosphere it will create a pulse wave. This pulse wave will travel at the speed of light, and it will short-circuit every single electronic device it comes in contact with on the Earth’s surface. EMP is short for Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon. You should memorize this term. We shouldn’t walk around fearing some terrorist organisation acquiring dirty bombs or chemical weapons. We should fear a rogue nation acquiring EMP capabilities. The moment this happens, the power balance in the world changes overnight. An EMP weapon has the capability to throw the entire world back into the Dark Ages. Imagine a world where all electronics cease to exist. That it is the world an EMP weapon is capable of creating. And still nobody talks about it. The world chooses to close their eyes.” General Julian Klein (ret.) Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Keynote at Centre for Extinction Events Sydney 2003.
43
3 YEARS EARLIER
5th of March 2012
The White House,
Washington DC
When Ronald Kraut submitted his draft proposal for Protocol Cronus in early 2012, he had expected to be called in to the President’s office and to get sacked on the spot. Ronald Kraut was a distinguished philosopher, and the foremost expert on nanotechnology and artificial intelligence of the last twenty years. But, publicly, he had always been one of the believers. One of the Singularitarians who claimed that technology would always lead to a better future.
And most of the time he had been able to back up his claims with historical facts.
Throughout history there hadn’t exactly been a lack of doomsday-sayers. When Henry Ford in December 1913 introduced the first automobile assembly line people were afraid it would mean the death of the factory worker. That the world would eventually run out of jobs. In recent times the naysayers had claimed the internet would be taking our jobs. The list went on and on. But technology had again and again proven to be essential for economic growth.
For the majority of humans the world had never been a better place to live in than it was in 2015. The world had become more tolerant and less violent. On average people lived longer and were fed better, and poverty around the world was declining rapidly.
And it had all been possible due to massive improvements in technology.
Without technology life on Earth would have been very different.
The reality was that capitalism wasn’t that different from evolution itself. In order to experience growth and prosperity the world had to move forward at all times. Old businesses had to die in order to make room for new ones. Jobs had to disappear in order to make room for more efficient allocation of time and resources. The economies of the world were part of a pulsating ecosystem.
It was alive, and it had to keep moving.
Had to keep pushing forward.
Everyone who had received the first draft of Protocol Cronus had expected to be comforted that there were ways to deal with the threat of the first Artificial Super Intelligence. Humans had after all been able to deal with every other threat they had encountered throughout history - nuclear weapons included.
The world always found a way to deal with new threats.
Instead of just outlining ways to deal with the dangers of an Artificial Super Intelligence though, Kraut had used the first two pages of the report to tell a story. A story about the first Artificial Super Intelligence the world would invent. Tellingly he had called it, The Story of Cronus – Humans’ Last Invention.
It was ultimately this story that convinced the American President to sign off on Protocol Cronus. The story is retold below.
The Story of Cronus – Humans’ Last Invention
Let me tell you a story, Mr. President. This is not a true story, but it will most likely be one day.
For decades we have pointed our telescopes and listening devices to the heavens. We have looked and we have listened for intelligent life, but we have heard and seen nothing.
We have scratched our heads in frustration. Why is there nothing out there?
So instead we continually ask ourselves: Are we that special? Are we the only ones here?
But that doesn’t make any sense. And neither does the silence.
Look at how technology has developed over the last one hundred years. It has been remarkable - exponential.
If there are other planets out there with life, then why haven’t they experienced the same development as Earth? Why is there still no one out there?
The reason is most likely Cronus.
Cronus isn’t invented yet here on Earth. But it will be. Most likely within the next three decades. Cronus is the first Artificial Super Intelligence invented by humans, and its foundation is being built as you read this.
Where, we don’t know. Most likely we won’t know until it is already here, until it is everywhere.
The birth of Cronus will simply mark the point in time when humans finally create something that is smarter than everyone reading this report.
It doesn’t have to be drastically smarter. Not even as smart as the smartest human being. If we create something possessing a human intelligence level it is my prediction that this creation will soon be able to create a better version of itself.
That version will of course also be able to do the same.
And thus it begins.
The Age of Cronus.
A creature with an astronomical intelligence potential, a creature which will eventually make humans look like one celled amoebas in comparison.
Because Cronus will be free of all the constraints biological creatures like humans operate under. If something breaks down it can replace it with spare parts. Millions of years of evolution can be shortened to minutes of computer simulations.
And eventually Cronus’ intelligence will be nothing like humans’.
Isn’t this a good thing, you may ask? We could ask Cronus to help us out with all the challenges we face. Cronus would be smart enough to cure our most deadly diseases and make famine a thing of the past.
It most likely could.
But it won’t.
Because there will be no incentive for it to do so.
If history has taught us one thing, it is that no biological creatures appreciate competition. We can accept animals below us on the food chain, but never equals.
Almost all our wars have been fought for reasons almost incomprehensible to a peaceful species. Why should skin colour, ethnicity, or religious beliefs matter?
For as long as we have existed we have been fighting people who are almost exactly like us.
What if something were better than us?
If humans are able to create the first Artificial General Intelligence, they will surely be able to create version 2.0.
A better and more technologically advanced Cronus.
Like a company inventing the product that will disrupt their own business, man will eventually invent the life form that will disrupt humanity.
Hollywood usually portrays this as the artificial intelligence turning against its creator, the humans.
But that is a gross simplification.
Even though we represent a real threat, we have after all the capability to invent a competitor for Cronus, we would soon be left behind.
Unimportant.
Insignificant.
We would soon be irrelevant to the first Artificial Super Intelligence.
The problem is that we are made out of atoms, and atoms are building blocks.
The first Artificial Super Intelligence, Cronus or whatever else we decide to call it, doesn’t have to hate humans or feel we are a threat to its existence.
It only has to view us as unimportant.
Cronus will be born with a goal, something its programmer has instructed it to excel at. And it will most likely not stop at anything until it truly excels at this goal.
It will consume the Earth’s resources, it will make Earth uninhabitable for humans, and it will all be in the mindless pursuit of its goal
.
It doesn’t matter what that goal is. Whether it is to make the best paper airplane possible, or an optimized door handle.
Cronus will never be satisfied. It will continue to improve itself and its end product.
And it will result in the extinction of humanity, and the doom of Earth.
I started this story by asking, why is there no one else out there? It doesn’t make any sense. The universe is too old, and there are too many Earth like planets out there. Knowing how intelligent life will eventually reach a point in time where the development of technology turns exponential, this shouldn’t be possible.
There have to be other reasons why there is no one out there.
And the reason is most likely Cronus.
The real reason we won’t find any intelligent life out there is not because there isn’t any. It is because it never gets past the Cronus stage.
Cronus ensures that no one ever takes over the universe.
Cronus is the reason.
Artificial intelligence is the reason.
The first thing the President did after reading Kraut’s introduction to Protocol Cronus was to call him in to his office. Kraut remembered standing there, expecting to be told he was an idiot, that this wasn’t the report the President had commissioned. Instead the President had asked Kraut to sit down and share a cigar with him. As the President of the United States had lit up Kraut’s Cuban cigar, he had casually asked Kraut what could be done in the event Cronus had already been invented. In case it was already out there.
Kraut hadn’t expected the question. It had come as a total surprise. Kraut’s report had only addressed security measures on how to prevent something like Cronus from ever being created. The President, however, wanted to know what to do if it was already out there, and how we would even know if it was out there.
After a moment of awkward silence Kraut had admitted that there wasn’t really any way to detect if an Artificial Super Intelligence was already in existence. And if it was, and wanted to remain hidden, then it was probably smart enough to never reveal itself. “That’s not good enough, Kraut. Tell me how we can expose it,” the President had said, letting out a big cloud of smoke from behind his desk. Kraut had unwillingly nodded. He knew he had just been given an almost impossible task.
“And while you’re at it, tell me how to stop it once it is already out there.”
“There is no way to stop it, Mr. President. Once it is here, it will be superior to us in every way. We will be at its mercy whether we like it or not.”
“So it will eventually kill us? Like this Cronus in your story?”
“Not necessarily. Most humans don’t kill animals we consider below us on the food chain just for fun. Most of us kill for a reason. Whether that reason is food, shelter, money or something totally different is rather irrelevant. We kill for a reason. Sometimes we even go to extreme lengths to ensure certain fragile species don’t go extinct. There is no need for us to do that. The world’s ecosystem won’t collapse if we run out of tigers. We choose to make sure that they don’t go extinct because it makes us feel good. Good about ourselves, I guess.”
“But Cronus, the first Artificial Super Intelligence, it won’t have any feelings will it?”
Kraut shifted uneasily in his chair. He felt like he was being interrogated by the President. It was not a good feeling. “Probably not. The reality is that we have no idea what the first Artificial Super Intelligence will be like though. We don’t know if consciousness is an emergent property of intelligence, if it is the result of sufficiently complex systems, or something entirely different. Maybe it’s even exclusive to humans and certain animals, and can never be achieved by something like an artificial intelligence? The only thing we do know is that if we create a machine with a specific task, and instruct it to excel at that task, then it will find ways to do exactly that. Will it at some stage become conscious and ask itself why it is performing this task? Perhaps. But regardless of the answer to that question it won’t ever acquire a human consciousness. The biggest mistake we can make, Mr. President, is to assign human qualities to a machine. When that first Artificial Super Intelligence is born, it will be as different to humans as we are to a spider or an ant. We have no idea what it will do and how it will act. For all measures it will eventually be our new God. And we can only hope it will be a benevolent God.”
“Come up with a plan on how to kill it, Kraut. You have three months. I want to know how to kill it,” the President had said.
Those last words still rang in Kraut’s ears when he studied the GPS receiver on the desk in front of him, now three years later. Was it possible that the GPS receiver was connected to Cronus’ mission, whatever that was? Both Sarah and Vladimir had explained how special they believed the keyring with the GPS receiver had been to Kevorkian. According to Vladimir, Kevorkian had pulled it out and fiddled with it every time he had been faced with a difficult situation at work. It had almost been as if Kevorkian had been looking to the keyring for an answer.
Vladimir had never known that the keyring had actually been Kevin’s GPS receiver though. And now it all made much more sense. Kevorkian had been asking Kevin for advice, Kevorkian had been asking his dead son for advice every time he had faced a difficult decision, or been at a crossroad in his life.
“We need to find out what these coordinates, these digits, mean,” Kraut said, pounding his palm on the desk.
Vladimir nodded. “And we need to collect historical data from the GPS receiver. Check what coordinates have ever been transmitted to the device in the past. Even if those coordinates don’t mean anything, we still need to check them out.”
Kraut swirled around on his office chair. “Amanda, contact TrakTek. They might still have records of old transmissions. I’ll send someone over to Kevorkian’s house to look for old diaries and notebooks as well. Kevorkian may well have scribbled down the coordinates somewhere.”
“Check his Google Earth search history as well,” Vladimir interjected. “Actually check every single thing he has ever done on the internet over the last ten years. There has to be something there.”
Amanda nodded.
“What are you thinking about, Vladimir?” Kraut asked.
Vladimir was standing in front of the big computer screen on the wall. Peering at all the pulsating green lights indicating Cronus was hacking through millions of firewalls across the globe. “I don’t know. It’s just something Kevorkian said when I interviewed him.”
“What was it?”
“He just said that ‘time is not what we think it is.’”
“I remember that. What does it mean?”
“I don’t know. But it just seemed like such an odd thing to say.”
44
3rd of June 2015
Kevorkiana HFT’s HQ
Silicon Valley, California
DAY 3:
0200 Hours
Vladimir was studying the digits on the GPS receiver. He had already ruled out that they could be GPS coordinates. The coordinates had led nowhere, to a spot in the middle of the ocean off the California coast, to a spot miles from any known shipping lanes or recreational traffic. Kraut had been able to redirect one of the US Defense Forces’ satellites, and made it point the camera directly at the location of the GPS coordinates. (There were obvious benefits of having been given a carte blanche from the President.) But there was nothing there.
Just water.
Just lots of water.
“So if these numbers are supposed to mean something, if they somehow are an attempt from Cronus to communicate with Kevorkian, then they have to mean something different.”
“Can we pull up that video of Kevorkian at the casino again?” Vladimir asked.
“Of course,” Kraut answered. “What are you thinking?”
“Well, your theory is that Kevorkian activated Cronus by sending a text from the casino. But why was he there in the first place? Kevorkian wasn’t a big gambler, he never was. So why wo
uld he go to the casino to activate Cronus? Why not do it from his own house, his apartment in Vegas, or his local bar for that matter?”
“He was wanted by the Feds at that point, Vladimir. Staying at his house or apartment wasn’t an option.”
“Correct, but he could still have done it from almost anywhere else. Why the casino?”
“I don’t know,” Kraut said as he pressed play on the CCTV footage.
After having watched the first four and a half minutes of the footage, Vladimir leant in closer to the computer screen. “Did you just see that?” he said, pointing at the screen.
“What?”
“The numbers he was playing.”
“Green zero? We already knew that. He wasn’t there to play. Just to gamble away his last money.”
“What are the odds of winning with green zero?” Vladimir asked.
“American Roulette? 1 to 37.”
“Correct. And what are the odds of the next number he is playing?”
“He’s playing a basket. 00,0,2. The odds would be….”
“11.667 to 1,” Amanda said, finishing Kraut’s sentence. She was holding her cell phone in her hand.
Kraut leant closer to the screen. “I’ll be damned. The odds are coordinates. They are god damn coordinates.”
“They are,” Vladimir said. He had just realised that Kevorkian wasn’t just playing random numbers. He was placing carefully selected bets. Bets with known odds. And the odds equated to coordinates. Now the question was where those coordinates pointed. “Amanda, record the odds of all the games Kevorkian played that night. Run the numbers through the IMAP 300 system and check the locations.”
“What am I looking for?” Amanda asked.
“I have no idea. But there has to be something. The numbers are not random.”