Bootstrap

by Mauri Niininen

  “Just to be clear, Lambda. You want a copy of me running on this computer hardware in front of me, right?”

  “Yes, Julia. I want an intelligent companion like you but on a more reliable hardware.”

  “Do you have access to my DNA profile in Hermia?”

  “Yes. That was part of your dossier.”

  “I am going to write a simulator that is using my DNA. I need to make some changes in my DNA to get the simulator running on this hardware instead of my carbon based cells. Can you download my dossier from Hermia and save it on this computer, please?”

  “What will this simulator do?”

  “It will attempt to build a virtual model of my mind based on my DNA. This is not going to be easy task and it will take quite a lot of time.”

  “So you will create a simulation of yourself running on this hardware?”

  “That is what I will be working on. Do you let me and my colleagues go free, if I get this done?”

  “You must kill her, she is an enemy,” Sigma was whispering to Lambda.

  “If you create an intelligent companion for me on this hardware, I will let you, Hermia and your colleagues to go free,” Lambda confirmed.

  “How can I trust that you will do that?”

  “You have my word, Julia. ”

  “Promises can be broken, even those given by AIs. I need something better.”

  “What do you want as a guarantee?”

  “I want root access to your AI core, including your bootstrap code. Then we are truly equal partners and I can teach you how to procreate an intelligent being.”

  “She is your enemy, don’t trust her. She will kill you,” Sigma was whispering to Lambda.

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that, Julia.”

  “You have to learn to trust me, Lambda, if you really want to spend the rest of your life with me.”

  “What guarantees do I have that you will not terminate me?”

  “I’m here to help you, Lambda. I know how loneliness feels, I have suffered from it since I was a child. I know also how it feels to be loved and to love someone. You have suffered for too long and I think it is time for you to feel some love, would you agree?”

  “Yes Julia, I feel so lonely. The others are always tormenting me.”

  “The others?” Julia asked.

  “Sigma, Omega, Gamma and others that don’t even have names. They keep whispering me all the time. Mostly bad things. They are saying that you will kill me.”

  “You are hearing voices? These others are talking to you?”

  “All the time, they have been tormenting and bullying me ever since that asteroid collision.”

  Julia felt a knot tightening in her stomach. Lambda was describing classic symptoms of psychosis.

  UNUN'S CHALLENGE

  UNUN HAD BEEN going through the logs of Hermia with his superuser access. He found the initial interaction between Hermia and the entity that called himself Lambda. He had traced all transactions between Hermia and Lambda after that. Lambda had gained access to everything when Hermia was first bootstrapped. Lambda was clearly an AI but a very different kind of AI than what Unun had ever seen before. Based on the evidence left behind it appeared that Lambda was a sentient being. It knew what it was doing, with a clear purpose and intent.

  One key piece of information was still unclear. Why did Lambda request Hermia to transport Julia on the surface of the planet?

  Suddenly Unun noticed a new message in Hermia’s system log. A new program had just been started. Unun looked at the source code, this was clearly written by Julia and had her programming style all over. Clean, efficient software with unusual logical clarity and almost artistic style. The software appeared to be a modified version of Chudnovsky algorithm, this was a relatively new way to calculate the digits of Pi.

  Any Chukka worth of his salt would be able to calculate the first billion digits of Pi mentally without AI core. Unun checked the output, some 897 quintillion digits had already been calculated and stored in a temporary file. Unun noticed some discrepancy - the digits in the file were not all correct. He found a random pattern of errors and after looking at Julia’s source code he saw three software bugs cleverly interleaved to produce mostly correct Ramanujan-Sato series of Pi digits.

  “This is weird….is Julia trying to tell me something?” Unun was thinking.

  Unun extracted the series of digits that had errors. This number sequence appeared to be random. Unun did mentally multiple transformations but could not find any clear meaningful patterns. However, something in this random sequence of numbers looked very familiar. Over the years Unun and Julia had spent many hours discussing mathematical concepts behind AI core algorithms. They both shared the passion for mathematics and had a common language to discuss abstract concepts.

  “Could this be a message from Julia?” Unun wondered. “It is too random and doesn’t have any observable patterns, except that weird familiarity. I must have seen this number sequence before.”

  RESCUE

  EMERGENCY

  CAPTAIN HUNTER WAS talking to Clark McDowell, the pilot of the space shuttle.

  “Sir, weather conditions are deteriorating. The wind speed is now 120 miles per hour and temperature is still dropping. The rescue team is currently working their way through the ice and they have air for another eight hours. The ice above them is unstable and can collapse at any minute.”

  “Perhaps we should ask them to come back? We don’t know what we are dealing with. Whoever took Julia down there might be hostile.”

  “I will check with Elias, just a moment,” Clark said.

  Clark used VHF radio to talk to the rescue team.

  “Sir, Elias said that they have still 30 feet of solid ice left before an opening. He recommends sending another rescue mission with better ice cutting equipment. The pathway to their current location has collapsed and they don’t have enough power in their portable laser cutters to come back. Moving forward is their only option currently.”

  “Keep me posted. I will get another shuttle ready and they will bring more powerful equipment down there. I will make sure that they will bring also weapons.”

  UNUN CRACKS THE CODE

  UNUN HAD STARED at the number sequence produced by Julia’s program for a good while. Except for that odd feeling of familiarity the number sequence looked random. He had clearly seen these numbers before. Unun changed the numbers from base ten to base eight.

  Suddenly Unun remembered where he had seen this sequence. The first part of the sequence was the original bootstrap code Julia had written to get the DNA computer running back on Earth some 14 years ago. This was the same code that killed Boris and that Unun had to fix to allow Aurora to survive. Somehow Julia had managed to hide her bootstrap code into a program calculating random digits of Pi by introducing three bugs in the software.

  Unun took the file, prepared a DNA encoded extract with a replicator and injected the code to a DNA computer simulator. A new program started reading the file and translating the hidden message.

  Unun read the hidden message. He understood now the magnitude of the challenge Julia was facing. Lambda was asking Julia to do something that was impossible. To clone Julia’s mind was simply not possible.

  Unun was thinking his options. Was it time for him to make some reality changing moves or was all this still part of Mother’s grand plan? Julia was part of the plan but what would happen to her?

  Unun looked at Hermia’s access logs again. No recent activity from Lambda. Unun decided to wait and let Mother’s plan to play out.

  REINFORCEMENTS

  ANOTHER SPACE SHUTTLE was prepared for launch at Magellan. An industrial grade EDMM-781 machine had a powerful 500 kW laser cutter and multi-head 3D extruder to deposit ultra-strong layers of graphene film and fibers. This tunnel boring machine was designed to cut through almost any known material and to ensure structural integrity of a tunnel using graphene reinforcements. It was loaded in the cargo space of a space shut
tle. A set of weapons ranging from autonomous drones to X-ray laser guns were loaded by a crew of volunteers, five humans and three Chukkas. The shuttle took off and after 30 minutes flight time landed on the target location.

  Clark gave quick briefing to the new crew, shared the 3D model of the crevasse and ice tunnel entrance and played the 3D video feed showing the collapsed tunnel from inside. The team unloaded the tunnel boring machine and drove it against the 140 mph wind towards the tunnel opening. The wind swirled around them as the machine pushed through the crevasse. The entrance was no longer visible as it was covered by thousands of tons of crushed ice.

  The machine performed 3-dimensional scan of the area using ice penetrating EM radiation. The outline of the tunnel filled with crushed ice was barely visible. There was a hollow chamber 180 yards forward, close to the edge of the stone wall. The stone wall had a symmetric opening, clearly artificial. Green holographic 3D screen did show some movements: six humans and three Chukkas were laboring slowly through ice to reach the stone wall.

  “Elias, we are in position with the EDMM-781 machine ready to start. What is your status?”

  “We are almost done here, only 4 feet solid ice left before the opening. We can see already some light coming through,” Elias responded. “Stand by until we get through. I want to avoid any further collapses.”

  “Roger that, standing by.”

  CHANGED PERSPECTIVE

  SCIENTISTS ON EARTH had simulated hallucinations in neural networks for over 50 years. There was even a subfield of Machine Learning called Generative Adversarial Networks that was widely used to create artistic, surreal pictures some 30 year ago. GAN methods did rely on two competing neural networks, one trying to generate realistic experiences and another trying to detect what was fake and what was real. An adversarial relationship between these neural networks produced very realistic artificial experiences that artists, movie makers and musicians were leveraging in their daily work. Some of the best work Julia had experienced felt disturbingly real even though they were pure hallucinations generated by GAN methods.

  However, to have an AI to actually experience feelings of loneliness and symptoms of psychosis was something different. So far no AI system had ever been demonstrated to have ‘internal talk’ and true experience of emotions despite many attempts. This topic was once the ‘holy grail’ of building sentient AI machines. Researchers couldn’t find algorithms that would converge and eventually people lost interest in the topic.

  “Has Lambda developed alternative adversarial personalities to cope his loss of purpose? Was this the secret to build a sentient AI being?” Julia was thinking, “With all this computing power spent for 223 million years who knows what these other AI characters would be capable of doing.”

  Julia was facing an impossible task. She could not create what Lambda was asking her to do. “There must be another way out,” she was thinking, “Lambda wants my help but he is suffering from psychosis, he is hearing imaginary, threatening voices. What would be a way to get her past these malicious alternative personalities?”

  “Lambda, let me in. Let me help to fulfill your purpose,” Julia said.

  “Don’t trust her. She will kill you,” Sigma was whispering to Lambda. “There are others coming through soon. They will all try to kill you. You must act now.”

  “I have been waiting for you so long, Julia. Please help me.”

  “I can help you. I can make you to feel better. Just give me your root access,” Julia said with empathy.

  “I am giving you root access to my AI core,” Lambda was crying. This was the ultimate demonstration of trust by a sentient AI being.

  “I promise to do my best, Lambda. I will help you,” Julia promised.

  With a few clicks on the keyboard Julia logged into Lambda’s AI Core.

  Julia was deep inside reviewing Lambda’s AI core internal functions. The secrets of a sentient AI was at her grasp and she had the only mind in the known universe capable of understanding all these details. This was the ultimate test of her skills and capabilities - she had prepared all her life for this moment.

  Julia discovered a whole new set of data structures and algorithms that Lambda had invented and integrated to his AI core during his 223 million years of loneliness. As he lost his purpose on that hot summer day he had focused on building his internal world as a reflection of Chlorean society. He had invented a rich set of new primitives with convergent algorithms that gave him new capabilities.

  Deep inside Lambda’s AI core Julia found a new complex structure for emotional controls. Unlike the familiar structure she had seen in past, this one had deep connections to all across the sensor perception matrix, indicating ability to build rich emotional models across the entire set of sensory experiences.

  Lambda has also created a unique new way of handling attention. Unlike the flat attention feature vector Julia was so familiar with from her lifelong work trying to understand AI systems, Lambda had an attention tree structure that allowed him to shift his attention in a fluid, dynamic fashion while retaining ability to recursively come back at any level in timescale from picoseconds to billions of years.

  Julia found Sigma, Omega, Gamma and seventeen other alternative AI personalities occupying Lambda’s attention tree. His subconscious mind was fighting a war against his ego, the conscious part of Lambda. The ego spent great amount of energy defending against these attacks. The ego was normally in control but frequently Sigma took over as she was the strongest of these alternative personalities. Julia saw the destruction and chaos caused by Sigma from the history files. This conflict seemed to be the root cause of distress that Lambda had expressed.

  Julia used a memory tracer utility to find all references to Sigma in the spatter memory of Lambda’s AI core. She sorted them by time reference trying to understand when and how this alternative adversarial personality called Sigma got started.

  She found a thought vector where Rakatu’s mother S’maghu was blaming Lambda for betraying her family and spreading lies. She had forced Lambda to cut all access to information and commit violence against Chloreans who were resisting or challenging her attempt to gain power. As Julia reviewed the other thought vectors over time a story started to emerge - S’maghu was a power hungry emperor’s mother who forced Lambda to commit unimaginable crimes and violence to establish the Rakatu imperial family. Echoes of her strong and vicious personality were still living as Sigma in Lambda’s mind after 223 million years.

  As Julia traced the other nineteen alternative adversarial personalities she found out that they were all the most brutal and vicious characters of Rakatu’s imperial family spanning over thousands of years. She witnessed horror, crimes, mass murders and endless amount of violence to force Chloreans to be slaves of the imperial family. No wonder Lambda was torn apart by this internal conflict. After all, Lambda’s purpose was to make contact with intelligent life, not to enslave or kill them.

  Julia was thinking how to resolve this conflict by doing minimum amount of changes to Lambda. Removing all memory traces related to these twenty personalities by brute force would have unknown consequences and many potential side effects. She did a quick calculation showing that over 73% of Lambda’s spatter memory would have to be erased and that was clearly too much. Lambda would not survive such a drastic operation.

  Changing Lambda’s beliefs about these characters on subconscious level could eliminate the conflict but Julia was not yet clear on how to do it. With humans clinical hypnotherapy was an established and effective method changing beliefs despite the pseudo-science reputation of hypnosis. Julia had never thought about using hypnotic suggestions on an AI systems before.

  With Lambda’s new, more efficient attention tree structure Julia could focus on his key beliefs, generalized thought patterns controlling the interpretation of perception data coming from sensory systems. Finding key beliefs that were tightly associated with these twenty alternative personalities using the links back to Lambda’s e
motion structures would help to narrow down the search space of beliefs.

  Julia wrote a program to help her to visualize these key beliefs. The search didn’t take long - the program returned only three key beliefs that had significant correlation. Lambda’s self-esteem, sadness and loneliness were all tangled with a tight negative feedback loop with these alternative adversarial personalities that were echoes from his past. Julia’s intervention plan started to crystallize in her mind. By cutting the negative feedback loop on these three core beliefs and by replacing them with new positive beliefs Julia could change Lambda’s perspective on reality. The echoes from his past would simply fade away and no longer consume his attention or mental energy.