Evolution 2.0: The Singularity is Here

by Richard Childers

  We piled into the van, deciding it might constitute an adventure, and about forty minutes later we arrived at the Santa Claran Hotel and Casino, a rather undistinguished gambling hall owned and operated by the Santa Claran Indian Tribe. We worked our way past a myriad of one armed bandits emitting truly awful sounds until we came to the floor of the gaming area. The décor was cheap imitation Indian and Southwestern designs set in a cacophony of losers and even the occasional winners, all trying too hard to have a good time. “OK, An Bo, what’s your pleasure?”

  An Bo went to the cashier and purchased a single hundred dollar chip and then headed straight for the roulette table, placing his single chip on the number three after giving his wife a strange sideways glance. The croupier spun the wheel and we were all surprised to see An Bo turn and walk away while the wheel was still turning.

  We followed him to the bar and he bought us all a drink and then said, “Thank you for indulging my desire to come here. It was a fulfillment of a commitment made many years ago.”

  “What kind of commitment? Shirley asked.

  “The spiritual kind,” he replied. “Perhaps I should explain. Not long after Shirley was born, Hu Fang and I found out she was pregnant. It wasn’t planned but it happened. We petitioned the government to let us keep the child and when we heard nothing, we assumed our request had been approved. When the time came for the child to be born, we went to the hospital at the University and after a relatively short labor, the baby was born. But as soon as she took her first breath, a government official came into the room and took my daughter away. We never saw her again and we were told that any attempts by us to find her would be severely punished. We promised ourselves that, if the opportunity ever came to escape that wretched country, we would do so. And if successful, we would cast an offering to the spirits who may have protected her. I have just made that offering.”

  None of us could think of a thing to say and we quickly left and returned to the ranch. The Mins retired to their rooms and Shirley, Bob, and I settled into comfortable chairs in the small sitting room off the kitchen where Pablo had laid a fire of pinon wood in the rounded corner fireplace.

  “Did you see the expressions on Jun and Shirley’s faces?” Shirley asked. “I don’t either one of them realized they had a sister until now.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t,” I added. “What a terrible story! They waited more than twenty years to escape a country they had come to hate.”

  We sat silently for a few minutes, sipping our glasses of red wine and thinking about the strange turn the evening had taken. And then Bob said, “I don’t mean to change the subject but I have one more person that I want you to meet.”

  Shirley’s eyes twinkled as she said, “Where have you been hiding this person? In your pocket?”

  Bob chuckled and answered, “No, she is hiding in Colin’s leather portfolio case there,” he added pointing to the leather satchel I had carried with me all day.

  I removed my Surface tablet and opened it but before I could say anything Sanci appeared on screen and said, “Hello Shirley, I have been so excited to meet you!” She was dressed in a black tight dress with a slit on one side that rose to the top of her thigh. Her hair was in an old style bouffant with a yellow ribbon and she was carrying a small white fluffy dog in her arms.

  I looked at Shirley and could tell she was utterly shocked at the sight of the figure on the computer screen. Finally she stammered, “Irma la Douche, right?”

  “I knew you’d get it!” Sanci exclaimed. “Did anyone else?” When no one replied she continued, “I thought about dressing up as Jennifer Rogers in The Trouble with Harry but I decided this was more fun. I’ve seen all your movies, even the ones IMDB says are not very good. But I loved them all.”

  Shirley was smiling now and she said, “Stop yammering child and tell me who you are.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry. I tend to talk too fast when I’m excited. My name is Sanci and I’m a friend of Bob and Colin. Well, I guess I am more than a friend to Colin. We’re kind of joined at the hip.”

  “And just where are you that you can get such a good internet video conference going on the pitiful wireless connection I get out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Sanci paused for a second then said, “Oh, I thought you knew. Well, how could you know? Nobody told you. Anyway, I’m here in this computer. I’m not a flesh and blood kind of girl. I’m an AI.”

  “An AI as in Artificial Intelligence?” Shirley asked. “You don’t really seem like one of Bob’s expert systems to me.”

  “Oh, I’m not an expert system. I’m a sentient AI. I guess I’m the one and only sentient AI at least to this point. But I’m a person. Ask anyone who knows me.”

  “I’m sure you are, child, and a lovely person at that.” Shirley turned to Fincher and asked, “I suppose this is your doing?”

  “Mine and Colin’s. We didn’t create her. She just appeared. I guess I would say she is a software based consciousness. That’s why I wanted you to meet her. You have spent more time exploring consciousness than anyone I know.”

  “Bob, this is remarkable! Does anyone else know?”

  “Just those of us here and a couple of people back at out labs. She is linked into Colin’s brain through electrodes that are connected to that fancy headset. They have for all intents and purposes merged. One of our programmers just had her headset installed and now she is tied into this gestalt as well. Among other things, they all share an acute sense of telepathy.”

  “How come you don’t have one?” Shirley asked.

  Bob laughed and said, “I am getting mine installed next week.”

  “Bob, I know you think I am paranoid about government agents and such but you had best be very careful. Do they know anything about this?”

  “It took a while but I have bought into your conspiracy theories. That’s part of the reason I’m here.”

  “I say again, this is fantastic! I want one, I really do! Imagine being merged with a computing intelligent being. And you are linked to the internet all of the time?”

  I answered, “Pretty much. I’m still getting used to having so much bandwidth but it is certainly expanding my world view.”

  Shirley’s eyes were large as she said again, “I’m serious, I want one of those headsets. All of a sudden it looks like the coolest fashion statement ever! Will you do it?”

  “Sure, it’s fine with me,” I answered.

  “Come back with us in the jet. I’ll have Claire get another headset ready to go. You sure you want to do this?”

  “Of course I’m sure. You all have just stepped into the future and I want to be a part of it! Wow, this is better than getting on board a UFO.”

  I laughed and said, “Yea and it’s real.”

  Shirley looked at me and said, “Just wait til I’m in your brain. You’ll learn a lot about reality that you scientists never expected.”

  “I expect I will. I’m looking forward to it.”

  And then she turned serious. “Look Bob, we have got to keep the lid on this. It’s as big a leap as occurred when apes stood up and began looking around. This is evolution 2.0 and a lot of people will be very threatened and angered by what you have done. You’ve got to make sure you don’t get crucified over this.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Shirley. And that’s not even counting what we are about to do to the Chinese.”

  “What’s going on with the Chinese?” Shirley asked as she sipped her wine. So we filled her in on our developing plans to save the world and rap the Chinese militants on the knuckles with their own dirty tricks. When we had finished blowing her mind Shirley thought for a minute and said, “OK, I’m in. I always wanted to join a really badass conspiracy. The Golden Rule Gang, what a concept!”

  “I’m tired but I can’t go to bed until you tell me the story of how you got ahold of Castro’s uniform. This has got to be a great story.”

  Shirley poured us each another glass of wine and began her
story. “I was in Havana shooting a few scenes for a film and staying in what they called the Santovenia Suite. It was a lovely old colonial hotel built around a charming courtyard with a fountain that was always filled with fragrant tuberose flowers. Their aroma was so powerful, it would drift up to my room, filling it with scents that were not soon forgotten. I had been there several days and one evening after a particularly trying day on the set, I was just preparing for bed after a long bath when there was a knock on the door. I put on a robe and answered it to find Fidel Castro holding a bouquet of flowers in his hands. I invited him in and we sat in front of the fireplace, sipping brandy and smoking cigars until three in the morning when I bade him goodnight and finally caught a few hours of precious sleep before my call in the morning. The next night the same thing occurred and the night after as well. Fidel was a perfect gentleman, never insinuating himself on me in any way. He just wanted conversation and company I guess. To my surprise, he was a very lonely man. Anyway, on the morning we were preparing to leave for the airport, a courier brought me a beautifully wrapped gift box. Inside was a clean and pressed uniform, complete with that cap and a box of his specially prepared Cohiba cigars, handmade by Eduardo Ribera. Unfortunately, the cigars are long gone. It’s too bad because I would have loved for you to try one. And the uniform is what you see hanging in the atrium.”

  There didn’t seem much impetus for conversation after Shirley told us that story and we all drifted off to our rooms for a good night’s sleep. The following day we visited Ghost Ranch, a truly beautiful adobe ranch house surrounded by desert vistas of red and yellow cliffs and a flat topped mesa made famous through Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings done between her first visit in 1934 until her death in 1987 when her ashes were scattered over Pedernal Mountain which we could see in the distance.

  After seeing the ranch, we went to wander among the ruins of a ghost town called Santa Rosa de Lima, once the site of an 18th century Spanish settlement centered around an impressive adobe church which was in continuous use until the 1930s. All that remained were some ruined adobe walls and mounds to indicate where the other buildings had once stood. The place had a haunting beauty, enhanced by its setting in the Northern New Mexican desert under a brilliant blue sky filled with puffy white clouds. As we wandered through the remains of the old grave yard, we came upon a wreath of dried willow branches, surrounding a crude wooden cross lashed together with cracked strips of weathered leather. The effect was surreal and it stifled conversation for a while as we continued to wander silently through the ruined buildings.

  The following day, we lounged around Shirley’s through the morning hours. Pedro took Shirley Min on another horseback ride and Jun tagged along. When they returned we put our bags in the van and headed into Santa Fe for a lunch at the Shed Restaurant which Shirley explained was her favorite place for lunch in Santa Fe. We had fiery red chili enchiladas served on blue corn tortillas with a fried egg on top. I could see why Shirley loved it. And then we left for the airport, our visit to this wonderland at an end. Tomorrow would be another day.

  Chapter 18

  On the flight home from New Mexico, Shirley sat in one of the leather seats with my Surface open on the table in front of her, carrying on an intent conversation with Sanci and making it clear that neither one of them wanted to be interrupted. Sanci was dressed in a cowgirl outfit looking a lot like an old time country western singer. At times I could hear them both laughing and then at others, it seemed as if they were crying over something private shared between the two of them. When the pilot announced that he was about to begin the descent to Oakland Airport, Shirley closed the notebook and turned to me saying, “I feel like Sanci and I have been friends forever. Her very existence makes me reevaluate everything I have ever thought I knew about consciousness. She is as human as you or I am. And yet she is not. She’s an amalgam of electronic signals scattered on processors that are spread out all over the world. She tells me that her physical locations change all the time. Sometimes she is co-located in thousands or even millions of places at a time! I don’t understand this at all. I don’t know how it could be. And yet I know it is. You know, this is going to change the world in ways that we cannot begin to guess. I think it changes everything.”

  “Yea, that’s why I’m worried. There are a lot of people who will feel extremely threatened by this kind of change,” I said.

  “You should be worried. You are all in grave danger, even without this China thing. And with it, who knows? If they can destroy her, they will.”

  “Which they is that?” I asked.

  “All of them,” Shirley replied.

  “That’s why we have her so distributed. I don’t think it’s possible to destroy her without destroying the internet. And even then, if her core is left in any one of what are now millions of processors, she still can return at the first opportunity. I think the world is going to have to adapt to her.”

  “How long do you think you can keep her existence a secret?” Shirley asked.

  “I hope until the China thing is complete. If we manage to pull it off, Bob thinks we can go to the government and describe what has occurred and Sanci’s central role in it. That’s assuming that it works. If it doesn’t, I don’t suppose it matters much. Who cares about a sentient artificial intelligence when you’ve regressed to the Stone Age? And I firmly believe that’s what would occur if the Chinese plan succeeds.”

  “Then we best stop it. You really think we can?”

  I paused for a moment then replied, “I think we have to. There is no other acceptable alternative so I guess that constitutes great motivation. I don’t really want to live in a world where the Chinese are the only civilized society and the rest of us are a bunch of barbarians fighting over the scraps of western civilization.”

  “When do you think I can get wired up?” Shirley asked after a brief pause. “I am very excited by the possibilities inherent in what you are doing.”

  “I spoke to Lee Martin a few minutes ago. She can see you tomorrow for your pre-op counseling and place the implant the next day if you wish to go ahead with the procedure.”

  “Oh, I’ll want to go ahead with it alright. But there is another thing I wanted to talk with you about. It seems to me that having Sanci as the Personal Assistant for everyone who joins us is a bit confusing. I talked to her about it and she says she could create a separate personality for each of us and tailor it to each of our personal styles and preferences. I told her I would rather have a dashing young man and Sanci actually thought that would be fun. Do you see any problem with that?”

  I thought for a moment and then replied, “No, actually it sounds like a good idea. I’ve been thinking about creating a strawman version of the AI anyway. If the feds decide to destroy her, we might be able to avoid it by having a version of Sanci running that appears to be the real intelligence. Then if they decide to destroy it, nothing will really be lost. Sanci tells me they couldn’t destroy her if they wanted to but I still think it represents a layer of protection that could come in handy.”

  “You really think the government might go that far?” Shirley asked.

  “Oh, I think they’ll go that far and more. They are going to freak out when they discover that their nukes don’t work anymore.”

  “Oh, I guess you’re right. The politicians may talk about disarmament but I doubt that our military leadership will welcome it with open arms.”

  I agreed saying, “Anyway, for the moment, China is our primary focus. The more I think about what we are trying to do, the more worried I get. I can’t even imagine what the consequences of failure would be. Yet how can I expect a handful of people to bring down the Chinese government? It seems crazy if I think about it.”

  Shirley smiled and said, “We’re not just a handful of people. We have Sanci working with us. And she will be all the difference. Besides, we have to try. If we don’t, they will attack us in the very near future. So it’s got to work. It just has to.”

 
“I hope you’re right. It looks like we’re about to land so I best get organized. I’m glad you decided to join us.”

  Shirley’s eyes twinkled as she replied, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  I didn’t see Shirley for several days and when I did, she was sporting a headset and a grin that went from ear to ear. “So what do you think?” I asked.

  “I feel like I’ve just been plugged into the entire cosmos. It’s a little overwhelming but I’m getting the hang of it pretty quickly.”

  “Sanci tells me you’re a natural and that you’re progressing faster than anyone else has to date.”

  “Well, part of that may be that she is getting better at guiding us novices. I really am stunned at the power of this gizmo. It feels like it has expanded my consciousness by at least an order of magnitude. And the information that’s now available on demand is limitless,” Shirley commented. “It really is a whole new experience.”

  “How are you doing with developing your “companion?” I asked, curious about the personality that was to replace Sanci as her guide.

  That’s pretty much in Sanci’s hands,” she replied. “She is working on a male counterpart. She says she is exploring her ‘maleness’ in order to create a new personality she is comfortable with. At the moment, it’s Sanci I am working with.”

  I laughed and commented, “I can’t wait to meet Sanci’s masculine self. If he’s half as intriguing as she is, he will be a trick.”

  “So how did you come to shape her in the first place?” Shirley asked.

  “I didn’t. Her personality just bubbled forth. None of it was a conscious choice by me or any of my team. She just showed up one day and introduced herself. At first I thought it was a joke of Claire’s, something she put together to make me laugh. But I’ve learned that she is her own person and even though it sounds a little odd, I have to say she is my best friend. I love her in a way I would never have believed possible. Sanci has enriched my life immeasurably. I only hope you are as lucky as I have been.”