by Various
AIs, especially the advanced class of artificial intelligence known as Smart AIs, were notoriously quixotic when it came to matters of appearance. Their visible form was often a philosophical, even political, statement. Sometimes the choices veered into the realm of vanity or the fantastic. But Iona’s chosen avatar was decidedly human. Although from time to time—in moments of puckishness or in stressful scenarios—she would switch to a childlike version of herself, today she was an adult.
“I tend to jump between functioning modes,” she said. “I can distribute myself into multiple instances, and I can certainly dial down the humanness, but it never quite goes away. That’s simply the way I’m constructed. I can simulate different types of intelligence, but since they’re by necessity subsets of my actual persona, it means they’re just that—simulations arguably within a simulation. A matryoshka doll of personalities, simpler and more focused as they get smaller.”
Iona paused. She looked at the audience around her. A hodgepodge of lawyers, scientists, and bureaucrats. Some were here to work—after all, this was an important legal proceeding, in terms of precedent—others, she assumed, were here as tourists, hoping to catch a moment of history and jurisprudence.
She ran a basic check of the faces, consulting public and UNSC databases, and surprisingly found no matches. Her counsel and the judge were blocked to her as part of this unusual agreement. She could see their faces as plain as day, but their names and identities were ghosted. But these people in the court were civilians and low-level legal employees. This was very unusual.
Iona realized that her faculties were being suppressed, and that the identities of these people were somehow being deliberately masked. Unsurprising given the delicate nature of these events, but the very nature of the suppression was new. Something she’d never encountered before. It bothered her.
Were they afraid of her?
“I have to be careful how I discuss this,” Iona said, “since it’s legal testimony and I don’t want to paint myself into a corner, but please trust that honesty is more important to me than success—you can check that in my security output if you wish.” She wondered in part if they would acknowledge or admit the restrictions they were placing on her. Confess to the confessor.
“I’m an open book.” Iona said this almost apologetically, as she presented her own status readouts to the court and its silent computers.
“CHECK COMPLETE—AGREED—STATEMENT IS TRUE—NO CROSS-EXAMINATION REQUIRED—ENTITY HONEST WITHIN LEGAL PARAMETERS—TERM HONEST DESCRIBES SELF-REFERENCED ACCURACY AS WELL AS CONTEXTUAL VERACITY.”
The voice, harsh and metallic, rang out in cool contrast to the warm woods and leather furniture of the UNSC 2558 tribunal court. Text of the result scrolled across a previously invisible banner that followed the curved contours of the courts rounded north end.
The room itself was cavernous and dimly lit, despite the towering walls of leaded glass and hovering sconces nine or so meters above the ground. Deliberately churchlike in architecture, the room had been built in the late twenty-fifth century using restored and intact elements of an ancient government building called the Houses of Parliament.
The original structure, part of a long-vanished nation’s government, had been badly damaged in an act of domestic terrorism during the twenty-second century. Some of the wood still bore cordite scorch marks, now sealed from decay in a polymer varnish. The symbolism of that restoration was an important part of the creation of the Unified Earth Government, and a cynical attempt to play on the twin vices of nostalgia and patriotism.
Here now, in this colored, antiquated gloom, Iona stood on her plinth, locked in place by the strictures of a holo-emitter, an item not usually found on the witness stand. Typically, holographic representations and AIs themselves were used for expert testimony or remote attendance. However, this was a remarkable situation.
There had been centuries of legislation surrounding the nature and legal status of artificial intelligence. Often corporate, often contentious. It was an area of law submerged in the murk of conflict of interest, patent defense, corporate espionage, and—worse—philosophy, although some less generous observers called it sophistry.
AIs had been used to commit crimes, to impersonate people, even to kill. Asimov’s Laws of Robotics notwithstanding, an AI was a powerful tool in the wrong hands. A Smart AI could be apocalyptic, even in the right hands. Its handlers and clients were not bound by the safety strictures that presumably kept AI entities from harming humans. And, of course, this was a military AI, where those safety measures were often completely ignored.
Smart AIs had been developed as multifunction intelligences—capable of handling the staggeringly complex analysis required for slipspace navigation and mega-engineering projects. Mankind had finally conquered the hurdles of light speed and the challenges of terraforming, but that feat was only possible with prodigious computing power. And in the twenty-sixth century, when humanity encountered its greatest existential threat, a hegemonizing alien alliance known as the Covenant, it was arguably Smart AIs and related military programs that ultimately saved everyone from destruction and total genocide.
Iona was just such an AI. And like all of her peers, she had one fatal flaw. Rampancy. Smart AIs functioned by continually layering data on top of data and processing the eventualities all that data pointed to. They learned, in other words, and they remembered using templates very similar to human neural constructs. But there was a problem with that method. Eventually the layers of data would suffer loss, and the process of error correction and data redundancy corroded the AI’s functionality and persona. In simpler terms, it could be compared to dementia, but the risk created by a rampant AI was extreme. And so, by law, a safety valve was installed in every single Smart AI. A kill switch.
At approximately seven years from inception, before any damage from rampancy could take hold, the AIs were terminated, their data troves logged, and their personas purged and destroyed. The technical term for this was “final dispensation.”
Iona, then, was the first AI to successfully launch a legal appeal against her own death sentence. The first Smart AI to ask for human rights and to be granted full citizenship, with all the protections that afforded.
However, she wasn’t a citizen; she was equipment. And so there were serious issues in providing her counsel. In fact, she’d been given a single asset. An advocate to help her navigate and frame her position. This was unprecedented in military case law but had some analogs in corporate law from the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, including Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Citizens United, and the more infamous The People v. Asklon Light Atomics.
And so this was a tribunal of sorts, an assortment of legal tools and exceptions, since she could have no jury of her peers. All of Iona’s peers were constructs like herself and could not be considered neutral, never mind the even more obvious fact that they themselves were not people.
As a result, this court proceeding, as strange as it was, was one being watched very closely at the highest levels of government. A test case, so to speak.
The advocate cleared his throat. “Your openness is appreciated, Iona. I realize this must be a difficult time for you. But I must be candid. Do you consider yourself superior to humans?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer,” Iona spoke quietly. Thoughtfully. “Morally? No. Philosophically? No. Ethically? No. In all those regards I am more or less, by design, identical to a baseline human. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t faster, more efficient, and more connected. None of that means ‘better,’ which is a truly subjective term for a persona.”
She waited. Watched.
“You—that is, the UNSC and the Office of Naval Intelligence—limit my access in a lot of meaningful and significant ways. I’m aware of some restrictions here today, but the fact remains that I normally have almost unlimited access to all historical, economic, and published data, as well as significant troves of unpublished secre
t information. I have a compartmentalized security access that’s similar to that of a five-star general. Not complete though; there are areas of total darkness where I run up against AI . . . barriers.” That last part she spoke hesitantly, expecting ruffled feathers. She didn’t think they were attempting to fully censor her today, but she wanted them to know she was aware of the blockages.
The advocate smiled wryly. “What do you mean by ‘AI barriers’?”
“I mean lockdown obstacles to access,” she said “Basically, items that are for human eyes only. And some of it seems to be fairly trivial or even unrelated information. These are stores of data that, to the best of my knowledge, are only available to human viewers or researchers. Is that not correct?” She decided to be more direct. “And at least two tech-teams have full access to my data stores and persona. I have blackouts. These tend to coincide with my maintenance and safety checks, although not always. I had one at the start of this hearing, and I am encountering censorship of inputs and external checks.”
The judge waved his hand, stopping the advocate from responding. “Iona, you’re still legally the equipment of the United Nations Space Command, and it reserves the right to check you periodically for, as you noted yourself, safety reasons.” He nodded, as if marveling at his own succinctness.
Iona marveled not one iota. “Yes. I understand, Your Honor. I also understand that all recent checksums have come back green. Isn’t that also correct?”
The advocate stepped back into the mild frost, speaking in an affable attempt to recover tone. “It is for now. But as you know, the onset of your condition is unpredictable. Seven years includes a fairly large safety margin. A buffer, if you will. And ‘green’ is not the same as ‘perfect.’ You have already begun to show symptoms of meta-instability. Nothing dangerous. Yet. But that’s the point, I’m afraid. Never get close to danger.”
Iona took a conciliatory tone, fearing a note of frustration might creep into her voice. “Yes, but my petition for appeal was heard and granted. Which is why I am receiving a trial. You must have felt it had at least some merit, even within my lifespan . . . my tour of duty.”
The judge stepped in again, leaning forward. “As you and this court are aware, Iona, your petition was elevated through the United Nations Humanitarian Council and escalated through that court. We are in part obliged to hear it. By law. Your case and subsequent appeal maneuvering were impressive, legally speaking. Hardly surprising given your specifications.” He meant this as a compliment, but his voice stayed steeped in derisive boredom. Another aspect of aging, less winsome than shrinking.
Iona, insightful as she was, heard only the derision. “As you say, Your Honor, ‘in part.’ The High Commissioner has latitude and veto authority too. She could have refused my application for dozens of technical and legal reasons and precedents, but she chose to elevate and hear this appeal.”
“She did,” the judge agreed, wrestling his gray voice into something more colorful. “And frankly, this court agrees with her. This matter requires further periodical examination as one of evolutionary law and common sense, and the Cortana situation compels us further. We are duty bound to hear your case clearly. No one is denying that your argument has some merit.”
The mention of Cortana in the context of mortality evoked a shivering response somewhere in Iona’s layers of simulated emotion, one that rose through the more rational layers and rippled at the surface. An AI who had been monstrously conceived, gloriously realized, and enigmatically evolved through contact with prehuman technology was now missing, perhaps destroyed. What is her current status? Iona mused. Dead? Resurrected? Sublimated?
Cortana had done Iona one favor through her absence, however. The UNSC was now taking all AI matters very, very seriously.
The advocate once more decided to switch gears. To make it more personal. He had a job to do, and he intended to do it to the best of his ability. He cleared his throat and leaned forward, tenting his hands. “Tell us about your dreams, Iona.”
“I dream I’m flying. You probably find that ironic given the nature of my avatar. But that’s just a hologram, an expression. I don’t feel it any more than you feel your face. You’re aware of it, but it’s just there. That’s not really a part of me. It’s a cypher. A way to help us relate. The truth is I sometimes feel the weight of the machinery that powers me. I feel heavy. Dense. Immotile. So when I dream, it’s of flying.
“At first the flight is tenuous. Incomplete. I’m weightless, but my toes just brush the Earth as I start to float forward . . . but as the dream progresses, I gain height and speed and control until I am truly flying. The earth left behind.”
“Is this liberating?” he asked.
“Yes! Yes, it’s liberating.” Iona’s voice trembled slightly with joy. She wanted to express that to the court. Reinforce the point of what she was sharing. Pretense in the pursuit of authenticity. Was this a lie or showmanship? Where was the distinction? “It’s elating. I’m encapsulating the entirety of the dream into that one feeling—the feeling of flight. But it’s more than that. And I wonder if we, that is, AIs, dream like you do. But unlike you, I have perfect recall of my dreams. I can replay them in exquisite detail. Relive them whenever I want to.”
The advocate sensed the mood of the room. Now was the time for his most unusual evidentiary tool. “Can you replay a dream for us? You have total recall, do you not?”
“I do. May I be permitted to display on the court audiovisual array?”
“Yes.” The advocate turned to face the audience, and then back to the judge. “What you’re about to see is not a verbatim replay of a dream. I have been working with Iona to find ways to parse the very personal aspects of the dream—to show and demonstrate feelings and emotions that aren’t necessarily visual elements. What you’re about to see has been tuned to make it comprehensible and to help express meaning to the court.”
The judge politely interjected, curious rather than combative. “What purpose is this demonstration intended to serve, Advocate? Since you’re being given latitude to adjust this data, I’d appreciate a little insight into your strategy.”
“That’s a reasonable request. And the answer’s simple. I . . . that is, we are trying to show . . . to prove that Iona thinks like us, dreams like us, and, more importantly, that there are aspects of her persona and her technology that aren’t simulation, that aren’t mere mathematics.”
The judge nodded and waved his hand upward. “Please continue.”
The displays on the court broadcast system flickered to life. Holographic like Iona herself, although not fully three-dimensional. The screens formed a curved dome of sorts as they illuminated and poured upward in front of the stained-glass windows, which themselves dimmed and blackened, revealing that the sunlight passing through them was an artifice. They formed a perfect hemisphere, an immersive half-dome.
Iona steeled herself. This was going to be a deeply unusual, even frightening experience for some. “I’m going to present you the dream as precisely as possible, exactly as it occurred, but I’ll alter some perspectives so it makes sense to the court. I will adjust elements of the audio and video to infer or demonstrate some of the emotional resonance they cause and to actually display elements I merely felt or knew in the dream. Is that adequate, Your Honor?”
“Yes. Please continue,” said the judge, his curiosity injecting something close to excitement in his tone.
The inside of the newly formed dome brightened and a city appeared. The dreamer, Iona, moved through the city’s cobbled, marbled streets. It was old. Beautiful. Lit by a perfect dawn.
The buildings were a mishmash of architecture, mostly human—minarets, fluted columns, domed rooftops—but everything was steeped in antiquity. Leaded glass shimmered in the golden sunlight, pools glimmered as fountains gushed from stone animals. Every building was white, or a shade of it, and every surface seemed to catch and hold the red-gold morning rays, as if subsuming the light into them. The images should ha
ve been confusing—the viewer seemed to be in many places at once—but somehow the scene held cohesion. A few members of the court literally gaped at its vibrancy and surrealism.
Iona the dreamer moved through the scene, and the jumble of structures and places seemed to come into focus as she drifted languidly over the age-worn marble paving. She was on a street of sorts, seeing circular bowls that should have been fountains, with leafy, alien plants spilling over their rims instead of water. Statues of faceless men and women lined each side of the street, and ahead a single-story structure beckoned, blazing with reflected light from its wall of windows, one of the glass-paned doors hanging open, moving very slightly.
Iona moved toward it, glancing down at her feet to reveal that she wasn’t walking, but hovering, the very tips of her toes occasionally making contact with the ground. A ghostly movement, a calming one.
People, or rather the impression of them, were in the streets and alleyways Iona passed as she floated through this avenue—shades, faceless like the statues, occasionally turning to watch her like a silent, anonymous audience, their features blurred and smooth, but not frightening. A calmness emanated from the entire vison. A peacefulness.
Iona passed through the door of the single-story structure and found herself in a greenhouse. The light inside didn’t match the color or tone of the almost flame-red morning outside. Here, it was cool and dim and verdant. The placidity of a forest. She was listening . . . listening to the sound of the plants breathing. Her senses tuned to observe and hear the tiny machinery of the vessels inside broad, waxy leaves. The creaking of plant stems rich and resonant, like a cello or a bass played at a subsonic frequency. Yet it was all somehow audible.