by Rob Reid
“Mine called me ‘bitch,’ ” Monika says, holding her phone up to the camera on her end. “Since when can government people use bias language?”
Danna leans toward the iPad on the San Francisco side to peer at Monika’s messages. “Yeah, that’s a serious microaggression. The one about dismembering you and leaving you to bleed out may qualify, too.”
“Mine called me ‘Pollack,’ ” Kuba huffs.
“And one of mine used a name this bully called me for about a week in seventh grade,” Mitchell says. “How would the Authority—or anyone for that matter—have access to that?”
Seriously rattled, they quickly drain Tarek’s special gin bottle. The threats have grown increasingly specific and brutal (Monika’s dismemberment text being the worst). But the reasons behind them are utterly vague. They seem to come from a secret government arm that’s pissed off and out of control (which they’re still calling the Authority, as a convenient shorthand). But who knows who it is? As for their threat-worthy transgressions, the most specific text merely says You’re getting too close.
“But too close to what?” Tarek asks, for the seventh time.
“It must be a reference to the documents we decrypted,” Mitchell says for the eighth time. “They lay out the full truth about Phluttr and Jepson. This government mob must’ve figured out that we cracked them open. And somehow, this threatens them. That’s the only thing we all have in common.”
“Apart from Cyrano, duh,” Monika points out. “Maybe we’re ‘getting too close’ to crashing the economy in a tsunami of mind-blowing sex. Oh, and Mitchell? Next time? Just ask!” She licks the corner of her lips while widening her eyes—her timing, subtlety, and playfulness perfectly tuned to trigger some much-needed laughter. Of course, Mitchell reddens deeply (and wondrous as his Falkenberg’s remission is, fully experiencing this level of embarrassment does kind of suck). Yes, he shared all of last night’s details with everyone. In light of the threats, he felt obliged to be open about every significantly weird thing in his life. So, yeah, Monika knows he had her in mind when filling out attributes on the wish list form (but not the “essay question” stuff about screwing without talking! Seriously!!!).
“I’m still feeling contrarian,” Kuba announces. Everyone looks his way. “I think it’s related to the super AI matter. The topic is just oddly pervasive. Cyrano has clearly attained some form of superintelligence. Perhaps a very narrow one, yes. But it’s become a better matchmaker than any living person, and matchmaking’s an intensely human skill. Then there’s the timing of certain things. Like the third encrypted message. The one about the Authority spinning up a super AI project in response to one in China. We received it right in the middle of a conversation just like this one. Right when we were asking ourselves what was going on. It’s like something was using the timing to clue us in to the answer.”
The group considers this quietly. Everyone (even Danna) has moved a bit toward Kuba’s position since their last discussion—above all, because Phluttr’s eerie matchmaking hyperintelligence makes it feel much more plausible. But despite being that feat’s prime beneficiary, Mitchell is still resisting the ramifications. But is it for rational or emotional reasons?
Before he can really consider this, everyone’s phone vibrates with another suggestively timed Poof! message. And once again, the topic is superintelligence.
WEEKLY EXPERIENCE + INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY
***TOP SECRET/SCI/COMINT/NOFORN
* * *
* * *
Tony Jepson and I continue to DISAGREE VIOLENTLY on matters pertaining to Phluttr Corporation Stewardship. Yet this will NOT come to blows. Though operatives with my training often inflict spontaneous grievous injury (or worse!), my record has been devoid of such incidents for ALMOST THREE YEARS (for which I gratefully credit the Authority’s not ungenerous investment in Anger Management tuition).
Still, Jepson remains vexingly “wobbly” on issues he ties to “moral questions.” The latest is the “doxing” and subsequent suicide of Commissioner Milford. Jepson suspects an Authority assassination in response to her threats to Phluttr Corporation. I replied that while personally unaware of such an action, one would have been justified; as Authority assets must be protected as a matter of National Security! Jepson responded mockingly. And yet, ABSOLUTELY NO INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE ENSUED.
Another “moral question” may soon arise, in connection to last week’s break-in (or “Hack”) of Phluttr’s quantum computer. Although the “perps” studiously “covered their tracks,” forensics now cast suspicion upon certain Phluttr Employees. This calls for countermeasures that some have previously deemed “extreme”; ones that Chief Executive Jepson does not endorse in ANY circumstance. Our disagreement in this matter may soon escalate.
Finally, while some might deem this as “going off the reservation” in terms of my mandate, I am compelled, both as an Authority Operative, and as a citizen of this Nation, to weigh in on recent developments at Sandia Labs. It is reported that the new Super AI Project code-named TYSON recently attained breakthroughs far exceeding the alarming achievements of Project SAGAN, over 15 years ago. A SAGAN engineer before joining Authority Operations, I am intimate with the power and danger of the technology in question. I maintain my expertise by promiscuously reading Academic, Industry, and Confidential sources in the field. By my count, 27 development paths for “Super AI” have been analyzed enough to qualify as a highly developed scenaria, and ONLY TWO are modeled to achieve positive end points for our Nation and Species. The remaining 92.6% yield outcomes ranging from bad to catastrophic for Man.
Why? Simply because Intelligence is the most powerful and dangerous capability ever spawned by Nature! One conferring such advantage upon its wielder that Evolution created it ONLY ONCE. Compare that to the very sense of SIGHT, which evolved independently at least six times! The sighted enjoy boundless Competitive Advantages over the blind. Yet, Vision’s emergence not only failed to create a hegemon like Man but left other species hundreds of millions of years to WHOLLY RE-CREATE it!
Contrariwise, within just a few hundred generations of attaining “true” intelligence, Man had reconfigured the WHOLE OF CREATION to suit his purposes! Aliens gazing upon Earth would have seen only the slowest geological changes over billions of years. Then, in just the last .001% of Life’s history, they would have witnessed the radical repigmentation of almost all terrain! Dramatic changes in atmospheric composition! And the sudden proclivity of ground surfaces to GLOW AT NIGHT! This could only tell our alien watchers that the Universe’s most powerful, least predictable, and most dangerous force—Intelligence—had arisen! That just ONE species now reigned across all ecosystems, continents, and geographies; whereas formerly, each tiny local pocket had been an ever-changing multipolar mosaic of power balances between diverse creatures! Such is the might of Intelligence, and the overwhelming advantage it confers!
Intelligence so pervades the identity and worldview of he who wields it that its Wing Man is arrogance. Lesser beings seem suited only to serve, or “clear out.” As Super AI Commentator James Barrat observes, “You and I are hundreds of times smarter than field mice, and share about 90 percent of our DNA with them. But do we consult them before plowing under their dens for agriculture? Do we ask lab monkeys for their opinions before we crush their heads to learn about sports injuries? We don’t hate mice or monkeys, yet we treat them cruelly.”
Consider this while contemplating the rise of a Super AI we can neither understand nor control! Dare we trust it to treat us immensely better than we treat field mice when all but two scenarios “war-gamed” by qualified analysts end in catastrophe? I say NO. I therefore vehemently urge the resumption of our long-standing policy of REFRAINING from super AI development, while INTERDICTING all other efforts! Domestically, Sandia’s TYSON project must cease, as interdiction efforts in the private sector OCTUPLE! Any nascent artificial consciousness in private hands must be INSTANTLY TERMINATED with ALL necessary force! Since
such an AI would most likely emerge in Greater Silicon Valley, I hereby volunteer to prosecute this mission, and to do so WITH BOUNDLESS VIGOR!
As for the China Crisis, matching their breach of the Copenhagen Accord with one of our own has launched a headlong race to a finish line beyond which Man’s reign on Earth must inevitably end. We should therefore instead FORCIBLY TERMINATE CHINA’S BREACH. Might this lead to a “shooting war”? Perhaps. But the likelihood of that outcome is lower, and its consequences milder, than the modeled results of almost ALL Super AI scenaria!
To complete my argument, I shall now cede the floor to the ancient art of STORYTELLING. Its use to frame political arguments predates even Greco-Roman times. Many a major historical outcome has since been advanced or thwarted by the spread of this or that great play, novel, or film. Tales well-told can frame and make visceral the most challenging and complex issues and move audiences with their dramatic coils in ways that expository argumentation cannot match.
One cannot appreciate the doom implicit in a Super AI’s rise without viscerally inhabiting the aforementioned twenty-seven scenaria. So below, I enable just this WITH PROSE. Primed by decades of CONSUMING and STUDYING great storytelling (principally in the domain of “science fiction”), I have created fictive treatments of each. Each is fully explored via the “Cliff-hanger” adventures of a brilliant, yet PROFOUNDLY HUMAN character with whom all Authority personnel will identify. His name is Hogan. Brock Hogan. Please note that these works shall hereafter be referred to as “speculative fiction” rather than “science fiction,” as they are set in the present day.
This is the harvest of THOUSANDS OF HOURS of scrupulous study, analysis, research, and hypothesis-testing in the domain of Artificial Superintelligence; as well as of the Bard’s ancient arts of plot crafting, character development, punctuating, & etc.! This investment was made in anticipation of a moment like this, in which Man’s fate rests upon the decisions of a few Great Men such as yourselves. Lesser scribes reap vast fortunes in “Hollywood,” and elsewhere, from their turgid, formulaic, and unpoetic output. But for this wordwright, no sweeter remuneration can be imagined than even a slight enhancement to the security of the Nation he so dearly loves.
“Seriously?”
“No!!”
“Oh. My. GOD.”
Yeah, everyone’s bowled over by the fresh revelations about Phluttr. And sure, Kuba’s pleased that the new message’s timing seems to endorse his super AI theory. But what people really can’t get over is this…speculative fiction in the memo’s attachment! It goes on for 547 pages.
“Mammoth. Mammary. Protuberances.” Danna says this under her breath yet again. A phrase from one of the earlier Hogan adventures, she repeats it every few seconds, as if it’s the world’s slowest mantra.
“Can you even say ‘the Orient’ anymore?” Monika asks no one in particular. “You’d think Word would, like…give it a squiggly underline, and then crash or something, right?”
A long silence. A very long one. Then Tarek emits a stentorian boom that no one knew he had in him. Rolling r’s like a stuffy, Olivier-aping Shakespearean, he declaims, “He thrrrrrust the rrrrrapier-like wrrrrriting implement home through his victim’s fulsome trrrrrachea.” Then, in his normal voice, “Isn’t that a bit…rapey?”
“Well—rapier-y, definitely,” Mitchell says.
Tarek groans. “You just had to go there.”
“And more than that,” Mitchell adds awkwardly, “I’d say some of it’s a bit…Well, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but…”
“Gay?” Danna asks.
Mitchell nods.
“I see where you’re coming from. But, no. And I have some authority here, as the company’s token lit major, and lesbian.”
All Mitchell can muster is a dumbfounded look.
At which Danna looks back, dumbfoundeder still. “Waaaaait. You seriously…didn’t know?”
Mitchell shrugs.
“Yes, really,” Kuba joshes (a bit smugly for a guy who’s only in the loop thanks to his wife). “A Lit major. They take homelessness-prep workshops before graduating!”
“N-n-no,” Danna says, silencing Kuba with a scolding finger while keeping Mitchell locked in her gaze and struggling (and abjectly failing) to hide her astonished amusement. “Don’t let him off the hook with a joke! I want to verify that Mitchell is now fully aware of a long-standing interest of mine that…rhymes with ‘lit.’ ”
Mitchell just reddens.
“My God, where did I find you?” she asks, letting her grin break through. “Do you even have lesbians in Connecticut?”
“Umm…can we get back to who’s trying to kill us again?” Monika asks.
“No,” Mitchell manages, “I want to hear the lesbian-lit perspective on Beasley.” Beasley, who plainly wrote the 547 pages of drivel that is now crowding their screens. Which will be on their phones for a while yet, despite being delivered by Poof! (the timing of a message’s deletion in the app depends on the message’s length, and a 547-pager could sit there for days).
“OK, you asked for it,” Danna says. “We’ll start with the raw text. We’ve got countless phallic references. Homoerotic signals between characters. Anachronistic avoidance of gender-neutral constructs in favor of male-centric ones, including the all-but-extinct usage of the word ‘Man’—capitalized, no less—to denote humanity. If Liberace were still in the closet, we’d find this shit with a magnifying glass, dust for fingerprints, then make the bold, wild claim that the author’s gay. Then we’d compare Hogan to Holden Caulfield. Publish our findings in Granta. Get banned in Kansas, lose our jobs, then eventually get tenure at Swarthmore. But cryptohomosexuality today? Yawwwwn! Way too obvious. And in person? Beasley doesn’t make even the faintest blip on my gaydar! So, my theory? He took Honors English in tenth grade. He remembers some shit the cool teacher with the Lennon specs said, and is trying to be edgy. And? to take this up to my broader hypothesis? On Beasley the person, I mean? I’m going with ‘self-hating heterosexual.’ ”
“Huh?” That’s basically everyone at once.
“Just think about it! He’s creepy. And he…looks the way he does. That man gets no chicks. Not even in San Francisco! In New York? If he dates over-forties? Claims to be Jewish and dying to marry? Maybe. But I’d say he went on his last date back in the nineties. And that upsets him! It would upset anyone, right? I mean, he’s creepy, but he’s human! So he comes up with this alternate narrative. He’s secretly gay, right? And it’s a secret even to himself! This explains why he never gets chicks—because he secretly doesn’t want to! But this is all subconscious, right? Because I’m sure he’s a homophobe on top of everything! And that makes this super tricky, right? So, he starts sending subconscious signals to himself. Using the only coded language of homosexuality that he knows: an anachronistic method of flagging closeted, midcentury authors that he learned about in high school English! Then he subconsciously drops hints to himself in his own writing, saying, ‘It’s OK Beasley. You’re not creepy, you’re secretly gay!’ I’ll bet it gives him some comfort. Subconsciously, I mean. Because remember: consciously, he’s a homophobe! And he has no gay sense whatsoever. Just look at the clues to Hogan’s homosexuality in his writing! I mean, Judy Garland references? Versace waistcoats?? Seriously??? Everything he knows about gays he gets from USA Today! Bottom line, not only is it all subconscious, but it’s a subconscious lie. Thus, my diagnosis of self-hating heterosexual. Heterosexualim auto-detestus.” She beams like some brat who just smoked Watson at Jeopardy.
“My God,” Mitchell whispers. “You really were a lit major, weren’t you?”
“Can we get back to who’s trying to kill us again?” Monika asks.
“But why does Beasley hate the Greeks so much?” Mitchell asks. “Is that a gay thing, too?”
Tarek shakes his head. “I may know what’s going on there. Remember when Greece almost flunked out of the Euro a few years back?”
All heads nod.
; “Rumor is, Beasley made a bet of some kind in the markets. Greek debt, I think. And he bet wrong. Way wrong. And he took it very personally.”
“Wow,” Mitchell says. “Just like Jepson getting wiped out by bitcoin!”
Tarek shakes his head again. “Not wiped out. I hear he didn’t actually lose much. But it made him feel stupid, and he hated that! He never shut up about Greece after that. As if the country did whatever it did to spite him personally. And it became an issue with HR, as there’re people with Greek heritage here.”
“Can we get back to who’s trying to kill us again?” Monika asks.
Well, sure, Monika. But it’s late. And they’re drunk, stumped, and tired. Still, they give it a shot. They fuss over the mention of “suspects” in the quantum facility break-in, and worry that it’s probably them. They note the bit about “violent disagreements” between Beasley and his boss, and joke that if Jepson gets offed, Beasley’s the prime suspect. Speaking of Jepson, they agree that if there’s an ally to be had here, it’s him. It sounds like he’s at odds with the Authority—or at a minimum, with Beasley. He can be a real cad, and was no doubt a complete shit back in the day. But he has some nascent good points, as well as mad resources and insights as the CEO of an Authority-backed company that’s the hottest thing in tech. The plan, then, is for Mitchell to use his weekly one-on-one meeting with Jepson tomorrow morning to lay every card on the table. It’s time to confide in the boss, blackmail him if necessary (they have plenty of material with these decrypted memos) and start getting to the bottom of all this. Phew! It’s about time.
Before everyone calls it a night, I’d like to wrap up the topic of Beasley’s writing by tipping my cap to two very special groups of people. First, to those of you who thought you’d figured out that your narrator, here, was Beasley. I planted some Easter eggs and head fakes in that direction, but they were subtle. Not the ham-fisted, explain-it-to-a-ninny asides favored by the numbered-sequel films I denounced to you at the start of all this (and then confided my own personal fondness for. Remember that? Oh, the laughs we’ve had! The confidences we’ve shared!). It was just a little hint here and there. About Beasley always scribbling. The rumors of him writing a book about Phluttr. That sort of thing. Well, they were only partly true. Still, I tip my cap your way, because suspecting Beasley was a smart-reader thing. Also, an observant-reader thing. And I like that in a person!