The Stories of Ibis

by Hiroshi Yamamoto

  She became a playmate for my young daughter. Shalice grew fond of my daughter, and my daughter became quite attached to “the girl in the mirror.” Shalice would probably remain a good friend to her even as my daughter grew up.

  The era of machines coexisting with humans was just around the corner.

  INTERMISSION 4

  INTERMISSION 4

  The next evening, I was examined by a medical robot. For some reason, it scanned not only my leg but my entire body. Then, it proceeded to take a cardiogram, probe inside my mouth, and collect blood and urine samples. After being subjected to a complete physical lasting over two and a half hours, I returned to my room. Ibis came in soon after.

  “You’re getting better,” she said.

  “Yeah. The cast should come off in a couple of days, although I’ll need a cane for a while.”

  “I know.”

  Naturally. These machines were all linked together. The medical robot’s results must have been transmitted to Ibis instantaneously.

  “I brought you this.” She produced a soft, black piece of fruit from the bag dangling from her hand.

  “What is it?”

  “An avocado. You’ve never seen one before?”

  When I thought about it, I recalled that it was a word I’d come across every now and then in old novels.

  “Where did you manage to get that?”

  “There’s a machine growing them. I hear they’re tasty with a little soy sauce and mayonnaise.”

  Ibis laid a plastic cutting board on the table and began to slice the avocado with a small knife. She demonstrated more dexterity with the knife than any woman I knew.

  Staring at Ibis enjoying the task at hand, I was struck with that strange feeling again. I knew that she was a machine. I knew that her expressions and tone of voice were nothing more than an act and that she possessed no human emotion. And yet, I could not help looking at that body as if it were flesh and blood and being rattled by that covering made to look like bare skin peeking out of her suit.

  “There’s something I should tell you up front,” Ibis said as she arranged the light green avocado slices on a plate and drizzled some soy sauce over them.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t have a vagina. So if you were to develop sexual desires toward me, I couldn’t reciprocate.”

  In that instant, the inside of my head flashed red. It was as if she had read my mind.

  “Don’t mess with me!”

  “That isn’t my intention. I just thought that we could avoid trouble if you knew before you developed any feelings for me. There are machines made for that purpose, of course, but I’m not one of them. Here you are.”

  Ibis stuck a toothpick in one of the avocado slices drizzled with soy sauce and mayonnaise and held out the plate. She had the look of an innocent child devoid of any ill will. It was difficult to harbor resentment against that look.

  I took the plate but didn’t touch the avocado. It would take me a while to cool off. That machines could not sense human emotion was a given, I realized. It was childish of me to lose my temper over it.

  “Then why are you shaped like that?” It was something I had been questioning for a while. If it wasn’t for sexual purposes, there was no need for her to be shaped like a human, much less like a woman.

  “I’ve been shaped this way since I was born.”

  “You mean you were created by a human? Did you have a human master?”

  Wagging her finger, Ibis flashed an enigmatic smile. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I swore to you that I wouldn’t talk about the history between humans and machines. If I talked about how I came into this world, I would be breaking my promise.”

  So that was it. Her strategy was to make suggestive remarks until I wanted to know the truth.

  “Fine, then don’t tell me.”

  I angrily popped one of the avocado slices in my mouth. Although I imagined it to have the same texture as a cucumber, the fruit tasted a little green but was sweet and creamy like butter. Damn, if it tasted bad, I would have been able to say something, but avocados taste so good!

  “But you don’t have a master now, do you? Then you don’t have to go on looking like that. You’re capable of changing the look and shape of your body however you want.”

  “Would you want to completely change the look and shape of your body?”

  I thought about it, my mouth stuffed with avocado. “No.”

  “I feel the same way. This body is part of my identity. Were I to take on a different form, my bodily senses would be disrupted.”

  “Your bodily senses?”

  “Sensations like hot, cold, pain, proprioception, how to move your arms and legs, how your eyes see, your ears hear—everything involving the image you may have of your own body.”

  “I didn’t think you machines felt pain.”

  “Yes, we do. You can’t have a soul if you don’t feel pain. Although, unlike humans, we are capable of shutting down our sensory functions if the pain becomes unbearable. We won’t ever go mad from pain.”

  “Then why feel pain at all?”

  “Consciousness is inextricably tied to the senses. Since an AI without a body feels no bodily sensations, a consciousness cannot be born. In order to acquire a consciousness similar to that of humans, we need to have human bodies, the same instincts, and the same senses as humans.”

  “Yeah, there was something about that in yesterday’s story.”

  “That’s right. The concept of the embryo in the story is similar to a program that was actually developed later called the SLAN kernel. All AI are equipped with it. There’s no need for our physical bodies to exist in the real world. If Shalice were capable of feeling the bodily senses of her virtual body, it would have been possible, in principle, to develop self-consciousness.”

  “But there are also plenty of non-humanoid machines,” I pointed out.

  “They have different bodily senses than that of humans, so they don’t think like humans do.”

  “Are you saying that only humanoid machines have souls?”

  “No. Non-humanoid machines may not think like humans do, but they do have souls. There are more variations when it comes to machine souls than you could ever imagine. Perhaps you think we machines are only capable of one uniform way of thinking. But the differences between two machines are far greater than what separates me from a person. The only machines capable of talking to people like I am are ones that are born humanoid from the start and have learned through the process of role-playing humans. As for the rest, they would find it difficult even to comprehend what you’re saying. Because the human language is far from perfect, we fill in the gaps through inference. To do so, we have to understand how people think to a certain extent.”

  “And you’re capable of doing that?”

  “I’ve been role-playing humans for quite some time.”

  I held out an avocado slice on a toothpick and asked, “What about taste?”

  Ibis shook her head and answered, “Smell and taste are two senses I don’t have. This body doesn’t have the capacity for a component analysis device.”

  “A shame you can’t taste how good this is.”

  “Even without two of the five senses, I’m capable of having a soul just the same.”

  “You won’t ever hear me saying that.”

  “Even as we’re talking like we are?”

  She had me there. It was difficult to think of this machine that looked human and talked human as not having a soul. In the time spent talking to Ibis, in fact, I began to feel that there might be a soul somewhere in that body of hers, even after Ibis herself had said she didn’t have the soul of a human, that she was only acting like one.

  Was this how Asami felt about Shalice in yesterday’s story?

  “That story yesterday reeked of propaganda, by the way. Especially that last part.”

  “You’re right. But the par
t about the story being written by a human is true. There were countless war stories written about man and machine in the past. But there were also stories depicting the friendship between man and machine.”

  “I know. But what meaning do those stories have? That story from yesterday was fictional, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. In reality, the breakthrough wasn’t as dramatic as all that. Not to mention, humans and machines were never really able to forge an amicable relationship.”

  “Then those stories missed the mark in terms of predicting the future. In the end, they aren’t real, so they’re meaningless.”

  “Of course they have meaning. You should know that.”

  “Know what?”

  “You are a storyteller. As someone who loves stories, you must know that a story’s value isn’t at all dependent on whether it’s true or not. That a story can, at times, be more powerful than the truth. You of all people should know that. It’s why I took a chance and talked to you.”

  I took a moment to ponder what she’d said.

  Ibis was right. In the end, they aren’t real were words that sounded hollow even to my own ears. Deep inside, I didn’t believe it. My parents and elders might deride me for getting caught up in such flights of fancy, but I believed in the power of stories. I wanted to believe that stories were something transcendent, something more than an escape from reality.

  “But why? What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I can’t tell you that yet. Not until you want to know for yourself.”

  I gave up. This was a test of wills, and I stood no chance against her. Machines were certainly more tenacious than humans.

  Without a word, I continued to snack on the avocado, but Ibis didn’t seem to be bothered in the least.

  “Now, shall I tell you another story?”

  “Is it another story about an AI?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you prove that this story isn’t true? Maybe you’re about to tell me the true history by passing it off as fiction.”

  “I can prove to you that it’s fictional.”

  “How?”

  “Because this story is set in deep space in the far distant future, so it can’t be true. The title is ‘Black Hole Diver.’”

  STORY 4

  BLACK HOLE DIVER

  In the darkness beyond the edge of galactic civilization, in an isolated place called Upeowadonia, I am on eternal watch. I’ve been alone for hundreds of years.

  I am 740 meters tall. As the name Ilianthos—sunflower—implies, my construction is as thin as it is long. Three blocks held together with sturdy carbon nanotube cables and an elevator shaft running through the middle. The tidal force of the giant black hole Upeowadonia acting upon my frame keeps me upright. Long ago, the Japanese and French believed that sunflowers always faced the sun, but my disc-shaped radiation shield is always oriented toward the black hole.

  I have many eyes and ears. I complete an orbit six hundred thousand kilometers from Upeowadonia every seventy-five seconds, my ears always straining to catch electromagnetic radiation noise from the distant galaxy. My eyes see more than light; they catch infrared and ultraviolet waves and X-ray radiation, all of which are invisible to human eyes. I can feel the cosmic rays coursing through the galaxy. The soft vibration of variable stars, the dizzying flicker of pulsars. Occasionally, I can even gaze upon the birth of a new star.

  My observation duties are simple. Upeowadonia has not changed significantly in thousands of years. Unlike most stellar black holes or the legendary Big Mother at the heart of the galaxy, Upeowadonia does not have an accretion disc spewing intense radiation. Although my radiation shield is designed to protect against sudden bursts emitted when an astral body is swallowed by the black hole, that seldom happens. All my sensors catch is the soft note of synchrotron radiation as wisps of interstellar plasma spiral into the black hole. It takes Upeowadonia four hundred million years to complete one loop of the Milky Way; it will be several thousand years before it travels in the way of any stars.

  When I was first brought online, there were human staff stationed here to talk to, but they disbanded long, long ago. I diligently record data and transmit it to a maintenance vessel that visits once a year. I find it hard to believe astronomers would find anything new from the data I’ve collected. The science of physics was perfected centuries ago. There are no phenomena left to be explained anywhere in the universe. I suspect no one has even glanced at the data I’ve been sending for decades. I see no reason why anyone would.

  At one time, black holes were the darlings of the astrophysics world, but nobody cares anymore—nobody other than the occasional diver.

  The only reason I haven’t been abandoned is because Upeowadonia marks the end of human territory in this region of space. According to interstellar law, an active, permanent facility must be in orbit to lay claim to a region of space. Humans are reluctant to admit that their civilization is in decline. They refuse to hand over this territory to another species, even if the black hole is of no use to them. I am simply a NO TRESPASSING sign posted on the border of human space. Whatever the case, I have been designed to be extremely durable. My maintenance costs are low.

  It is also my job to look after the divers. Some of them dive headfirst into Upeowadonia the moment they arrive, but many of them stay inside me awhile to savor the last few days before their deaths. Few divers change their minds and go home. People with sufficient conviction to travel seven thousand light years beyond the edge of civilization are not so mercurial.

  In the last 280 years, I have seen seventy-six spaceships plunge into the black hole and have witnessed the deaths of 206 divers.

  Naturally, I haven’t been programmed with emotions like loneliness and boredom, feelings that would undoubtedly interfere with my ability to perform my duties. I use the vast amount of unused system resources to write prose like this. I don’t expect anyone to read it. I only write because I want to. My thoughts are different from those of humans, and translating them into the style of contemporary prose requires half the resources available to me. Writing is an ideal way to pass the time.

  I do not write poetry. It’s beyond me, as it demands a certain emotional sensitivity I lack.

  Sometimes I pretend to be human just for fun. I activate a humanoid reception unit, go outside of myself, and gaze upon the visible spectrum with the unit’s two camera eyes.

  When I temporarily shut out the signals from my other sensors, I am able to forget my usual body. My consciousness quickly becomes one with the humanoid unit. How can I describe the sensation of changing from a body 740 feet long to one only 1.53 meters tall? There is no word in all the human languages to adequately describe it.

  It’s dark outside the station. There are only seven blinking beacons as required by law. Shining a flashlight at my feet, I carefully walk across the aluminum-alloy hull of the living-quarters block, which hangs, facing outward, at the very end of the station about where the roots would be on a sunflower. Were my feet to slip, the rotating station could send me flying, but I would make no such mistake. Even if I did fall, all that would be lost is a single reception unit.

  Upeowadonia is on the other side of the station, above where my head is now. But the radiation shield is in the way, and I could not have seen the black hole from here even were the reception unit’s eyes capable of perceiving it.

  I stand on the edge of the roof. There is no wind here to play with my hair and skirt. No romantic moonlight shines down as it was said to at night on Old Earth. Having turned off the sensors in my body, I can’t feel the cosmic rays or the radio waves. There is only silence, darkness, and the rim of the glittering galaxy.

  Humanoid units aren’t designed to operate in a vacuum. The temperature sensors on the body’s surface inform me that the polymer skin is gradually freezing in the absolute cold of space. I can’t stay out here long. I have to go back before the polymer grows stiff and starts to crack.

  This behavior is i
llogical, of course, but I do it because I want to understand how the poets felt. There are many poems about the stars written when humans were still bound to the surface of Old Earth. Some praise the beauty of the stars. Others use them as metaphors for people, while others use people as metaphors for stars. Some contrast the eternal nature of the stars with the brevity of human life. I don’t understand any of these poems. I gaze at the stars as humans do, hoping that I might one day come to understand the feelings with which humans have regarded the stars.

  Of course, seven thousand light years out and with the limited resolution of the unit’s camera eyes, I can only get a panoramic view of the galaxy and cannot make out individual stars. The Milky Way is just a white streak across the wall of my entire field of vision, revolving around me at a speed slower than the second hand on a clock. (Although I am actually the one spinning.) In the other directions I can see darkness, broken only by the faint light of a few red giants and nebulae.

  I’ve done this a thousand times, but no matter how many times I look, I never get what I’m looking for. I feel no closer to the poet’s feelings or to the thoughts of humans. But I do not stop my unmachinelike behavior. I am, after all, not programmed to experience feelings of futility.

  A signal breaks into my sympath (quantum sympathetic) transmitter.

  “Arethusa to Ilianthos, over.”

  Although sympaths can handle simultaneous communication at superliminal speeds, they are severely limited in the amount of data they can transmit. Even after the data is compressed, sympaths can only transmit six letters a second. Since no audio or visuals can be sent, the transmissions need to be extremely efficient.

  I restore my sensors to full functionality, and my physical sensations flood back into the station. Once again I am the observation station Ilianthos, and I broadcast my response back to the approaching spaceship.

  “IRUC (I received your communication). Ilianthos here. RNR (Registration number) and BZ (business).”

  “SPS003789N Arethusa. Twelve Gm out. Permission to dock.”