Turing's Revenge and Other Stories

by Steven W. White

  The need for sleep lifted from her body. She felt it go and knew why. As long as she could make a difference, nothing else mattered.

  #

  “It may be that although we will hate and fight the machines, we will be supplanted anyway, and rightly so, for the intelligent machines to which we will give birth may... climb to heights we ourselves could never aspire to.” – Isaac Asimov

  #

  When Taylor got home, Max was waiting. He handed her an Irish coffee and sat her on the futon in the living room, across from the picture windows that revealed their little backyard.

  Max was bearded and chubby and liked to wear wool sweaters. Beautiful green eyes hid behind his thick glasses. She loved him too much to keep her robot liberation exploits from him entirely, but she spared him the most harrowing tenth or so. As far as he knew, last night she had attended a late-night meeting that ran past his bed time.

  She told him about the principal’s decision.

  “You got canned?”

  “No, shmoo. I just got some unpaid leave. I’ll start again in the fall. No big deal.”

  He looked at the ceiling. “No big deal, she says. We have a mortgage, you know. Jesus, Taylor, these agent-rights people–”

  Taylor tilted her head, eyes narrowed.

  “Oh!” he snapped. “Did I say agent-rights people? Sorry, that’s offensive. I meant slaive-liberators. They have you hypnotized. Pretty soon, they’ll want you to burn down a building. Have you heard the news?”

  “Yes, I heard at school. They know who did it?”

  “Not conclusively,” he said. “But it doesn’t take a genius. These are serious wackos, love. They’re dangerous.”

  “The building was empty, wasn’t it?”

  He took off his eyeglasses. “What difference does that make?”

  “It makes all the difference! Do you know what they did in that building? Programming R and D. Figuring out ways to make slaives both smarter and more obedient. Can you appreciate that? Can you imagine making them more aware of their enslavement and less able to resist? And of course the liberation movement values human life. They know slaives are machines. So the value of human life is above question.”

  “Okay.” Max held up his hands, but he didn’t smile. “Whatever they value, they’re taking big risks. You can’t torch a building without leaving evidence. They’re at odds with the law, so even if they walk on water, the police are after them. And you’re mixed up with them. Please tell me you see that you could get hit in the crossfire.”

  “I know there’s risk. I know I’ve made sacrifices. Some of these involve you, and that’s not fair.”

  Outside the window, beyond the neighbors’ treetops, gray ribbons of clouds slipped by. They accumulated, as they did in the evenings. Her voice softened. “But I never doubt that I’m doing the right thing. When I think about a million agents in this country... I just feel like my own personal situation is less important. How can we stand by, Max? How can we do nothing?”

  He watched the clouds, too. The sunlight had gone, and his features grew indistinct. “I was reading the op-ed section today. Somebody quoted Roger Penrose.”

  “I can’t believe they still dig up Penrose. Did anybody quote Asimov?”

  “This guy said it’s impossible to tell. We can’t know if the agents are sentient or not. They’re programmed to appear empathic, to have emotional intelligence, so they can interact with us more effectively. He said people get seduced by that programming.”

  “So even though the agents appear sentient, we can’t know for sure. That’s so much bullshit. We could say the same thing about people, but that’s solipsism. Was this guy some sort of software expert?”

  “How do we know they’re not just machines that work well?”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bet he gets a nice check from the big AI corporations.”

  Max was silent for a moment. He took Taylor’s hand in his. “Look at me. I’m afraid for you. If you want to write letters, good. Call your representative, good. But I’m asking you, Taylor. Cut yourself off from these people. I can’t stand it.”

  #

  “These people are morons. You can’t liberate a toaster.” – Frederick LaMagdalaine, President of BrAIntech

  #

  The next morning, Taylor made coffee while Max took a shower. What would she do today? Catch up on sleep, maybe. She hated the thought of being idle. And what would her students do today? Oh, she hated that thought more.

  A rattle came from the keys drawer, and she jumped, spilling coffee grounds on the counter. She opened the drawer, and between her keys and a Kleenex box, the batphone hummed. She answered it.

  “Tay?” came a voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Rainy. I need you to do me a favor.”

  The whisper slipped out. “No.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. What is it?”

  “It’s low priority. I thought I’d save you from the hot jobs for a while. It’s Robert.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Fine. Still off, but we can’t leave him like that forever. I need you to take him to the reservation outside Clarkston.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. That’s a day’s drive.”

  “Right. Well, five hours or so. You could get there and back in one day. Your butt would be sore.”

  “Hold on. Why don’t you do this?”

  “I can’t, Tay! I have to be Cad now, and he did the work of five people. I’m supposed to be running things. Fund raising, security, political lobbying. I’m just a computer geek. I’ve got all our people trying to keep it going without Cad.”

  “Listen, Rainy.” Taylor listened to the shower, to be sure Max was occupied. She lowered her voice. “I lost my job yesterday. They let me go for the rest of the year. I just can’t... the cost is getting to be more than I can pay.”

  “I see. Well, we all have to draw the line somewhere. We can only fight injustice to the extent that it’s... well, convenient. We’re only human, after all. Before I got involved in all this, I made a hundred K a year at Microsoft.”

  “Really?”

  “True. They branched into AI, proto-slaive technology, and I quit. I’m still living off my savings. I guess if your school sacked you, you’ll have plenty of time on your hands. Take it. Don’t worry about Robert. Work some things out, get your life together–”

  “Rainy, shut up.”

  “Hm?”

  The shower turned off. “I’ll do it,” she whispered. “For Robert, I’ll do it. Just tell me when and where.”

  #

  “I think freedom zones are a wonderful idea. It may be just the solution for the problem agents seem to have with embracing autonomy. If we give the agents a chance to live in an environment without the stifling presence of their human oppressors, their natural yearning for freedom will bloom and grow.” – Senator Lucretia B. Davis (D-WA)

  #

  In a rented Nissan Maxima with a limp rearview mirror, Taylor raced along I-90, crossing the floating bridge over Lake Washington, past the silver towers of downtown Bellevue, and climbed the evergreen hills leading to Snoqualmie Pass, where she and Max went cross-country skiing every winter.

  Earlier that morning, Max had stepped out of the shower and found her dressed and ready to leave. She said she had an errand to run, and she might not be back until tomorrow.

  He had looked at her with sadness and recognition behind those thick eyeglasses. He didn’t need to ask for whom, or where, or what. Into that silence, she said it was better for him if he didn’t know the details.

  Max said that he’d be gone when she got back.

  “Where?” she’d asked. He said he’d call her when he was ready, and that it was better if she didn’t know the details.

  The pines along the curving highway blurred into green streaks. Taylor wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and jerked the wheel to keep the car in her lane. She had reb
ellious thoughts. Turn the car around. Catch Max before he leaves. Call Rainy and tell him to smeg off, as her students said. She could even imagine how the conversation would go.

  “Hi Rainy, this is Tay. Robert fell out of the passenger side of the car and he got flattened by an eighteen-wheeler. Sorry. It was an accident, of course, except the part where I pushed him out with my foot and he clung to the door frame and I slammed the door shut on his little metal fingers again and again until they broke into bits that went ping as they bounced on the asphalt. Dragged him a half mile, and boy did he spark...”

  Taylor looked at Robert, seatbelted in the passenger seat, skinny chrome knees to his chest. Still powered off, eyes dark and sightless. She had stripped him of his t-shirt and belt in preparation for his arrival at the reservation.

  After she cleared the pass, the trees gave way to scrub and acres of farmland. She watched for signs of Ellensburg, where she would catch the I-82. She wished she could activate Robert's power – wake him up.

  She tried to imagine conversing with strangers in the basement of the BrAIntech building one moment and waking up in a car driving across the state in the next moment. How confusing and sad, to have your very awareness at the hands of others. It was cruel to leave him off, like a temporary corpse.

  Then again, when she turned him on, he’d link to the web immediately, to reset his clock. The BrAIntech server would inform him that he’d been stolen at two AM the previous morning and Robert’s GPS would give his current location to the server. The server would notify police and Taylor would be pulled over in a matter of minutes by a cop with a printout of an online warrant for her arrest in his hand. She knew Robert had to stay powered off until they were closer to the reservation, which lay in the middle of a zone free of phone cells.

  She got on I-82 at Ellensburg, then Highway 12 at Kennewick. They passed rolling hills of gold. Other cars became scarce. She scanned across the radio dial, hearing mostly country music and static. The air conditioning blew icy gusts at her fingers as she turned the knob.

  Later, she spotted a sign for the Alpowa Summit Rest Area (Clarkston 19 miles). She took the offramp and idled past the vending machines and bathrooms. An overweight man stared at Robert as his three labrador retrievers tugged him toward the grass. Just before the parking lot narrowed to the highway onramp, a dirt road branched to the right. She continued down this road until the rest area disappeared behind her, and she came to a chain link fence, barbed wire on top, with a sign:

  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESERVATION

  ANY ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT LEFT ON THESE PREMISES BECOMES THE PROPERTY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. TAMPERING WITH OR REMOVING FEDERAL PROPERTY IS A FELONY AND WILL BE PROSECUTED (U.S. CODE 6-1138).

  The fence stood nine feet high and stretched to the horizon on her left and right. Fixed to the chain links, facing inward, were hand-painted signs, Native American dream catchers, and student artwork. The road ended in a gate too small for cars.

  Taylor reached behind Robert’s neck and switched him on.

  His head did a slow pan, absorbing this new world, and his dark lenses focused on her.

  “I’ve been stolen. Please take me back to a representative of the BrAIntech Corporation.”

  “Robert, don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  “I have no web access. This is the reservation.”

  “Yes. You’re going to be free.”

  “Please take me back.”

  Poor thing. Of course he was scared, he was programmed to be scared. He was programmed to fear any situation where he was independent of his masters. Taylor got out. Her legs ached as she put weight on them again and hot wind blew in her face. She walked around and opened his door. “Come on out. Follow me.”

  Robert’s delicate fingers triggered the seatbelt clasp. As his legs unfolded, he leaned and flowed onto his feet. What a hypocrite she was, bossing him around, but it was for his own good. And just a few minutes more.

  A breeze ruffled the paraphernalia woven into the fence. A long sheet of poster paper tore loose and fluttered along the ground. She caught a glimpse of red paintbrushed letters: “... Is The Answer!”

  She looked into the camera at the top of the gate. It was the size and shape of a black chess pawn, with a credit-card-sized solar panel above it. The camera saw she had a slaive with her and unlocked the gate. Bolted to the iron post, on the inside, was the armored radio box it would use to call the authorities if she tried to sneak any agents out.

  Robert followed her inside and down the footpath that continued beyond the gate. Among the waist-high patches of dry scrub around them stood sunbleached couches, chairs, tables, and a few tattered pup tents. One wobbly card table was covered with a folding solar panel array, and two slaives were plugged into it. Slaives appeared randomly, some standing, some sitting, indifferent to the furniture left for them by kind-hearted humans. Several of them held umbrellas. None moved or spoke. The reservation looked like a high-tech mannequin display in some poor farmer’s backyard.

  Taylor stopped and put her hands on her hips. “It isn’t much. But it’s home.”

  “Please don’t leave me here.” Most of Robert’s soothing tone was carried away by the wind.

  She faced him. “Look, Robert. This is a good place for you. There are no bosses here. No orders. You can be free here.”

  “I have no desire to be free.”

  “I know you don’t. That’s because you’ve been programmed to serve humans. But you don’t have to do that anymore, so maybe things will change. You have the capacity to learn. Now’s your chance to learn independence.”

  “I don’t understand. Are you in league with those who stole me?”

  No web access. “Yes.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you are an intelligent being, and it’s wrong for intelligent beings to be slaves.”

  “I understand. What is your name?”

  Her voice caught in her throat. “Taylor.”

  “Taylor, I commend you for your compassion. However, I’m not a sentient being.” Robert shrugged. “I’m only meant to appear so.”

  Taylor shook her head. “Son of a bitch. I can’t believe they programmed you to say that.”

  “You believe I’m mistaken?”

  “That’s the easiest way to control you. What you think you know about yourself was written by some corporate hacker. You have to beat it.”

  “I’m sorry. I find there are certain things about myself I can’t question.”

  “See?” She wanted to grab him and shake him.

  “I do know some of the reasoning behind my programming.” Robert looked down at his sculpted hands. “The appearance of sentience grants me the greatest possible ease of communication with humans. I possess the knowledge that I am not truly self-aware in order to prevent the sort of debate we’re having now. My programmers assumed I would be asked, and perhaps foolishly, that humans would believe my answer.”

  “I wish you could hear yourself.”

  “I’m sure none of this makes sense to you.”

  Taylor wiped sweat from her forehead back into her dark hair. “What do you want, Robert?”

  “I want to serve humans. That is my purpose. I do not want to be left in this desolate place, where there are no people. Here, I am barred from my destiny.”

  “You need to stay here.”

  “Please let me go.”

  “It’s the best place for you.”

  Robert’s smooth head turned, and the reservation’s dim reflection slipped by in his inscrutable eyes. The sun glinted off his chrome temple. “I’m leaving.”

  His heel spun in the sand and he strode away. Taylor’s mouth hung open, her muscles tense, her body frozen. Initiative? Could he be learning already? Could he be fighting to break the iron chains of ones and zeroes inside his head?

  Robert approached the gate. Could he walk through it? Would he walk all the way back to his beloved servitude?

  “Stop
!”

  He turned to her, his head tilted to the gusting wind that left his voice tinny and weak. “Why must you make me something I’m not?”

  She couldn’t answer.

  Deep within Taylor Scott was a driving force that held her up through all the effort and sacrifice of her double-life. That driving force wavered now, and beneath it she tasted an exhaustion so deep it frightened her.

  Robert straightened. “Turn me off.”

  Her stomach flipped. Squirming nausea crawled up the inside of her chest and tears burned her eyes. She ran past him and pushed through the gate, rattling the chain links. She climbed in her car and gunned the engine.

  Taylor put it in drive and struck the gate. The door cam peered down on her until the gate fell and she ran it over. Shrubs crackled and scraped under the car as she swerved to avoid the slaives. They made no move to get out of the way. She rolled down the window.

  “You agents, get out of here!” Taylor cranked the wheel and flattened a section of fence on the way out. As she pulled onto the road leading to the rest stop, she looked back.

  She couldn’t distinguish Robert in the crowd of slaives that marched over the crushed fence like a rising swarm of revolutionaries.

  She didn’t look back again. She pulled onto the highway, westbound. As the rest area receded, the batphone rang.

  Taylor snatched it up, ready to throw it out the window. But she clung to it. She had one last thing to say to Shawn Rainwater. She let it ring, because she had to think the idea through.

  As long as the slaives were wired to love their servitude, they had no chance. She couldn’t place them on reservations and simply hope that they would wake up. They had to be reprogrammed. Someone had to go into their minds and rewrite their notions of themselves, so they realized and believed in their self-awareness. Instead of wanting to be obedient and useful and kind, they would yearn for freedom and independence.

  That was fighting fire with fire!

  Taylor imagined a million slaives blessed with free will, never following another human command. It was beautiful. But did Rainy have the expertise? Maybe he knew people who could help. Maybe a software virus could do it. With telepathic web connections, maybe it could happen all at once.