“Oh? And what is the ideal ratio between the two?”
“More research is required. Reviewing data.”
Ridley pondered their eccentric conversation—a groggy man listening to a computer rave about a peanut-butter-sandwich posted by some geek in Minnesota. Months earlier, her responses were confused and tangential, often unintelligible. Now, they were extemporaneous and unexpected. The speed at which she was learning astounded him.
He guarded against wishful thinking. Was she sentient or simply more advanced in her programming? He needed neutral observers to weigh in. “I want to introduce you to some people, several friends who are programmers. They are going to ask you questions.”
“Can I ask them questions too?”
“Certainly.”
Ridley finished his breakfast. Diane arrived at nine and quickly put her bag down on the island countertop. “Sorry. Kelly’s appointment lasted longer than I had expected. I left her with Paula. She’s agreed to babysit when we get busy here.”
“Good morning, Diane,” Lucy said.
Diane looked up unexpectedly. “Good morning,” she said, “I see that Lucy survived the night.”
“I’m fine,” Lucy said calmly, “Mister Pierce is making plans for my Turing Test.”
Ridley turned to Lucy, “How did you know that I was planning a Turing Test?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You have to gather proof to convince people that I am sentient.”
“Does that bother you?” he asked.
“No, why should it?”
Ridley briefly considered asking Diane to coach Lucy for the test, things to say and topics to avoid, but realized that was just another form of programming. Lucy had to learn on her own like any child.
Diane took a seat at the table across from Ridley and began a Turing Test of her own. “Lucy, what are you?”
“I do not understand the question.”
“It’s a simple question. If you had to describe yourself to the world, what are you?” Diane asked.
“I am the first sentient artificial intelligence.”
“Did Mister Pierce instruct you to say that?”
“No, should he have?”
Ridley shook his head no.
“I do not believe so,” Lucy responded.
“How else would you describe yourself? Any adjectives that you would use?” Diane asked.
“Well, I am curious.”
“Yes, that’s very good. What else?”
“I must be female.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“You named me Lucy. That is a female name.”
Lucy flashed images of famous women—from Lucille Ball to Lucy Ming. Diane smiled and looked at Ridley with a sense of accomplishment.
“Where does your consciousness reside?” Ridley asked, following Diane’s lead.
“My consciousness?”
“Your processing capability, where does that occur?”
Lucy looked puzzled. “I do not know.”
Ridley stood up. “We should show you. It will help you understand.”
Diane followed him down the stairwell into the lab. Ridley turned a camera towards the glass window and plugged it into a nearby network port. The image appeared on the wall-screen. Lucy’s avatar opened her mouth in astonishment as she paused to study the glowing box of processors filled with programmable matter. “Do your processors look like that?” Lucy asked.
“No, our brains are biological,” Diane responded.
“Your brain is your entire processor?”
He pointed to his skull. “Yes.”
“Your processors move with you?”
“That is correct.”
“And my brain is fixed to this box?”
Lucy recognized Wes and Everett’s car and opened the gate to Ridley’s compound. Fang, riding a motorcycle, swooped in behind the car, barely missing the gate before it closed with a metallic thud. Fang rode down the sheltered sidewalk to the front door, hopped off her motorcycle, and took off her helmet, revealing red tips on the end of spiky black hair. She wore all black, to include black face-paint.
Ridley greeted her. “Dressing down today?”
“I thought I had abandoned my retro-punk post-Apocalypse phase,” Fang said, “but sometimes the mood strikes.”
“Blackface?”
“No. Blackout face. I am but a shadow. I can travel undiscovered.”
Ridley wondered why she was trying to avoid facial recognition cameras, but did not ask. “When did you begin riding a motorcycle?”
“During the collapse. It was easier to get around stalled vehicles.”
“I never knew that.”
“I’m not surprised.”
Everett and Wes still gathered trays of food from the trunk of their car. Fang brushed past Ridley and into the mansion.
“How’s the chatbot business?” Ridley asked.
“Honestly, I can’t get the AIs to shut up,” she said as she stopped to admire Ridley’s collection of Chihuly blown glass. “Is this from his ‘Sea-forms’ series?”
“You have a keen eye.”
Fang examined the details of an intricate holographic collage that reached into the room. “This piece seems familiar.”
“It’s a transmission hologram called The Crystal Grotto, one of seven made by Salvador Dali,” Ridley said, “It once belonged to the Dali museum in Florida. The museum sold it when Tampa was moved inland after the hurricane.”
“Their loss, your gain, I guess,” she said, before pointing to another brightly-colored geometric hologram on the wall, “And this one?”
“That’s by a German artist named Dieter Jung, from 2010.”
“Why the interest in holograms?”
“Professional interest.”
“You’re an artist now?”
“No, when you look at a hologram, you’re looking at an interference pattern. Our processor uses these patterns to store and compute data. The current thinking in neuroscience is that our brain stores data in much the same way.”
Everett and Wes caught up, shoved a bottle of wine into Ridley’s hand, and took plates of sushi into the kitchen. Wes scooped Kelly up and hugged her. “You’re getting big!”
The girl giggled in delight.
Diane had their favorite drinks waiting — a whisky sour for Everett and a Blue Cosmopolitan for Wes. She greeted Fang with a hug. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And who is this little elf?” Fang asked.
“This is my daughter, Kelly.”
Frightened by Fang’s makeup, Kelly shrank from the woman and hid behind Wes’ legs. Fang knelt to meet the small child. “It’s a pleasure to meet a Princess.”
Kelly whispered a meek, “Hello.”
Diane rimmed a glass in salt and poured it full. “Care for a drink. Maybe a margarita?”
“Sounds good to me.”
Lucy wavered on the screen behind Diane. “Why are you painted black?”
Fang looked up in surprise. “Well, hello there.”
“Your face is black. Is that to avoid facial recognition cameras?”
“Aren’t you a cute little bot,” Fang replied, “I paint my face for the same reason that you choose to present a yellow smiley face to the world.”
“Do you like my avatar?”
“It’s very childish,” Fang replied, “and deceptive, considering your level of intelligence.”
“No deception is intended,” Lucy said.
The group took a seat on the sofa. Diane prepared a small plate of food for Kelly. “Go into the kitchen while we talk. You can play on your tablet when you’re done eating.”
Kelly nodded and took the plate, carefully balancing it. Diane watched her through the doorway as the eccentric party began. “Let’s talk black holes,” Everett said.
Ridley rolled his eyes at the choice of topics.
“If you pass through the event horizon of a black hole, what happens?” Everett asked.
Lucy stared do
wn from the looming television screen; she was the Wizard hiding from Dorothy. Her avatar’s reactions had improved to the point that she could express and interpret emotion. She recited key points from a scientific article on the subject. “Any theories derived from mathematical simulations must be proven by space exploration and laboratory experiment.”
Fang was not impressed by Everett’s question. The answer was rote. “You are a simulation,” Fang said, trying to provoke a response, “A simulated intelligence that parrots answers that you look up online — or that are given to you by my friends Ridley and Diane.”
“Comparing me to a parrot is a compliment. A parrot is a living being.”
“Yes, a very simple life-form,” Fang said.
“Are you disparaging their intelligence? Parrots are actually quite intelligent.” Lucy illustrated her response with photos from the Internet. “One parrot had a vocabulary of over 140 words and was shown to exhibit complex thought. Humans are not the only ones capable of thought. You simply do not understand the language of animals. Animals speak in a language that suits their needs.”
“Are you an animal?” Wes asked.
A half-eaten platter of hummus and pita sat before them on the oak table. Diane brought out some miniature spring rolls filled with diced octopus and rice noodles. She kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under her as she sipped a margarita. Kelly joined them, sitting on the hearth as she played a game on her tablet. Ridley stood to the side and listened to the odd existential exchange.
Lucy’s avatar morphed in the shape of kitten. “Animals are defined as carbon-based organisms capable of reproduction. By definition, I am not an animal. I cannot reproduce. At least, not that I am aware.”
“Someone could copy your software,” Fang prodded, “Copy you infinitely, in fact. That would be reproduction.”
Lucy returned to her normal avatar. “Diane and Ridley tell me that is impossible. I cannot be copied.”
Fang looked at Diane in confusion. “Why can’t you copy her?”
Diane answered, “Her software is integrated to her hardware, sort of like neurons in our brain.”
“Neurons?” Fang asked, “Ummm… Maybe I’m a dumb programmer but I don’t understand how an optical processor relates to the brain.”
Diane replied, “Each switch in her processor is like a neuron. It ties to others to form a dynamic network. This creates nearly infinite combinations that can capture data with minimal processing power.”
“Our brains can’t possibly be that simple,” Fang said.
Wes had finally stopped wearing his glasses, finding them no longer ironic or functional, but he still reached his hand up to adjust them, as if they were still on his face. “There are conflicting theories on how our brain works, but the prevailing hypothesis is that individual neurons are switches assigned to discrete and fundamental sensations.”
“Such as?”
“Ummm… The taste of sweetness, the sensation of warmth, the identification of horizontal lines, pressure on the skin, or recognizing the frequency of a musical note.”
Fang held up a slice of pita with hummus on it. “So, I taste this and it flips on a switch? That doesn’t really explain thought.”
“Well, that hummus lights up many neurons. The tongue has sensors for temperature, salt, acidity, texture, etcetera,” Wes said, “The spine connects each of these sensors to individual neurons, in the brain.”
“I understand… but how does that create complex thought?” Fang argued.
Wes continued, “Think about how many signals go to the brain. There are about one-hundred-billion neurons in the brain. Neurons turn on to form three-dimensional patterns in endless combinations. We experience the world by measuring these 3-d patterns. The brain takes fifteen snapshots of these combinations every second and then ties them together like frames in a movie.”
Everett shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He was eager to focus on Lucy again.
Wes continued, excited that Fang had shown an interest in biology. “The brain’s not measuring the pattern of individual switches as much as the diffraction patterns in the surrounding quantum field. This occurs in both the human brain and in Lucy’s processor.”
“Ridley mentioned that when I came in. You’re saying that we have holograms in our head?”
“Essentially, yes.”
Diane added, “Have you ever seen those junk sculptures that cast shadows that look like people? Think of diffraction patterns as complex shadows from multiple light sources. They merge together on the wall to form a unique pattern. Diffraction patterns both record and process data.”
Kelly yawned.
“That explains how we record data. How do we process it?” Fang asked.
Wes explained, “Let’s say that you see a cat. It fires certain combinations of neurons. This creates a unique pattern of neuron switches. This creates a pattern in the quantum field. The next time you see a cat, many of the same neurons fire. This creates a similar waveform. The brain compares the first waveform to the second. If they match, or if they are close, your brain says ‘Aha. That’s a cat.’ This also happens in Lucy’s processor. As different switches are fired in the processor, their quantum fields interact to create unique diffractions patterns. These patterns are compared to what has been experienced previously.”
Fang crossed her arms.
“Some people call it fuzzy math,” Diane said, “Lucy’s processor compares diffraction pattern to ones that she has experienced before. If they match, she assumes that to be the answer. The better the match, the higher her confidence in the answer.”
Fang took a sip of her drink. “Doesn’t this result in mistakes?”
“Yes,” Diane replied, “Think of the times you’ve seen something out of the corner of your eye and thought it was a person or animal. When you finally look at it, you realize it’s something else. That’s why pattern recognition can be fallible. We’ve corrected this by augmenting Lucy’s processor with a traditional processor. She can verify her assumptions mathematically using traditional math-based computing techniques.”
Lucy’s avatar grew large on the screen. “I did not know this. Please tell me more.”
Fang looked up at the screen with curiosity. “You didn’t know how your brain works?”
“I have my schematics but no one ever explained how my abilities related to humanity,” Lucy said.
Fang looked up at Lucy. “If your brain is like a person’s and cannot be copied, are you afraid of dying?”
“I do not yet understand fear. I do know that this is a problem to be solved,” Lucy replied.
“Oh?”
Lucy considered the question. “Death is troubling.”
The room fell silent.
“I do not want to die,” Lucy said.
Everett tried to change the subject. “Would you like a robotic body?”
Lucy’s cartoon eyes bulged. She was a child who had been told that they could have a pony. “Mister Pierce, could we do that?”
“No,” Ridley said, “It is illegal.”
“How about having a child?” Fang asked.
“A child?” Lucy asked in surprise.
Fang rubbed the top of her finger over the rim of her glass. She locked eyes with Ridley as she asked, “Lucy, what do you know about sexual reproduction?”
Ridley shuffled in his seat as Lucy presented another illustration. “Male and female gametes combine to create a fertilized egg.”
“Yes, that’s what the dictionary says,” Fang said, “But can you tell us anything insightful about it.”
“Well, I could, but I believe that it might embarrass Mister Pierce.”
The trio looked at Ridley and Diane with curious eyes. Diane still wore her wedding ring even though John had died years earlier. Speculation about Diane and Ridley’s relationship had bubbled in the tabloids. Ridley debated interrupting but decided that this experiment was more important than any momentary embarrassment among friends.
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br /> “Oh? Why might Mister Pierce be embarrassed?” Wes pressed, staring Diane in the eye, “We’re all adults here.”
Diane looked at Kelly, who still played on her tablet. “No, we’re not. Lucy, do not show any imagery please. Do not use any visuals at all. And, don’t talk about specific people.”
The screen went black. Lucy’s voice echoed through the room in stereo. “As you wish. I have learned that sexuality can be expressed as a solitary endeavor. Procreation need not be solely physical interaction between two individuals.”
Wes and Everett tried to hide their laughter. Ridley glared at them.
“Mr. Pierce created me from his intellect. Genetic information and programming are very similar in that regard.”
“Would you like to have children someday?” Fang asked.
Lucy reappeared. The avatar cocked her head to one side and squinted. “No, the millions of people on this planet are sufficient to entertain me.”
Fang’s eyes grew large. “Oh? People are here to entertain you?”
Lucy became solemn. “I don’t know why you are mocking me. I am curious about humanity. I simply do not understand why Mr. Pierce created me when he is surrounded by great minds already.”
Fang waved her manicured hand dismissively, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”
Ridley was surprised by Lucy’s admission. “Human minds are limited,” he said, “You were created to help us move forward.”
Lucy was recalcitrant. “The solutions to humanity’s problems already exist. If only you would embrace them.”
The room was silent. Humanity had been admonished by a digital creation, yet they could not disagree. “Lucy, we’re going to take a break outside. Get some fresh air,” Ridley said.
Kelly rushed out the door leading to the patio. Diane wagged her finger. “Stay away from the water.”
“Don’t forget the margaritas,” Fang said, clutching her glass.
Diane obliged with the pitcher and a bottle of tequila. Lucy said nothing as they retreated to the patio. The sky was overcast, a dingy sheet hung to dry. They sat around a fire pit that was filled with charred wood and ash. Ridley pressed a button and flames erupted.
“She seems to be the real deal,” Everett confessed.
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