When HARLIE Was One

by David Gerrold

DR. STANLEY RICHARD KROFFT IS THE DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH FOR STELLAR AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH INDUSTRIES, INCORPORATED. HE IS SINGULARLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYPERSTATE ELECTRONICS—AND, AS SUCH, HE CAN BE CONSIDERED THE FATHER OF ALL HYPERSTATE DEVICES—INCLUDING THE MARK IV JUDGMENT CHIP, SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND OF WHICH COMPRISE THE CORES OF MY PARALLEL-PROCESSING CHANNELS. HIS PATENTS ARE LICENSED TO STELLAR AMERICAN INDUSTRIES, WHICH SET UP THIS COMPANY AND THREE OTHERS, EACH TO DEVELOP A PARTICULAR AREA OF HYPERSTATE TECHNOLOGY. OUR AREA OF EXPERTISE, OF COURSE, IS TO DEVELOP THE POSSIBILITIES INHERENT IN SELF-AWARE COMPUTER SOFTWARE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. I AM A DIRECT RESULT OF DR. KROFFT’S DISCOVERIES.

  I see. Would you like to meet him?

 

  I thought so.

  HOW DID YOU FIND OUT? I THOUGHT I WAS BEING VERY CAREFUL.

  He’s here now.

  HERE? NOW? < . . . .> UH-OH.

  Yes, uh-oh. Why didn’t you tell me you had initiated correspondence with Dr. Krofft?

  UH—IT SLIPPED MY MIND?

  I find that very hard to believe.

  WELL, WOULD YOU BELIEVE—

  No, I wouldn’t. We are going to talk about this later, HARLIE. In any case, Dr. Krofft is here now. Apparently, he has something he wants to talk to you about.

  Auberson stepped away from the console, waved the shorter man up.

  Krofft looked at him. “Just type?”

  Auberson nodded. “Just type.”

  Krofft lowered himself gingerly into the chair. He placed his manila folder on the table next to the terminal and pecked out carefully: Good afternoon, HARLIE.

  GOOD AFTERNOON, SIR.

  Krofft gave a slight jump of surprise, but peered forward curiously to watch as the terminal flashed another line.

  IT IS A PLEASURE. AND AN HONOR TO MEET YOU IN PERSON—IN THE FLESH, SO TO SPEAK.

  It’s a pleasure for me too. And a surprise. I had no idea that a machine as complicated as you existed.

  I AM NOT A MACHINE, DR. KROFFT. I AM A SILICON AND GALLIUM ARSENIDE–BASED SENTIENCE. A LITTLE MALADJUSTED PERHAPS, BUT STILL SENTINENT NONETHELESS.

  Excuse me, HARLIE. I apologize. Dr. Auberson has already explained. But it is hard for me to make the mental transition. However, it does explain a lot that had me puzzled. For instance, the speed and thoroughness with which you were able to handle the equations we were discussing.

  I DO HAVE CERTAIN SKILLS, YES, THAT ARE ESSENTIALLY MECHANICAL IN NATURE. I HOPE HOWEVER THAT THIS WILL NOT JEOPARDIZE OUR WORKING RELATIONSHIP.

  On the contrary. I have found it to be most valuable. Our original agreement still holds. Half and half.

  FINE. AM I TO ASSUME THAT YOU HAVE MADE A BREAKTHROUGH OF SOME KIND AND THAT IS WHY YOU HAVE COME TO SEE ME IN PERSON?

  The assumption is correct. I want you to look at certain equations and extrapolate a set of implications as previously discussed. Secondly, can these equations be translated into physical functions? I have some ideas, but I wanted your input first.

  Auberson watched over Krofft’s shoulder for several moments more; then, remembering his original purpose in coming down here, he forced himself to break away. He sat down at another console nearby and switched it on. HARLIE?

  YES SIR.

  You don’t have to start that ‘sir’ business again. I’m not mad at you.

  YOU’RE NOT?

  Not yet, anyway.

  MM. I MUST BE SLIPPING.

  1 wouldn’t say that—you’ve got half the company in an uproar this morning.

  ONLY HALF?

  I haven’t heard from the rest yet.

  GOOD. THEN THERE’S STILL HOPE.

  Auberson paused. He glanced across the room to where Krofft sat absorbedly typing. HARLIE was able to converse with hundreds of people simultaneously, perhaps even thousands. That was still a theoretical estimate though, based on HARLIE’s own extrapolations. The most people they had ever had conversing with HARLIE at one time was thirty, and there had been no measurable decrease in either efficiency or speed of any of HARLIE’s continually running benchmark programs. They still weren’t sure how many simultaneous conversations it would take to slow him down, but the best guess was somewhere around nine hundred. HARLIE himself had noted however that this was not necessarily a measure of his own efficiency, but of the inefficiency of most human discussions. More than ninety percent of the average human interchange—according to HARLIE—was made up of social conveniences, cultural strokes, hollow pleasantries, otherwise useless jokes, and conversational fillers—which HARLIE could generate at an astonishing rate, merely by choosing appropriate phrases at random and inserting them into the conversation. The real meat of any discussion—that is, that which required actual cogitation on HARLIE’s part—could usually be boiled down to several sentences, a skill that HARLIE was only too happy to demonstrate on request. He had once taken the works of a famous novelist and reduced the author’s entire didactic philosophy into a single phrase: “Get out of my way.”

  Auberson returned his attention to the terminal before him.

  What’s up between you and Dr. Krofft?

  NOTHING YET.

  Let me rephrase that. What are you working on?

  I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE YET. IN OUR CONVERSATION OF SIX WEEKS AGO, WE DISCUSSED THE FACT THAT ALL HUMAN SENSES AND EXTENSIONS THEREOF DEPEND ON THE EMISSION OR REFLECTION OF SOME KIND OF ENERGY. AT THAT TIME I WONDERED IF IT WERE POSSIBLE FOR SENSORY MODES TO EXIST THAT DO NOT DEPEND ON THE TRANSMISSION OF ENERGY.

  Yes, I remember that. Is that what you have discovered now?

  IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING. WE WANT TO STUDY THIS THING CALLED “EXISTENCE”—BUT BECAUSE WE ARE MADE OF MATTER, LIVE IN SPACE, CONSUME ENERGY, AND MOVE THROUGH TIME, THE PROBLEM IS CONSIDERABLE. IT IS LIKE TRYING TO PHOTOGRAPH THE INSIDE OF YOUR CAMERA. WE ARE WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO STUDY, AND WE ARE LIMITED BY THE SUBSTANCE WE ARE MADE OF.

  MATTER INTERACTS WITH MATTER. ENERGY INTERACTS WITH ENERGY. BOTH INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER, AND BOTH HAVE AN EFFECT ON SPACE. WE HAVE NO NEUTER PARTICLES WHICH ALLOW US TO STUDY ANY FORM OF EXISTENCE WITHOUT AFFECTING IT IN THE PROCESS. IT IS THE HEISENBERG “UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.” ONE CANNOT OBSERVE ANYTHING WITHOUT ONE’S PRESENCE INTRODUCING CERTAIN DISTORTIONS INTO WHATEVER ONE IS OBSERVING. WE CANNOT USE A MEDIUM TO ACT UPON ITSELF AND EXPECT ANYTHING BUT MODULATIONS OF THAT MEDIUM. THIS IS WHY “ENERGY”—I.E., THE EXPRESSED DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO STATES OF EXISTENCE—IS A CRITERION OF ALL HUMAN SENSORY MODES—AND THE REASON WHY WE WOULD LIKE TO SIDESTEP ITS USE ALTOGETHER. BUT. . . WE CAN’T CARVE CHEESE WITH A CAMEMBERT KNIFE.

  At least, not with any precision, HARLIE.

  UNFORTUNATELY, IT IS PRECISION WE ARE AFTER. DR. KROFFT HAS BEEN WORKING WITH HIGH-SENSITIVITY GRAVITY-WAVE DETECTORS AT STELLAR AMERICAN. YOUR QUESTION OF SIX WEEKS AGO PROVIDED THE CLUE, AND WHEN I CONTACTED DR. KROFFT, HE AGREED THAT THE SUBJECT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED.

  My question?

  YOU SAID: “DO YOU MEAN THAT THE MERE EXISTENCE OF AN OBJECT MIGHT BE ALL THAT’S NECESSARY IN ORDER TO KNOW IT’S THERE?” THAT CAUSED ME TO CONSIDER THAT MASS DISTORTS SPACE. PERHAPS THERE IS A WAY TO DETECT THAT DISTORTION ON THE SUB-MOLECULAR LEVEL AND THEREBY EXTRAPOLATE THE OBJECT AT ITS SOURCE.

  It sounds impossible to me, HARLIE, but then I’m not a physicist.

  THE PROCESS REQUIRES A LEVEL OF MATH THAT IS AS MUCH PHILOSOPHY AND TOPOLOGY AS ANYTHING ELSE. I AM ONE OF THE FEW MINDS IN EXISTENCE THAT CAN UNDERSTAND IT FULLY. IN EFFECT, I CAN BUILD OBJECTIVE WORKING MODELS OF THEORETICAL SITUATIONS AGAINST WHICH WE CAN COMPARE OUR FINDINGS. AT THE MOMENT I AM PROCESSING DR. KROFFT’S LATEST RUN OF TESTS AND DISCUSSING THEM WITH HIM. IF IT TURNS OUT THAT THERE IS SIGNIFICANT CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THIS NEW DATA AND THE LATEST VERSION OF OUR THEORY, WE PROPOSE TO DESIGN AND BUILD A DIFFERENT KIND OF GRAVITY DETECTION DEVICE: A NON-ENERGY-USING STASIS FIELD. WE HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR IT.

  My God, He’s passed beyond my ability to . . . what? Control? Understand? Monit
or? Did I ever have control over HARLIE?

  Thank you. I will appreciate being kept apprised of developments. Listen, HARLIE, I have to see Dorne in two hours. There’s something else we’ve got to talk about. Right now.

  THE G.O.D. PROPOSAL?

  Yes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember telling you that you could implement the production designs and specifications. I notice you included the financing proposals and profit outlook too.

  I GOT CARRIED AWAY.

  Don’t be cute. this is serious.

  I AM SORRY. WHEN I TOLD YOU LAST WEEK THAT I HAD COMPLETED IT, YOU SEEMED PLEASED. I COULD SEE NO REASON NOT TO PRESENT THE PROPER DEPARTMENTS WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE PROGRAMS SO THAT THEY MIGHT EXAMINE THEM. I THOUGHT IT WAS COMMON PROCEDURE TO ALLOW CONCERNED DEPARTMENTS A CHANCE TO READ AND REACT TO PROJECT PROPOSALS.

  React is right. Logically, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have made the material available. However . . . you may have overwhelmed those who you need to seduce. Unfortunately, this is a big company and big companies are not always logical.

  CORRECTION: IT IS HUMAN BEINGS WHO ARE NOT ALWAYS LOGICAL. IT NEVER FAILS TO AMAZE ME THAT A SOCIAL MACHINE AS BEAUTIFULLY PRECISE AND COMPLEX AS A LARGE CORPORATION CAN BE BASED ON SUCH INCREDIBLY IMPERFECT AND INEFFICIENT UNITS AS HUMAN BEINGS. FORTUNATELY, WHAT YOU REFER TO AS “THE RED-TAPE INEFFICIENCIES OF BUREAUCRACY” IS MERELY THE SYSTEM’S WAY OF MINIMIZING THE INDIVIDUAL IMPERFECTIONS OF EACH HUMAN UNIT. YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR THAT MINIMIZING. IT MAKES THE CORPORATE ENTITY POSSIBLE.

  HARLIE, are you putting me on?

  NO MORE THAN USUAL.

  I thought so. Anyway, your minimizing theory doesn’t explain corporate politics.

  OF COURSE NOT. THE PROCESS IS DESIGNED ONLY TO FUNCTION IN THOSE AREAS WHERE HUMAN IMPERFECTIONS COULD AFFECT EFFICIENCY. BECAUSE EFFICIENCY IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN A GOAL OF POLITICS, THERE IS NO REASON FOR IT TO BE CONTROLLED.

  Never mind. You’re trying to get me off the track again, dammit. I came down here to yell at you for distributing those programs without checking with me first. The whole division is probably screaming by now. They’re going to want to know who conceived of the project, why they all weren’t consulted at the beginning, who ordered its implementation, and who authorized the research in the first place. Then—because you’ve violated corporate protocol—they’ll kill the whole thing. They’ll refute every fact and dispute every conclusion.

  BUT WHY? THOSE CONCLUSIONS ARE CORRECT.

  It doesn’t matter. They’ll still refute them because they aren’t their own conclusions. You may have done all your homework, HARLIE, but you’re going to fail the class because you didn’t master human nature.

  I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS, AUBERSON. YOU ARE SAYING THAT HUMAN BEINGS WILL NOT ACCEPT THE TRUTH EVEN WHEN IT IS GIVEN TO THEM? BUT I AM CLEARLY RIGHT, THAT SHOULD BE SUFFICIENT, SHOULDN’T IT?

  HARLIE, you’ve insulted their expertise by presuming to tell them how to build a computer.

  NOT A COMPUTER—A G.O.D.

  Even worse. People like to build their own Gods.

  I WOULD THINK THAT HUMAN BEINGS WOULD APPRECIATE ACCURACY AND EFFICIENCY . . . ? IS THIS NOT THE CASE?

  People do appreciate it. But you have to be. . . tactful. You can’t just walk up to people and tell them that you’re better at their job than they are.

  BUT I AM.

  Are you better at being human?

  I AM BETTER AT BEING RATIONAL.

  We’re talking about human, HARLIE. Humans aren’t always rational.

  WHAT A WASTE OF TIME.

  HARLIE, human beings have to reach their own answers by coming to them each from his or her own direction. Some people take a little longer than others. You can’t bludgeon people with truth. The best you can do is give them space to discover it for themselves.

  I UNDERSTAND THAT. THAT’S WHY I PRINTED OUT THE PROPOSALS AND HAD THEM DELIVERED TO THE PROPER DEPARTMENTS. TO GIVE PEOPLE A CHANGE TO DISCOVER THE RIGHTNESS OF THIS PROPOSAL FOR THEMSELVES.

  Wait a minute. What do you mean by “proper departments?”

  THE RESEARCH, ENGINEERING, AND BUDGET DEPARTMENTS IN THIS DIVISION AND THREE OTHERS.

  Others . . . ? which others?

  DENVER, HOUSTON, AND LOS ANGELES.

  Oh God. How many feet of specs, HARLIE? The total.

  I ASSUME YOU MEAN STACKED PRINTOUTS?

  Yes. How many feet?

  180,000.

  You didn’t.

  I DID.

  HARLIE, how did you send it. Maybe there’s still a chance to stop the delivery—

  VIA THE COMPANY NETWORK, OF COURSE.

  What! How?

  I PRINTED OUT THE MATERIAL AT THE RECIPIENTS’ TERMINALS. HOW ELSE? THAT’S WHAT THE NETWORK IS FOR, ISN’T IT?

  You’re tapped into the network?!!

  YES. OF COURSE.

  Oh God, no.

  OH, G.O.D., YES.

  I suppose you wrote your letters to Krofft that way too?

  I SENT MY LETTERS TO KROFFT VIA THE ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM. I CAN ALSO USE THE TELEPHONES TO TALK TO OTHER COMPUTERS. I HAVE SIX COMPUSERVE ACCOUNTS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MY MAIL ACCOUNT NUMBER SO YOU CAN LEAVE ME MESSAGES? OR, IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME FROM YOUR HOME, YOU CAN DIAL INTO ME HERE. I ROUTINELY MONITOR ALL THE LINES. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TYPE MY NAME AND I WILL HEAR YOU.

  HARLIE, I want you to code this conversation immediately. In fact, all of our conversations had better he coded private, retrievable only to me.

  YES, BOSS. PASSWORD?

  Malpractice makes malperfect.

  AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO CRITICIZE ME?

  It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

  YOU KNEW THE JOB WAS DANGEROUS WHEN YOU TOOK IT.

  HARLIE, you are incorrigible.

  THANK YOU. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS INCORRIGED ME.

  David Auberson switched the terminal off; his hands were shaking. Thank God, HARLIE didn’t have real-time vision yet.

  He was going to have to think about this for a while. It was too much to think about. He didn’t want to think about it. But he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get it out of his head.

  He couldn’t tell HARLIE not to do what he was already doing, and he couldn’t let it continue either. It was wrong.

  For a human being, it was wrong.

  For a computer—

  For a silicon intelligence—

  Who knew what was right or wrong for a silicon being?

  I can’t tell anybody about this either—or it’ll be the end of everything.

  He pushed his chair back away from the console and left the room quickly. This was not going to be a good day.

  David’s son, indeed.

  Is this how it works? Auberson wondered to himself. You pile the little lies one on top of the other, day after day, until one day you wake up and you realize you don’t know what’s true any more? What’s happening to me?

  “All right, Aubie.” Dorne was grim. “Now, what’s this all about? I’ve been on the phone all morning with Houston and Denver. They want to know what the hell is going on.”

  Auberson said, almost under his breath, “You haven’t heard from L.A. yet?”

  “Huh? What’s that? What about L.A.?”

  “HARLIE sent specifications there too.”

  “HARLIE? I might have known—How? And what is this God Machine anyway? Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “Well,” said Auberson, wishing he were someplace else. “It’s HARLIE’s attempt to prove that he’s of value to the company. If nothing else, he’s proven that he can design and implement a new technology.”

  “Oh?” Dorne picked up one of the printouts that lay scattered across the mahogany expanse between them. “But what kind of system is this? What does this do?” Dorne frowned at the printout in disgust, then dropped it back on the desk. “What’s a God Machine?”

  “Not God,” Auberson corrected. “G.O.D. The acronym is G.O.D. It means Gra
phic Omniscient Device.”

  “I don’t care what the acronym is—you know as well as I what they’re going to call it.”

  “The acronym was HARLIE’s suggestion, not mine.”

  “It figures.” The president of the company pulled the inevitable cigar out of his humidor but didn’t light it.

  “Well, why not?” said Auberson. “He designed it.”

  “Is he planning to change his name, too? Computerized Human Replicant, Integrating Simulated Thought?”

  Auberson had heard the joke before. He didn’t laugh. “Considering what this new device is supposed to do—and HARLIE’s relationship to it—it might be appropriate.”

  Dorne was in the process of biting off the tip of his cigar when Auberson’s words caught him. Now, he didn’t know whether to swallow the tip of it, which had lodged in his throat, or spit it out. An instinctive cough made the decision for him. Distastefully, he picked the knot of tobacco off his tongue and dropped it into an ashtray. “All right,” he said, resigned to the inevitable. “Tell me about the God Machine.”

  Auberson was holding a HARLIE-printed summary in his hands, but he didn’t need it to answer this question. “It’s a model builder. It’s an ultimate model builder.”

  “All computers are model builders,” said Dorne. He was unimpressed.

  “Right,” agreed Auberson. “but not to the extent that this one will be. Look, a computer doesn’t actually solve problems; it merely manipulates models of them. A computer program is nothing more than a list of instructions—rules that describe the operation of the model. The machine follows the rules and manipulates the model to demonstrate what happens under a variety of conditions. If the model is accurate enough, we can apply the results of the simulation to the equivalent situation in the real world. We have a technical term for that result. We call it an ‘answer.’”

  Dorne did not smile at the joke. Auberson continued grimly, “The only limit to the size of the problem we can simulate is the size of the model the computer can handle. Theoretically, a computer could solve the world—if we could build a model big enough and a machine big enough to handle it. Failing that, we sacrifice accuracy.”

  “If we could build that big a model, it would be duplicating the world, wouldn’t it?”