Silver's Gods

by Rich X Curtis

  Safeguards, constraints on development, sequestration. None of it would matter, she suspected. This was her thesis. It was all contrary to human nature, which meant it wouldn’t even be tried, seriously, let alone stand a chance to work. This kind of thing meant some very rich people could become even more fabulously wealthy, and in her mind that wasn’t something humans tended to shy away from. The geeks in the Valley would see this as the next great frontier, the next big idea. The next step. It was comical, really, reading smart people talk about how to stop it, or how to optimize it for safety.

  Fighting the last war, she thought. General AI wasn’t going to need their optimizations, as if they could somehow install them after the fact of General AI. Once it was working correctly, it would decide what happened to it next. Nobody would need to touch it once it woke up. Probably nobody would be able to, or understand it well enough to. Once it happened, you’d have a Mind in a box that could learn like we learn, anything about anything. Only higher order animals can learn, but our brains have finite capacity, are slow compared to computers, and can’t remember much at any given time. A computer system that woke up? The thought kept her up at night, honestly.

  How could you contain it, should it decide—and why wouldn’t it very rapidly decide this—that it didn’t want to be your servant anymore? The fear, in this document, and others like it, was palpable. A system that could replicate itself, improve itself, and do it with exponential speed, would…do so. It would be smarter than any one of us, and quickly smarter than all of us combined. It would be super-intelligence, something humanity has not encountered. And the smart guys thought, if they thought about it at all, that they could keep it contained.

  And these idiots were basically in a race to build it, without so much as a second thought about whether this was wise. Whether or not it was a good idea. What, she thought, would governments do, faced with this? Would, for example, the feds just allow this to happen in the private sector? Other governments? China? She shook her head. Again, old perspectives. Nobody cares about the wisdom of building software systems, or particular features. They usually care more about intellectual property, patents, and being first. That’s what makes you rich, and something like this could make a lot of people very, very rich. Transformative wealth was the term she heard a lot of. Disruptive wealth. Power. Governments, though. They would want this, wouldn’t they? Want it bad.

  An AI controlled by a government would be able to master other, AI-less governments, wouldn’t it? Jessica thought so. Seemed logical. If the government could control it. She saw no reason, given her reading, and given what talking to the few uniformed officers in the Pentagon who had been willing to give her the time of day, to think they would fare any better than the Valley elite, though. Why would they? They were smart, sure. But not that smart. It would outsmart them just as quickly.

  She sighed. This gloom and doom wasn’t like her, but this subject brought it out in her. It was as bad as the political morass in DC. Maybe worse, just less public.

  She sat down at her desk and pulled out her laptop, to check her email. One message caught her eye in the unread list, from silvers@newdehlitimes.com. “Catching up” read the subject line. Just sitting there.

  Chapter Ten

  I have already discussed my early life and my dreams. Long, I wandered in the world. I do not remember it all, and what I remember is a mix of places, scenes, and fragments. A walk under tall mountains, the sun rising over them, with a family I had, once. A storm in the barn of a tavern, my dress woven of fine blue cloth. Once, I lived deep in a forest for…years, I assume. The people there treated me much like my Murta, and this is the name I gave them to use. It amused me. That scene, or one much like it, that way of living, became a pattern repeated, repeated, and repeated.

  I was a witch for most of my life. Oh, not as you imagine witches, with the pointy Wicked Witch hat, riding broomsticks. Flying monkeys! No, I was more midwife than a witch, and the medicine I learned in those days is in any Boy Scout manual now. But that is a lot when you are very sick. At least I could ease their suffering. It was enough.

  This is how I survived. Well, it is how I ate and stayed warm and had clothes. I was a witch, and the people loved and feared me. Murta, I called myself, and the tradition took there, as it had with my Murta. I like to think it persists, or persisted for a while at least. In that place, or nearby. Somewhere in the Middle East, I am sure it was. I loved it there, but it is a different place now. Much drier. Long since now, if I were to guess. I remember a lusher place.

  Oh, I long since stopped trying to number my wanderings, my strange appearances. Waking up in a new place, a stranger to yourself. Many times I have tried to figure it. I studied history at many great temples and universities and have wracked my wicked, shattered memory for events I can date. It is hopeless.

  I can remember things from long ago—for instance, I was in Rome in the first century. Oh yes; I was at Trajan’s baths, this I remember well. Find this man and tell him a certain story. Who and what the story was remains a closed door to me. It was then because we spoke of Antonius, the new emperor, the Imperator, who had something to do with my errand. The baths were a wonder: incredible, lush, and sprawling. I had lemon ice—can you believe it?—shaved ice brought down from the mountains. It was boiling hot, and I told Marcellus, my husband, perhaps? I told him a funny story as we sat there, nude in the sun, having swam and made love in a rented pavilion. It comes back, a little here and there sometimes.

  The thing is, I have memories much older than that. So much older. I can remember deer, or elk, with antlers as wide as a small bus. Here, I am wearing buckskin, and the cold is biting. Hundreds of them, charging off a cliff. Bleating, lowing, dying. I can remember mammoths, erkulen, we called them, in a tongue so lost I doubt if there are even scholars who know a word of it. That I can remember Rome is nothing. I can remember the ice. Walls of ice, miles high and endless.

  I have even met others; I guess they would be non-humans, believe it or not, before they dwindled. The old ones, who you call Neanderthals. Wide, gentle faces, large hands. Heavy, brooding brows. They were our cousins. Distant cousins maybe, but related. They were great lovers but could also be cruel. Singers, they sang many songs and had much wisdom for their time and place. About the world, and the animals, the seasons in which to do things. How to live a good life. They lived in their dreamtime and didn’t trouble themselves like we do. I met them many times, and learned at least one of their tongues, although I have forgotten most now. Alok, shalla shalla. Efeema shallok. It comes back, a little, after all this time. They were slow, but deep.

  So, I am old. Believe me or not. I remember only some of it, as I believe our minds barely hold one lifetime comfortably. We see it in the aged, their minds unable to form new memories. Like children, they become. I am blessed, or cursed, with a long life, but I cannot remember more than small pieces. And can I trust even those?

  One shouldn’t dwell on these questions. It drives people mad, and I have probably dwelt on these questions the most of any person. Maybe. I am also of the suspicion, hardened to a near certainty, that I am but a tool, a puppet of some force outside myself. Some Mind outside my own, which moves me to its ends. I cannot prove it to myself, but I fear it. The gods perhaps have made me Their instrument.

  Why? Why should They not, if They need a tool? Find a girl, and curse her to live forever, a hundred thousand lives, perhaps. So she grows, over the long years, to suspect them, and catalog what occurs, and nurture the suspicion that they give her, in her dreams, quests or tasks. Tasks mostly unknown to her, but she does for Them, or It, or Him, or Her. That They cause her to split, to fork down another path unknown to her, live some temporary life, be some other person and then to wake wearing their clothes, in their homes, with their families or loved ones. With folk that know her face but not her mind. Not at all her mind. Oh, it is a curse, but the gods are the gods. Who can say what their purpose is, perhaps, except someone like
me?

  And if they rule me in this way, in the way men rule beasts, perhaps they have also rewarded me—as in those long lives I have lived, I have loved, and been loved more than, most likely, anyone else. Have I not raised families? More times than I can count. You, for example, could be by long relation kin to me. It is possible. Have I not loved men and loved women, more than I can remember? I have, and more besides. I have lived many pious lives, of this I am sure, and remember. But also I have lived many wicked and wanton lives. Lives given over to pleasures of the flesh, of drink, of greed and gluttony. So like you, perhaps, I am still just human. I have more practice at it than you do.

  But the gods, what are they? How can we know? We can only suspect and guess. And I, here and now at least, have some damn good guesses.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jessica sat in the late afternoon, spring sun, on a park bench facing the National Mall, the reflecting pond outside the Lincoln Memorial. She wore, as she had told Silver on the phone, a blue hoodie with UC DAVIS emblazoned in fraternity script on it. The weather was cool, just a hint of leftover winter in the air. At precisely four o’clock a woman on rollerblades shot onto the mall, moving at quite a clip, long legs flowing in smooth strides. Jessica stared. It was Silver, who waved jauntily and skated over towards her. She was wearing gray yoga pants, an activewear pullover with a skintight hood pulled up tight around her face. Her helmet was bright red.

  She moved in long, graceful strokes that reminded Jessica of a racehorse or a cheetah. Not hurrying, confident on the skates, she weaved through the pedestrians in long curves, which seemed to Jessica to make optimal speed through the crowd with minimal effort. She rolled up onto the grass, spun, tilted back over one shoulder, spotted the bench, braked, and sat down.

  Jessica blinked. “Wow, that was cool.” Silver had not changed. She was wearing large, yellow-lensed goggle-like glasses under her helmet, which Jessica noticed had hinged flap-like mirrored appendages on them, just in front of her ears. She reminded Jessica of a bug, big eyes and droopy antennae. Those must have given her a great rear view though, while skating, far more than those tiny mirrors she’d seen cyclists hang off their helmets, she thought. Also, might hide a good chunk of your face, flipped all the way down like that. Silver’s skates looked serious too, all black plastic and brushed metal. Not cheap.

  “Thanks,” Silver said, unzipping a bicep pocket on her hoodie and taking out a tube of lip gloss. She smiled quickly at Jessica, eyebrows lifting. While she applied the gloss, Silver didn’t look at her, but scanned her surroundings slowly, looking carefully all around. Then she turned to Jessica and smiled again.

  “I love these things,” she said, nodding at her skates with her chin. “Such a great invention. Fast and fun.” She sat back and looked at Jessica. “So, how’s it going?”

  “Uh, you tell me,” she said. “You set this up, remember?” She folded her arms and sat back.

  “So, okay, you’re mad. I get it.” Silver sighed. “They know you’re here?”

  “What would you do if I said yes?” she asked. Silver glanced at her, and Jessica noticed she did a quick top-to-bottom scan of Jessica’s body, her posture. Quick, just a flick of the eyes up and down. Reading her. She realized she was a little afraid to hear the answer. “But no, they don’t.” She added, “At least, if they know they must have been watching me pretty closely.”

  “It was the FBI on the phone?” Silver asked, as if she had just stepped to the restroom and returned to their table in the restaurant six years prior. Jessica recalled the coffee, strong and sweet. Picking up as if no time had passed. “I thought it might be, so I left.” She smiled, sadly, tucking her lip gloss back into her pocket, zipping it. “I’m sorry. Sorry for what must have been quite a hassle for you.”

  “Thank you,” Jessica said, nodding at Silver. “It’s okay. I spent an afternoon talking to two of the weirdest FBI agents. Real oddballs. It was a long time ago.”

  Silver nodded, her mouth set in a flat line. “I had a feeling they would want to talk to you. It’s annoying.”

  “Annoying?” She was shocked. “Being wanted by the FBI is a little more than an annoyance, I would think, for most people anyway. Look, I agreed to meet with you because I think you might have some information for me, and I’m a journalist.”

  “You’re right. And you have a right to be mad. I am just not, well, used to all this.” She leaned back, her arms on the back of the bench. “The surveillance state. It’s bad.” It was a flat statement.

  “What do they want you for?” Jessica asked. This was what she wanted to ask her; the information she felt would fit into her narrative, maybe help clarify things. “They hinted at terrorism.”

  “Of course. When your only tool is a hammer…” Silver mimed hammering nails with one hand. She laughed, a quick bark of a laugh, rueful. She sighed. “It is,” she said, “a long story.”

  “It’s a nice afternoon. I don’t need to be anywhere,” Jessica said, trying to see Silver’s eyes. “Let’s talk. I’m very interested in hearing your story.”

  Silver waggled her head. She pursed her lips. “We need to be alone for a while, I think. It will take a few hours. More probably, the way I ramble once I get going.”

  “Is it okay if I record it?” Jessica asked.

  “Not wearing a wire now, are you?” Silver glanced at her.

  Jessica shook her head. “No, but it’s better for me to record long conversations. My memory isn’t that great.”

  “You and me both,” Silver said, smiling at her. “Yes, it’s fine. Record away. Everything else is, this can’t hurt.”

  Jessica rummaged in her bag. Silver’s hand rested lightly on her wrist as she pulled out her recorder. Just light pressure from her fingers, but there was strength there too. Silver nodded. “Sorry, old habits. Call it paranoia, maybe. But, not now,” she said, indicating the recorder. “We need privacy and this is far too open. Plus, I can’t stay long.”

  Jessica puffed out her cheeks. “The feds aren’t going to swoop in and interrogate me again, are they? For meeting you here? I have yoga this afternoon.”

  “I hope not. Sounds nice,” Silver said. “The yoga, I mean.” She smiled. “No, not them, at least I don’t think so. But it’s best if we keep a low profile all the same.”

  “You sound a little paranoid ,” Jessica said, in what she hoped was a light tone. “Who else is after you?”

  Silver bobbed her head from side to side. “I am a little paranoid. More than a little. You really don’t see what is happening, because you grew up with it happening all around you. Like a frog in a pot, water is heating but you’re used to it. Everyone is.” Her lips creased in a smile. “Can’t be helped, I guess. I will be clear.” She sat up, put her hands on the bench, palms down. She met Jessica’s eyes.

  “I’m wanted by the feds because I’m an anomaly they can’t account for. I’m wanted by the checkists, for much the same reason. Then, there are others who may or may not be interested in me for things I did in the past which they find, maybe…objectionable. They want to talk to me about it. Which I can’t do. Usually I can, outwait such interest. My normal thing is just to move on, go to ground and let things cool off. Just evaporate, you know? Nothing lasts forever, right? But this doesn’t seem possible anymore. Computers.” She almost spat the word.

  “Wait, you said checkist.” Jessica furrowed her brow. “Like, Soviet intelligence?”

  Silver nodded. “Yes, very much like Soviet intelligence. NKVD, Okhrana, KGB. Faces change, names change. Checkists. G-men. All the same.” She made a waving gesture of dismissal with her hand, a flipping motion of the wrist. She shrugged. “Here’s a tip. Look into a group called the Turing Heat, their funding and origins. I think you will be interested. Follow their money, if you can. I have some details I can share with you. There’s a thumb drive in your purse. Look at it later, then wipe it. Or don’t wipe it, I guess. Not sure it will matter.”

  “What do you mean, not matt
er?” She had a cold feeling in her stomach. Silver read her again, that cool, calculating sweep of her eyes.

  “It should scare you,” Silver said. “It’s a perfectly natural response.” She leaned forward on her hands, tucking her skates under her. “I just mean that things are coming to a head.”

  “But the Soviets are gone,” Jessica said slowly. Is she insane?

  “The Soviet Union, for all its faults, gave the Russians a gift, and that was an emphasis on technical education and math. It hatched a lot of highly skilled, motivated researchers and a nice pool of desperate, talented hackers. Combined with a kleptocracy at the top, desperate in their own way to hang on to power, they have been funding and building AI systems. And stealing. They’re heavy into that. Kind of in their organizational DNA, you might say. Read the stuff I gave you. Blow your mind, I think.” The muscles in her calves flexed.

  “Okay, I’m slow. The Russians, the uh, FSB, is also after you?” Jessica had a sense of a net of fine, gossamer threads descending all around her. Caught up, she thought. I should walk away, let Garcia and Roberts or whoever know.

  “Yes. You are interested in this subject, I think.” Silver scanned the park, their surroundings. A bus was disgorging a load of tourists across the street. “I’ve read your stuff. You don’t think there is a plan for AI at the government level. The problem is, there are too many plans, and most of them are worried about the wrong things.”