‘But what kind of functions would they be programmed with? Hmm? And there we have the fundamental problem with this whole adventure. You see, in nature there is a golden rule: use it or lose it.’
She summoned these five words to the screen, in letters so large that the audience seemed to collectively lean back in their seats.
‘All the supercomputers in the world aren’t going to achieve anything if your horse is quite happy with what it already has, thank you very much. You’re not going to develop any additional mental muscles by standing in a field all day eating grass.’
I found this somewhat ironic, since most of my best ideas had come to me whilst standing in a field eating grass.
‘It is a mistake we often make, assuming that higher intelligence is always going to be an advantage. In nature there is no such thing as clever or stupid. There is only efficiency. Everything is exactly as intelligent as it needs to be, and anything surplus to requirements is going to be ignored. That’s not to say horses aren’t highly intelligent of course. One of the reasons we chose this particular species of animal is that they have a well-developed spatial memory and social structure, along with their capacity to bond with humans.’
I would have called it a capacity to tolerate humans myself. As for the actual reasons for choosing a horse for their experiment, from what Tim had told me the selection process was more trial and error than Betty was likely to admit. In many cases it was quite literally a process of elimination, as candidates either died from the surgery or went so hopelessly insane that it was a mercy to destroy them. I doubted there would be any slides about that.
‘So, our challenge now was to devise an environment that would encourage our horse to exercise its new simulated brain cells. We had to be careful that we weren’t just training Buttercup to follow scripted routines. All our exercises had to be voluntary and have a degree of flexibility should we need to follow wherever our horse wanted to take us.’
The next slide appeared, a photo of my familiar video screen and control stick.
‘You’ve heard of the stick and the carrot, yes? Well, this is our version. Our very own video games console for horses. The stick there is to control the elements on the screen, and the carrot is a virtual one. We used this device to give Buttercup various simple problems to solve, the first one being: what the hell is this stick here and what am I meant to do with it?’
There was now a short video clip of me clumsily grappling with the control stick between my teeth, followed by a montage of some of my early achievements.
‘Once Buttercup was familiar with the controls, we could embark on a programme of visual puzzles, designed to test basic cognitive abilities such as spatial awareness and pattern recognition, all the time steadily increasing the difficulty of the tests and monitoring the growth in Buttercup’s artificial brain extension. You can see here the results after the first month, and already there has been significant progress. But to really test our theories we had to start getting more abstract. I wonder if any of you know what one carrot plus one carrot equals? Hmm? Well, here’s a clip of Professor Buttercup solving that very problem.’
There was a ripple of activity in the audience as the video played. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or disbelief, but seeing a horse adding one carrot to one carrot and making two carrots had certainly made some kind of impression.
‘Our hope was that the symbolic logic necessary to express these mathematical concepts would evolve into the beginnings of a shared language. Horses already have quite a well-developed system of communication amongst themselves, as would any animals who live in groups. They don’t tend to use pictures of carrots, of course, but Buttercup adapted very well to our visual puzzles, and it wasn’t long before certain symbols and images could be used to express particular ideas.
‘Building from those foundations and increasing the capacity of our virtual brain, we could begin to construct a mutual language between horse and human. And I have to emphasise here the importance of Buttercup’s role in this. Communication is very much a two-way process. Buttercup now has a vocabulary of nearly two hundred words, along with the ability to form simple sentences. That might not sound like our horse is going to be writing any best-selling novels, but you might be surprised how far you can get with only a few words to play with.’
The projection behind her went blank, and a disconcerting atmosphere of apprehension descended on the room as Betty stepped silently towards the audience and looked them all in the eye.
‘You might be surprised indeed, ladies and gentlemen, as we have arranged a very special demonstration for you now. It is time to share with you the results of our research. Straight from the horse’s mouth, you might say. If we can have the audience lights up slightly, thank you.’
An audience of nervous faces emerged from the gloom.
‘Thank god, finally.’ Tim swivelled in his chair to check the video camera one last time, then glanced in my direction. ‘It’s show-time, mate.’
Q & A
‘Are you there, Buttercup?’ Betty called into the darkness. The screen sprang back into life and there I was, looming over the auditorium like a nightmare, and the audience shrank in their seats. Tim was lurking outside of the camera’s view, and with an empty stable behind me it seemed almost as if I was filming myself.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to our very special guest, joining us live from the stable. Buttercup, can you hear me?’
There was a moment of silence as Tim typed at his computer, translating her words into horse-speak. Not that it was even necessary at this point; I could hear and understand every word she said. Nevertheless, I responded in the limited fashion that was expected of me, nibbling my control stick to formulate my reply.
‘I hear you, Betty,’ my voice echoed across the auditorium. The audience was stunned into a deathly silence. I was not physically speaking the words, it was an artificial voice generated by the computer, broadcast in clear neutral tones that emanated from the screen, though I’m not sure if that made it any less disturbing for those watching.
‘Thank you so much for joining us, Buttercup.’ Betty seemed comically small as she addressed my projected image. ‘How are you today?’ she asked.
‘Bored,’ I replied. ‘Waiting,’ I added.
‘Oh dear! Well, thank you for being so patient, my dear.’ She turned to face the bubbling voices of the audience. ‘And now, I would like to give you the opportunity to speak to Buttercup, so if any of you have any questions you are dying to ask a horse, your time has finally arrived. We have some assistants with microphones roving amongst you, so please raise your hand if you have a question for our horse.’
The noise of the spectators faded into silence as every pair of eyes searched the room for signs of volunteers.
‘Anybody? Hmm? Nobody has any questions for dear old Buttercup?’
Still the hands remained firmly at their sides. It seemed that people weren’t ready to talk to a horse just yet. Perhaps they felt the pressure of speaking on behalf of their species, and didn’t want to say anything that might appear foolish or trivial. Possibly they were deliberating whether or not this was all an elaborate hoax. Or maybe they just didn’t have anything they wanted to say to a horse. Eventually one brave hand went up.
‘Ah, there we go, thank you, madam.’ Betty filled the time as the microphone threaded its way towards a stern-looking woman with strange hair. Or perhaps it was a strange hairy hat. ‘Now, while we wait for the microphone I’ll just explain how this is going to work. When you ask your question my colleague in the stable will manually translate it into the language that our horse will understand, whereupon Buttercup will have to go through a similar process in order to respond, so there will be a slight delay while all that happens. Also when asking questions of our horse, please try to keep in mind the limited vocabulary we have to work with.’
‘Hello?’ The strange-haired woman in the audience looked up as h
er voice boomed through the loudspeakers above her.
‘Hello there, my dear,’ replied Betty. ‘What would you like to ask Buttercup?’
The woman hesitated for a few moments.
‘Well I actually have some questions for you, Dr Brown…’
‘I would be delighted to answer any questions at the end, my dear. In the meantime, is there anything our horse can help you with?’
‘OK.’ She paused again. ‘Could I ask Buttercup… Buttercup, if you can hear me, can you take a step forward please?’
All eyes turned to the screen, Betty’s included. After a delay I gave my response.
‘Move near why?’
Betty turned back to the questioner in the audience with raised eyebrows. The woman seemed a touch taken aback.
‘I’d like to see you better,’ she clarified. ‘Can you step forward so I can see you?’
I mulled this over for a moment and responded.
‘If you move near me, then you see more.’ I blinked slowly. There was a laugh from somewhere in the audience, and the woman shook her strangely-haired head in disappointment.
‘How do we know this is real?’ she asked. ‘That question goes to Buttercup and Dr Brown.’
‘I think that might be a little too philosophical for our horse, my dear, but I can assure you all that this is definitely happening. You are definitely talking to a horse—’
‘But how can you prove that?’ the woman interrupted. ‘All I see is a horse chewing on the end of a stick. You could train any horse to do that. How do we know someone else isn’t making up these answers?’
She had a point there. For all the interaction they were getting, my image might as well have been a pre-recorded video.
‘Well,’ Betty replied, addressing the whole audience, ‘this demonstrates the kind of problems we all face with any form of communication. How real is it? Hmm? How reliable is the information…’ She returned her focus to the woman with the microphone. ‘Perhaps you just aren’t asking the right questions?’ she said with a shrug.
The woman handed back her microphone, muttering her disapproval to her companions.
‘Who among us has the right questions to ask this horse?’ Betty scanned the audience. ‘Or indeed any questions at all?’
‘Hi…’ the voice of a man echoed through the chamber. He waved his microphone in the air to indicate his location. One of the cameras that were filming this event zoomed in on his face, revealing the kind of beard that most sentient creatures would consider entirely unnecessary.
‘Hello, my dear, do you have a question you’d like to ask Buttercup?’
‘Yes… I’d like to ask Buttercup… Buttercup. Are you aware of what these people have done to you?’ The audience mumbled.
‘That’s an interesting question. We may need to break it down a bit before we feed it to our horse. Establish a bit of context… let’s see… I think first we need to find out whether Buttercup feels different to other horses.’ Betty thought for a moment. ‘Buttercup, do you like horses?’
I snorted. ‘Horses boring. Horses talking less. Horses thinking less,’ I said.
‘I see. And you like thinking more?’ Betty asked me.
‘Thinking more is good,’ I replied.
‘How are you thinking more, Buttercup? Or actually, let me rephrase that… If “what”, then Buttercup is thinking more?’
Tim cast a concerned glance at me as he typed the linguistic equation. I considered my answer, wondering how much truth I should give away. I was fairly sure Betty didn’t realise what I knew, that humans had given me these gifts, and it was tempting to embarrass her in front of this crowd. But no, not yet.
‘If “carrot” then Buttercup is thinking more,’ I said.
‘Well,’ said Betty, turning back to the audience, ‘it seems that it is all thanks to my performance-enhancing carrots. A fair assumption to make I suppose. Only the finest carrots receive my seal of approval.’
The voice of the annoyingly bearded man cut in.
‘Why don’t you tell Buttercup the truth, Dr Brown?’ He was smirking with amusement. Clearly it didn’t bother him either way, though his sentiment seemed to inspire some serious nods of concurrence from others in the audience. Despite this, the majority of those watching didn’t appear to know what to think, or what exactly it was they were even witnessing.
‘Another interesting question,’ Betty replied, ‘and the time will come when we will share the truth with Buttercup. But first we have to keep the world as simple as possible while our horse is exploring and understanding it. Once we have some solid mental foundations to build on, then we can start introducing more psychologically challenging ideas.’
‘That’s a nice answer,’ the bearded man replied. I couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Sarcasm was still something I struggled to decipher at this point, and even now it remains one of the most difficult human exchanges to understand. Humans might be surprised to learn how complicated it really is, since it comes so naturally to them, but to an outsider such as myself sarcasm has so many layers of context and cultural encryption folded into it that it is almost like a secret language within a language, which requires you to understand not just the meaning of the words, but what is going on in the heads of everyone involved.
‘May I ask Buttercup another question?’ he asked.
‘Please do,’ Betty replied, with what was almost unmistakably one hundred per cent sarcasm.
‘Buttercup, do you like humans?’ A nervous hush whispered through the room as the audience prepared themselves to receive my summary judgement. Perhaps these people felt a twinge of guilt for the way horses had been enslaved by humanity, or at least a sense of embarrassment for some of the stupid things they made us do. One of the most basic and powerful human drives is the need for approval. Horses have it too. It is part of the herd instinct, and one of the main reasons for the success of both our species. All that higher intelligence humans are so proud of is mostly there just to work out what other humans are thinking about them.
I decided I had made them wait long enough for my answer.
‘Humans shape wrong. Humans smell bad. If “carrots” then humans good.’
The man with the microphone laughed, his beard waggling as he did so.
‘Buttercup isn’t afraid to tell us the truth at least,’ he said. The audience had dissolved into chattering.
‘Well, yes…’ Betty struggled for words. ‘Obviously tact and courtesy are behaviours shaped by consequence. I’m sure over time Buttercup will learn to appreciate the economy of truthfulness, particularly if friendship is going to be measured in carrots.’
The noise of the audience was threatening to overwhelm the proceedings, but fell quiet as the microphoned man spoke once again.
‘Dr Brown, perhaps I may be permitted to ask you a question or two?’
‘Are there no more questions for Buttercup?’ Betty scoured the room for a sign of rescue, but there was none. ‘Well, alright, but first I would just like to thank Buttercup for spending a little time educating us in the ways of being a horse. Thank you, Buttercup,’ she said, saluting the giant video screen.
Tim turned to me and shrugged. It appeared that horse-time was over, and perhaps that would be to everyone’s benefit.
‘I will now answer any questions the audience might have.’ Hands immediately sprang up in several places, but the man with the annoying beard continued.
‘Dr Brown, I would like to ask whether you have considered the ethical implications of this research. You say, for example, that you thank Buttercup for teaching us about being a horse. Can you honestly say that this creature even is a horse any more?’
Betty opened her mouth to speak, but the man carried on.
‘I mean, creating intelligence in a laboratory is an interesting field of research perhaps, but this is essentially a human intelligence, is it not?’
‘A human intelligence?’ She looked quizzically at the screen b
ehind her. ‘No, this is definitely a horse, my dear. And yes we are very well aware of the ethical implications of this—’
‘I don’t think you are,’ he cut in.
Betty gave the man and his beard a sweet smile of death and hatred, and silently waited for him to continue.
‘I don’t think you are considering the ethical implications of this experiment, are you, Dr Brown? You might be aware of the ethical implications, but it’s not quite enough to just acknowledge them and then go ahead with your experiment without any kind of open discussion of where this might lead. Is it?’
Betty took a deep calming breath.
‘I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean, my dear. What exactly is it that you feel is problematic with this research?’
‘Dr Brown,’ the man almost laughed, ‘you have taken an animal and given it the equivalent of a human mind. Should it not then acquire the same rights that we all enjoy as members of a civilised society?’ This was met with some unexpected laughter from somewhere in the audience, though it was hard to tell which side of the argument it was defending.
The strain of conversing amicably with her fellow human beings was beginning to show on Betty’s face.
‘These are fair points,’ she said, somewhat unconvincingly. ‘However, this is a complicated situation. What you have to consider is that this intelligent consciousness you see here exists entirely within our computer simulation. The horse is effectively directing our computer software, but if you take away the software then all you are left with is a horse.’
‘So you are telling us this is an artificial intelligence, written by a horse?’ The man raised his eyebrows. ‘Does the horse own the copyright to that software, I wonder?’
Horse Destroys the Universe Page 11