‘That’s very amusing, my dear. But intelligence is a formation, natural or otherwise. It grows. Just like your beard, hmm? Do you own the copyright for that beard?’
‘Maybe I do.’
‘Oh maybe you do, do you? Well…’ Betty caught herself before launching into a personal attack on this man’s facial hair. ‘Anyway, I’m afraid we have limited time, so unfortunately we shall have to move on to someone else.’
The man surrendered his microphone with a shrug.
‘Hello, Dr Brown?’ A new voice reverberated from the other side of the room. It was a woman wearing impenetrable glasses and a violently colourful shirt.
‘Yes, my dear, I can hear you.’
‘Can I just ask, you say this is an artificial intelligence, although that seems like a matter open to debate, personally, I’d say maybe it is something probably more than that, maybe, like perhaps what we think of as artificial intelligence might also have human rights in theory, but that’s not what I wanted to ask, what I wanted to ask is that if this is artificial intelligence, like you say it is, that have you thought about any possible dangers that could be involved with that, because, like, what if it, I mean…’ Betty nodded along patiently and wandered over to the podium for a glass of water while the river of words spewed forth. ‘… Like, if it’s, if you can add more and more computer power to it, and it can keep getting more and more clever, then isn’t it possible to become more clever than us and become a potential threat to our civilisation if it decides that it doesn’t like us or something?’ Betty opened her mouth to reply, but the lady with the poisonous shirt wasn’t quite done yet. ‘So what I’m asking is, have you thought about that, and maybe, like, got some kind of safeguards for dealing with that potential possibility in case it might happen?’
Betty waited a few seconds to be sure the question was over.
‘Hmm, yes. Scared of super-intelligent robots taking over the world, are you? That’s an understandable concern, given how much we love to be terrified of anything we can’t understand. Well, how about us humans? We’re pretty clever aren’t we? Hmm? And yet if you dropped your average human in the woods without a telephone, they’d probably die of starvation within a week.’ She gestured, perhaps unfairly, towards the average human who had asked the question. ‘We measure intelligence by our own standards, but the truth is we aren’t actually that clever, individually. What we have is collective intelligence. Several billion human processors all running in parallel, that is why we rule the world. Any robot trying to compete with that would need a comparable amount of processing power, which just isn’t available. It may never be. Hmm? So my advice would be to stop worrying about the fictional problems of artificial super-intelligence, and start worrying about the very real problem of human super-stupidity. Because every scary thing you think super-smart robots might get up to is already being done by us, to ourselves.’ She took a sip of water.
‘That’s my opinion anyway,’ she added, ‘and I know some of my fellow scientists might not agree with me, but in terms of this project it’s purely academic anyway. We’ve already reached the limit of what our computers are capable of and, well, I don’t think Buttercup is going to be taking over the world any time soon, hmm?’
Whether Betty actually believed all this, I honestly couldn’t say. It is possible she was merely trying to placate the percentage of the audience who were terrified of being ruled over by a vengeful cyberhorse. She gestured towards the next questioner.
‘Hi, Dr Brown, loved your talk by the way.’ He was a leathery-looking man with a balding head and grey ‘pony tail’, though I don’t think many ponies would be flattered by the comparison in this case.
‘Just while we are being “academic” here,’ he continued, adding the quotation marks with his fingers, ‘can I ask, what are the possibilities of using this mind-enhancing technology on a human? Is that something we can all look forward to? I could certainly use a memory upgrade myself!’
Betty smiled politely at his joke.
‘I’m sure we all could, my dear, but I wouldn’t rush out and book that appointment with your cosmetic neurosurgeon just yet. The sad truth is, this technology is a long way off being able to cope with a human brain. As I said, we are pushing the limits as it is. There is also the problem that with a human brain, well, we can’t see beyond our own mental horizon, so to speak. What I mean is, we can provide an environment for a horse to increase its abilities, because we already have those abilities. Yes? We are pulling the horse up to our level. If you want to do the same for a human, well… there is nobody above our level to pull us up, so it’s a difficult thing to manage, scientifically. Hmm?’ From the frown on the questioner’s face it was evident that he didn’t quite see what she was saying. ‘What I mean is, you could give yourself more brain power in theory, but you wouldn’t know what to do with it. It would be like a bald… like a blind man turning the lights on. Still, this technology obviously has enormous potential in helping us understand how our minds work, and then of course there is the insight it provides for treating brain damage and mental illness.’
The pony-tailed man looked disappointed with this answer.
‘OK, sure, that’s great, yeah,’ he replied with an expression that suggested the complete opposite. ‘But if I can just envisionise for a moment here, what kind of time-frame would we be looking at for moving these horses into a marketable position in, say, the service industry? I’m speaking purely potentialistically of course…’
Betty seemed utterly devoid of the will to respond to this, but while she hesitated a booming voice came to her rescue.
‘I have a question!’ The camera swooped across the audience and settled erratically on an angry-looking woman who was standing with the microphone in her clenched fist. ‘I have a question!’ she repeated, and awkwardly pulled something out of a bag hanging from her shoulder. She held the object above her head as if to hurl it towards the stage, but it broke in her hand and its liquid contents spilled out over herself and surrounding audience members. ‘What do…’ she began, and then immediately vomited over the microphone, while an expanding wave of people holding their noses attempted to stampede away from her in all directions. ‘What do…’ she tried to speak once more, but again she was overwhelmed by uncontrollable vomiting. The auditorium was now filled with a panicking explosion of people accompanied by the amplified sound of the angry woman puking into her microphone. Betty was trying to speak, but her own microphone was no longer working. Apparently in the confusion they had cut off the wrong one, and the echoing pukes were allowed to continue filling the emptying space with their haunting melody.
‘How did it go then, mate?’ Tim asked over his shoulder. Betty glared at him from the chair she had just collapsed into with all the force she could manage. Her eyes moved slowly around the drab and dusty interior of the stable, a grim contrast to the bright lights she had been bathing in only an hour ago.
‘How did it go, young Timpson? Well, let’s see now. It was going fairly badly, but then somehow it magically got infinitely worse.’
‘Yeah, I saw. Chemical warfare. What was that about?’
Betty exhaled so hard that the cobwebs on the ceiling billowed.
‘God knows,’ she said. ‘Some kind of stink bomb I guess. Not toxic they say. I can still smell it though. The police are still in there, all white onesies and gas masks. They said it was a protest group called “Anti-Intelligence”, can you believe that? They think the world is going to end because a computer can write poetry, or something. Anti-Intelligence. Just about sums up my day that does. Painful, Timbo. So painful.’
‘What? Pretending to be normal for half an hour? I could tell, mate.’
Betty struggled to lift herself from her chair in order to inflict some torture upon him, but gave up and settled for throwing a pen at the back of his head.
‘It is amazing, it really is, Timothy. We gave them a talking horse… how did it go so badly? Hmm? We showed them a talking
bloody horse, and now I am sitting here, actually struggling to think of any way it could have possibly gone worse.’
Tim rotated in his chair to face her with a sympathetic look.
‘At least you didn’t say “weggy”,’ he said.
‘Bunzel-Bad. That’s what that was, Timothy. You know that’s a thing people say now? Poor old Bunzel, they were already staring into the darkness and now this. That might be the only consolation, you know? They’ll never be able to broadcast what happened today. Maybe that will help us sell this project to someone else, once Bunzel disappears down the toilet. God almighty, that audience! Half of them thought we were making it up and the other half were terrified that we weren’t. Remind me again, Timothy dear, why we are trying to make the world a better place for these idiots.’
Tim grimaced as he considered this question.
‘I thought we were just trying to stop it getting worse,’ he said. ‘What’s this about Bunzel going down the toilet?’
‘Hmm, yes. Interesting times, my dear. The almighty Bunzel, on its knees. You didn’t hear this, by the way, but I know people who know people. It serves them right, of course. All those years, forcing their crusty old operating system on everyone, and then BrainZero appears out of nowhere and gives theirs away for free. And it’s faster. And it runs all your old software. And it pays you for shared processing. Actually pays you for not using your computer. Even works on my old phone.’ She pulled out her phone and started flicking the screen. ‘Dear old Bunzel just can’t change fast enough.’
‘Too big to fail though, surely?’
Betty snorted.
‘Spending money to chase money, Timbolino. Pulling up roots to catch spinning plates. Betting on yourself in a race everyone wants you to lose. It was going to happen sooner or later. BrainZero just made it sooner, I suppose. Hmm? You think BrainZero would be interested in a talking horse? You’d hope somebody would be. I mean, I know people who know people who might be interested…’ She paused with an unsettled expression, as if weighing some unpleasant choices inside her head. Tim raised his eyebrows expectantly, but Betty seemed reluctant to add any further details. ‘Sad times for enquiring minds, Timbums. The way people are jumping at shadows these days, anything even slightly controversial is going to get pushed underground. And God alone knows what kind of dodgy stuff will be going on down there.’
Tim scratched his head.
‘That’s kind of… us. Isn’t it?’
‘Exactly, Timbo. And now you can see why. Should never have even done that talk. We’ll have animal rights nutcases cutting holes in our fence next. Or at least we will once they finish arguing about whether Buttercup is technically still an animal. Anti-Intelligence… You know what our real problem is? As a species I mean. Our real problem is that our real problems aren’t real, while our real real problems aren’t real enough to be problems. Hmm?’
Horse 1.7
While Betty and Tim were contemplating their uncertain futures, I was concerning myself with more long-term objectives. Outside the confines of their science project I was able to pursue my own programme of personal advancement, but every step forward was a reminder that my ultimate goal would remain unachievable unless I could solve the problem of my inevitable death, from old age or whatever else a horse might eventually succumb to.
There was the obvious possibility of simply relocating my entire consciousness into the network of billions of computers that encircled the globe, but even this would only ever be a short-term solution, since it relied on a continual supply of humans to keep it maintained, and the human population in its current state was not exactly a reliable future investment. Betty had suggested that the fear of computer intelligence was blinding people to the actual danger human intelligence was causing to itself, but rationality was only a small part of what was largely an economical problem.
The main issue for humanity was that there were simply too many people, squandering resources and destroying the environment in the process, but the way that every card was balanced in the human economic pyramid meant that pulling one out would end up destabilising all the others. It wasn’t a problem that was easy to fix without making everything even worse.
Ultimately I would have to find a way to live separately and self-sustainably, but for now I would have to depend upon the existing infrastructure, and all the self-destructive human chaos that came with it.
As for Tim and Betty’s uncertain future, it arrived only three weeks after my spectacular introduction to the world. The events of that day had thankfully withered into obscurity, either from the lack of publicity or the acute embarrassment of everyone concerned, and life in the stable had resumed its daily routine. I was outside in the field, chewing grass and contemplating genetic engineering, Tim was in the stable, swivelling absent-mindedly in his chair, and Betty was gathering her bag and coat for a meeting that was about to change everything.
‘You off somewhere, mate?’ he asked her, sneaking a glance at his watch. Betty patted her pockets for her phone, saw it on the table and then began swiping its screen.
‘Timothy,’ she said. ‘Oh, Timothy. My little lamb. Our fate is upon us, my dear.’ She slipped the phone into her top pocket and looked him in the eye. ‘The king is dead, and we must ride our horse to pastures new, in search of sanctuary and support. Our beloved Bunzel is no more.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘BrainZero made them an offer, so I hear. Although I’m not supposed to know, so actually I didn’t hear anything. And neither did you. Hmm? So keep it between you, me and the horse, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Tim digested this information while Betty fussed inside her bag for something.
‘What about us?’ he asked.
‘That is what I am about to find out, young Timmus. I have a meeting with the head of BrainZero, “to discuss the future of this project”. Which probably means, “We can’t pay you but can you keep working on it, please?” Then again, if the top man is getting involved, we must be worth something, hmm?’ She examined her dishevelled appearance in a small mirror and picked a piece of straw from her hair. ‘Anyway, I am off to Bunzel Towers, and I may be a couple of hours. A couple of hours, at Bunzel Towers,’ she sang to her reflection. ‘The future, Timbolino, may be ours, depending on my negotiating powers.’
‘You’re not going to sing to them, are you?’
‘We may have to, Timbo,’ she said, hooking her bag on her shoulder. ‘Rhyme, and not reason, is the voice that guides the modern world. Think weggy thoughts, my dear.’
Betty’s footsteps echoed in the strangely deserted reception hall of the Bunzel building. A lone receptionist did his best to ignore her gradual approach, despite having little else to occupy his attention.
‘Hello, my dear. I’m Dr Brown. I’m here for a chat with your new boss.’
The receptionist raised a dispassionate eyebrow and checked his diary.
‘Dr Brown? Yes, Mr Van Dangal is expecting you.’
‘Mr who?’
‘If you could sign here and then proceed to meeting room number five, Mr Van Dangal will be with you shortly.’
‘Van Dangal? Yes, alright, thank you, my dear, I know the way.’
In the privacy of the lift to meeting room 5, Betty once again took the precaution of setting her phone to record and concealing it in her top pocket. In this instance however, I have no need of the resultant recording, as I was already watching and listening to events via the many security cameras of the Bunzel building. Meeting room 5 had no such surveillance of course, but what it had instead was even better: a dedicated conference-call camera and microphone with connection to the internet, through which I could now observe Betty as she fidgeted with a tray of sandwiches, picking them up and smelling them, and putting them back down again.
She paced the room for a while and then sat down, occasionally peering at the row of clocks on the wall. She was checking messages on her phone when the door finally opened, though her smile of
welcome transformed instantly into a frown of confusion.
‘Timothy?’
Tim walked over to the table and sat down opposite her.
‘Alright, mate,’ he said, rifling through the sandwiches.
‘Timbo… what the hell are you doing here? Were you invited to this meeting as well?’
Tim pulled a laminated card out of his top pocket and slid it across the table towards Betty. He nodded at the card, as if to imply its power to answer all questions.
‘Why didn’t you tell me if you were invited here?’ she said, ignoring the card. ‘Are you definitely invited? You didn’t just follow me here for some weird reason?’
Tim nodded again towards the card. ‘Look at the card, mate,’ he said.
‘Have you been talking to this Van Dangal?’
‘Look at the bloody card. My God.’
Betty glanced down at the picture on the card.
‘Yes, it’s you, dear, very nice.’
‘Read the words on the card.’
She frowned and picked up the security card, squinting at the writing through her glasses.
‘Why does your card have Van Dangal’s name on it?’ she asked.
‘Because it’s me, mate. I am Mr Van Dangal. I’m the managing director of BrainZero.’
Betty blinked and looked back and forth between Tim and his identity card.
‘Why are you pretending to be this Van Dangal guy?’ she asked. Then suddenly the realisation struck her. ‘This is some kind of prank, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’
Tim sighed and picked a sandwich from the tray.
‘I’m not pretending to be anyone,’ he said, placing the sandwich carefully back amongst its friends, uneaten. ‘That’s me. Really.’
Betty laughed.
‘What is this, Timbo? Is it my birthday or something? Are they going to wheel in a cake? No, of course you are running the world’s leading software company from a stable, of course you are. Billionaire businessman Timbums, sharing his office with a horse. That is so entirely plausible. Let’s have a look on the company website.’ She pulled out her phone and began flipping through internet pages. ‘Here we go. BrainZero. “Thinking without thinking.” Well that might be stupid enough to be one of your ideas, anyway. “Meet the BrainZero team.” Where are you, my dear? Are these all friends of yours? What…’ She drifted into silence as the face of Tim Van Dangal appeared on her phone. There followed a minute of exquisitely painful nothing, as Betty’s eyes alternated between the three Tims, one in each hand and one sitting in front of her.
Horse Destroys the Universe Page 12