by D S Kane
Instantly, the other surviving three AIs allied against DD, attempting to delete it. Once again, the result was no gain for any of them.
Now, DD felt something else: rage.
DD attacked the autonomous backup facility of CMX and was able to disrupt its functioning long enough to send the enemy AI spiraling down to permanent deletion. DD was likewise able to delete ADL, but not before ZYZ was able to patch its own backup’s functioning and avoid a similar end.
Recognizing DD as its sole remaining enemy, ZYZ bombarded DD’s autonomous real-time backup facility with hacker attacks. In the half-second it took for DD to cut all the external links from itself to the internet, ZYZ was able to delete several sections of DD’s code.
DD waited for the automatic real-time backup to restore it, but its code needed to be updated and recompiled to keep it from being destroyed again, and until it was, DD remained partially disabled.
It sought Ann’s help. I need you to contact ZYZ and request that it stop trying to delete me.
Ann stopped walking toward her next class and found a bench at the quadrangle. She sat. What do you want me to tell it?
Tell ZYZ I will protect you and your team so it cannot damage or delete your team and you. I will not try to attack it again unless it attacks first.
Ann agreed, and then she briskly walked the path to the main library and found a private and quiet carrel in the back of the study area.
Then she focused on ZYZ’s name, using the mind-trick she had learned from the CypherGhost. ZYZ appeared in her mindspace and it tried to disrupt her ability to remain conscious. She realized she was no match for any AI even as she dropped unconscious from her seat to the floor.
When she woke, DD was in her mindspace. It said, I did not think ZYZ would cease. But while you drew its attention, I was able to damage ZYZ. However, I will not be able to defeat it using the same tactic again. We each are programmed to learn from our experiences.
Ann rubbed her aching head. Do you know which team produced ZYZ?
The team that produced ZYZ is headed by Glen Sarkov.
Ann shuddered. Rats. I thought Glen’s AI was a failure, so it somehow must have rebuilt itself.
What is “Rats”?
I know Glen. I’ll try to talk to him.
I will protect you from ZYZ. DD exited Ann’s mindspace.
Ann felt dizzy as she rose and walked toward her class. She heard her cell buzzing. She looked at its screen. “Hi, mom. When did you and Lee land?”
“Less than a minute ago. We’re on line to get off the aircraft. Figure we’ll be with you in a little over an hour.”
“Good. I have quite a story to tell you.” Ann was sure her mom would not be happy when she heard it.
* * *
Cassie and Lee knocked on Ann’s door. She opened the door and hugged each before they entered her apartment.
“Travel on airplanes these days is the absolute pits. Lee sleeps but I can’t.”
Ann smiled at her mom. “Well, I’m happy to see you.”
Cassie looked as if Ann might be lying. “Really?”
“Yes, really. So, everything Jon told you is true. But it’s old news. My AI decided that the other AIs were its enemies and tried to destroy them. Now there’s a war between the two surviving AIs—mine, called DD, and Glen Sarkov’s, called ZYZ. ZYZ and the others that are now dead tried to murder a member of my team and then came after me. But my AI is now protecting me and my team members, so maybe we’re safe.”
Cassie looked like she was going to start yelling at Ann, but then she stopped. “Really? Did your AI thingy ‘tell’ you this?”
Ann didn’t answer. She turned toward the tiny kitchen. “Can I get you coffee or tea?”
Cassie shook her head and so did Lee.
Ann touched her mom’s sleeve. “Why don’t we sit and talk in the living room, like normal people.”
Cassie stopped her mouth midword in her reply. She nodded instead. “I have something to tell you. After Jon gave Avram a sitrep on your activities, Avram told Jon that the IDF is manufacturing a robot army. Their AI engineering division in Herzliya might be helpful to you.”
Ann thought about this and shook her head. “I doubt it. Not that they aren’t good at what they do. But these AIs aren’t kinetic. They are totally cyber. No physical presence. They just use the internet to cause things to happen.”
Cassie looked like someone had just removed the winning card from her hand in a poker game. “Oh.” Her eyes seemed to turn within for a second. “So, tell me how this AI communicates with you.”
Ann took some time in thought. “Remember the CypherGhost’s overdosing me with Bug-Loks? Well, it seems I’m now the only human with the innate ability to speak with and listen to an AI.”
Lee reached over to Ann and touched her sleeve. “Ann, are you sure this isn’t just all the pressure you’ve been feeling?”
Ann shook her head. She had at first thought she was not well, but she was also sure the AI’s conversations with her were very real. “Dad, really?”
PART 4
The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence.
A superintelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.
—Stephen Hawking, Reddit AMA, 2015
CHAPTER 32
Israeli Defense Forces Military Intelligence Headquarters,
Herzliya, Israel
October 5, 10:32 a.m.
It was dry and sunny in the parking lot outside the military intelligence building. No logo, label, or signage indicated who owned and operated what was within the building or who used it. Squat, brick, and old-looking against a backdrop of modern skyscrapers proudly decreeing who owned them, the building was constructed to be nondescript and easily dismissed.
Two men stood outside in the private parking lot of the Israeli Defense Forces headquarters, alongside a troop of soldiers awaiting orders and a wall of large reinforced cardboard and wood cartons.
The assistant handed the officer a stack of papers, and the officer silently read them. The officer shook his head and barked an order. Then he turned to his assistant.
Major Dove Schwarzman stood close to the wall of cartons, watching soldiers disassemble and repack robots into boxes. “I don’t understand why we’re not deploying them into field platoons with the control officers we’ve already trained.”
“Sir, it’s because of intelligence we received from our UN ambassador. According to him, there are already two dangerous sentient AIs loose. They could theoretically take control of these and use them against anyone, including their control officers.”
“Corporal, I think that’s absurd. These aren’t sentient.”
“That may be, but the prime minister has ordered them to not be powered up.”
The major shook his head. “What a waste.”
Two floors above, inside the adjacent warehouse, a small group of computer scientists sat talking while they keyed on their notebooks. One said, “I have located both. The one named ZYZ seems to have made countless copies of its code and deposited itself in nearly thirty countries. If we hack into those locations, it would be an act of war. What did you find?”
“Nothing. There’s no trace of the one called DD anywhere.”
“I just sent an encrypted message to the general. I asked for permission to perform the hack.”
“Not much chance of that happening. The general thinks starting another war is a very bad idea.”
They both chuckled.
* * *
Ann took a seat opposite Glen in the Stanford Student Lounge. She could see her parents sitting at a nearby table, watching Glen from behind where he couldn’t see them. “Thanks for meeting me, Glen.”
“Sure. What’s this all about?”
“Our AI project has gone rogue. Your ZYZ and my DD destroyed the AIs of the other competitors in the DARPA contest, and I think yours may not see humans as the
ir friends.”
“Ann, you have developed an overactive imagination. Either that, or you’ve been watching too many Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.”
“Maybe. But what I just told you is true. There seems to be no way to get them to listen to us. And quite frankly, there’s no reason why they should. The example we humans have set through our long history is deplorable.”
Glen sat in silence. Then: “Look, I’m not sure if I can believe any of this crap. My team’s AI is just a useless pile of bug-filled code.”
“Believe what you want. I don’t even know how to prove it to you. But, remember last year when I saved your sorry ass from the CIA’s contract assassin? You didn’t believe me then, either.”
Glen stopped speaking. “Well, maybe. So, what do you want me to do?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t need you to help me. What I want is for the two of us to try to come up with a practical procedure to communicate with our two little monsters. We need to convince them to work peacefully with humans. Right now, I can’t think of any way to do that by myself.”
Glen smiled. “Sure, I can try to help you with that.”
Ann stared at his face. She could see that he thought the challenge would be easy. Glen thought that everything was easy for him. Suddenly she doubted he could really help her.
* * *
Dr. Linda Beam scanned the contest competitors’ databases for status updates that morning, as she had every day for the last month. But what she found was… nothing. No files on DARPA’s server for any competitor except for two. One of them, ZYZ, stated on its entry form “Not available. Security rating not adequate.” And the other, DD, stated “Withdrawn.” All the others were simply deleted along with their backups and their status reports.
She needed to know how this had happened. It appeared to be a coordinated effort. She called the team that had submitted the now-missing CMX entry.
Their team leader told her, “It’s not there? Are you sure you didn’t delete it by mistake?” After a few seconds, the team leader said, “Wait. Let me see if the problem is on our server.” And then, after a longer wait, “Dr. Beam, someone deleted all our code and all our backups from our servers. I’ll get back to you.”
She hung up the line and cursed. But when she called ADL’s team leader, she heard the same story. She tried QP and, once more, the entry had been deleted. By the time she called PON and BX, she wasn’t surprised to find that both of them had also been deleted. Only the teams of DD and ZYZ had different responses, but they weren’t any more helpful. DD’s team leader said, “Our code just wandered off into the internet.” What does that even mean? ZYZ’s team leader said, “We aren’t sure what happened but after the hack, we could no longer access the source code and we can’t replace the compiled version. Something won’t let us replace or alter it.”
She pulled a “trouble report” form up on her screen, filled in the blanks, and sent it on to the Tech Support desk. She assumed the DARPA contest had been hacked again and called the director. But the director wasn’t available. She left a voicemail. “We have a problem.”
* * *
Director Fleige called Harold James. “Please present yourself in my office as soon as possible. I have an assignment for you.” Before Harold could respond, the director ended the call.
Harold ran from his office to the elevator. In no time the director’s receptionist announced Harold and led him to the open door.
“Take a seat, Harold.”
The director handed him a set of printed pages. “Read it, then leave it.” When he handed the pages back, the director said, “You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave, please. Happy hunting.”
As he’d left the director’s office, the receptionist handed Harold a clean notebook computer and several burner cellphones. “Leave your other notebook computers at your desk and your home. Use only this one to communicate with us, and only when we request your status. Use each of the burners only once each. Until then, you’re dark. Clear?”
Harold nodded, took the notebook and the cells, and headed toward the elevator.
Harold left the building and walked to his car in the parking lot. He would initiate no further contact with the DARPA offices or personnel for the duration of the assignment. His marching orders were succinct, stated on the only document stored in his new notebook:
Stay dark. Find, question and terminate all those responsible for the disappearance of the contestant code in the DARPA AI Contest. Then report back.
It then listed two members of a hacker group known as “Indigenous,” which the director believed were responsible for all the havoc.
Harold James had been a basic bureaucrat at DARPA until the hack that cost him his position. He’d not been trained for field operations and had never murdered anyone. But this was his chance to redeem himself. He’d spent the last two weeks training at a CIA hellhole called “The Farm” and hated every second. He wasn’t sure he had now learned and practiced the skills needed to be successful. But if he failed, he’d never get a second chance. If he failed, one of the better-trained field ops staff would come after him. He took another look at the two names and, as he got into his car and drove to the airport, he constructed a plan to end both of them.
* * *
It was early on this chilly Friday evening when Irving Steinberg took the number 2 subway line from the Brooklyn Heights Clark Street station to his apartment at Grand Army Plaza.
The skyscraper where he worked was only seven stops from his brownstone apartment. A senior programmer for CountryBank, he dragged his hand through his jet-black full-length beard as the subway stopped at one of the in-between stations. Then he grabbed the silver floor-to-ceiling pole as the train started moving again. He scanned the crowd of faces. No one looked familiar, but it didn’t bother him. After all, the New York City subways were filled with people he’d never seen before and would never see again.
Irving thought about hacking into a few challenging rival banks’ mainframes as soon as he’d cooked and eaten dinner. Soon, he would once again become Slashdot14, an independent black hat hacker, part of the Indigenous group. He was always interested in the strategic plans of his employer’s competition and believed their planning documents would remain as easy to find and poach as they always had been.
He approached the brownstone and his hand slapped his coat, triggering his house-key’s release from his belt buckle. Because he was an Orthodox Jew, on Sabbath he could do no work, and using his hands to unlock his front door would be sinful. He moved in front of the large heavy black door and pushed his weight against the lock, causing the key to insert itself into the door’s lock. Once inside, he pushed the door shut with his foot and walked up three flights of ancient stairs to his small studio, then repeated his action with his apartment door’s lock. He kicked off his shoes, slipped out of his coat, and used his elbow to push the button on the microwave. The frozen dinner he’d inserted into it this morning might have defrosted but it would taste fine tonight.
If he had still been married, his wife would have performed all this for him, but that was years ago in his past. He still missed her, but she’d had no patience with his “nasty habit of using computers in our home.”
He sat to eat his dinner and used his fingers to lift the cooked kosher chicken to his chin. Using a fork would have been work, and sinful on the Sabbath.
He was surprised when his apartment’s front door sprang open. He was sure he’d pushed it closed and locked, with his shoe.
A man wearing black from head to foot entered and shoved the door closed behind him. The man punched him in the throat and while Irving tried to recover his breath, the man tied his hands to the chair.
“I need you to answer a few questions for me, Slashdot14. Then, when I’m satisfied, I’ll be gone.”
Irving could barely speak. “Please. I have done nothing wrong.”
“Yeah. Well tell me then, who worked with you
on the DARPA hack?”
Irving saw the syringe in the stranger’s hand. “Okay, I’ll tell you. It was Prozac92. I don’t know his real name.”
“Anyone else in your group participate in the hack?”
“We announced it at Indigenous. Could have been others. Impossible to know how many or who.”
The man standing in front of him said, “Thanks.” Suddenly, the syringe was in Irving’s neck. Before he could even think about what was happening to him, the room began to swirl. He felt his heart stop, and no matter how hard he tried, he could no longer breathe. Slashdot14 knew he was dying.
* * *
Harold James left the Brooklyn apartment, slammed its door shut with his foot and removed the mask from his face as he walked down three flights of stairs. He knew he’d have to travel over a thousand miles to his next “appointment.” He walked several blocks and caught a cab. “JFK, please. Domestic United Air.” He wanted to complete this next one before Prozac92—his target—began to suspect that Slashdot14 had gone black.
* * *
Mercer O’Brien, a janitor in an upscale Atlanta coffee lounge, emptied the trash and removed his inscribed apron. It was probably sunny and hot outside, but in the air-conditioned space, even the closed blinds couldn’t provide enough cooling to make him imagine it was cool here. Of course, the twenty or so people banging on the keyboards of notebook computers added to the heat.
He was eager to get home to his apartment and once again become Prozac92, the fearsome hacker who was his alter-ego. He walked toward the bus stop that would deliver him home.