How to Think Like a Computer

May 25

It seems that someone leaked the damage report from MEKA, and it is now all over the Ambinet. Someone made a holovid about "the robot apocalypse", and it went viral this morning.

Forty-five minutes after I woke up, I turned on the TV. Unsurprisingly, it was an interview with Akira Mizushima (MEKA's CEO). I watched ten minutes of it. Mizushima admitted that twelve prototypes were indeed shipped to California, but doubts that there will be a robot apocalypse anytime soon.

I also found an Ambinet meme called "How to prepare for the MEKA-nical age".

I'm starting to wonder if Caulkins was the one who leaked the damage report. It seemed like something he would do.

*

After that, I decided to go and read outside. I was sitting in a corner of the "plaza", looking at a tablet I'd borrowed, when I noticed Cam walking up to me. I ignored him until he sat down next to me.

"Hi," he said.

I said nothing.

"You okay?"

I replied, "No."

"Is it because of me?"

"Partly."

"Well... I feel I owe you an explanation. Is that fair?"

"Yes."

"Torrin," Cam told me, slowly, "I don't work for the Luddites."

I put the tablet down and looked at him. (Not at his eyes, of course, but in his general direction.) "Elaborate."

"I used to work for the government," explained Cam. "I made software and webpages for them. That kind of thing. I was required to know many of the high-level programming languages, so that's how I know Parse.

"But then the Luddites started to have more and more of an influence. It may surprise you to know that at first, they were more engaged in the study of AI and setting lots of rules to make it completely safe. I thought this was a great idea—as I still do. I helped them work out some code to make everyday, non-sentient AIs safer. So, I suppose you could say I used to work for the Luddites. Although, back then, they were called the Singularitists."

I was suddenly reminded of Singularity Prime, but didn't comment. Cam continued.

"But then someone developed the first AI weapon—a kind of autonomous warhead that seeks out and destroys whatever it's programmed to recognize. The Singularitists didn't know what to do about it. Some said it was a good idea. Some said it was terrible and should be banned—"

"In theory, it's a clever idea," I interrupted, "but I don't think we should have weapons that powerful in the first place."

Cam agreed. "But we were divided on the issue. Then Ian Caulkins showed up. He stood by the popular opinion: AI weapons would be terrible. He also proposed that since we don't completely know how a learning AI's mind works, we couldn't trust it. I'm sure you know all about his 'theories'.

"Caulkins appealed to the public's—and the Singularitists'—fear, saying that we ban all potentially dangerous AI. Most people agreed. Within a year, he had taken over the Singularitists, renamed them the Luddites, and started to ban anything that could be used to make strong AI.

"I didn't completely agree with him, so I quit my job with the government and joined the programming education start-up—called Code-scape—I'm working for now.

"But Caulkins wasn't so fast to let me leave. I was one of the best programmers to join the Singularitists. After much persuasion, he finally let me quit—but under the reluctant agreement that I'd help him if he ever needed some urgent programming done.

"For a while I worked for the Code-scape center. Bella—the Luddite who works there too—sometimes made me code stuff for the Luddites, but it wasn't anything particularly big.

"Then Caulkins showed up. He was pretty proud of himself for figuring out that Parse could be used to make intelligent AI—something I'd known for years but never bothered to tell him—and had also created a program to scan computers for Parse files. He wanted me to debug his program. Remember, I sent you that email about it?

"I told him this wasn't a good idea. Parse wasn't just used for creating AI. What if he found a Parse file that wasn't AI-related? Caulkins replied that since Parse was a banned language, then any Parse file he found would be an illegal file. I still didn't think Parse should've been banned in the first place, but I debugged his program for him anyway.

"I didn't mention you to Caulkins, though I was thinking about you and Alan. A couple days later I talked to you, remember? All that time, though, I was really worried. Caulkins had said something about punishing anyone with a Parse file on their computer.

"So... well... after that conversation, I comm-ed Caulkins and told him all about you and Alan."

Cam paused. I waited, my mind processing the information.

"I didn't want you to get in trouble," said Cam quietly. "I... I'm sorry, but I wanted you to be safe. If Caulkins had just found you without my help, things would've been worse. He might have sent you to an actual jail. I made sure to tell him not to treat you badly. I... I really didn't think he'd...." He trailed off.

"That makes sense," I told him, after a pause.

"It does?"

"Yes."

"You aren't angry with me, are you?"

"I'm annoyed," I said, "but I think that you did the best thing you could in your situation."

Cam grinned. "Thanks, Torrin."

"Why are you here, in that case?" I asked, because I didn't want the conversation to get too sentimental.

"Ah... well, Caulkins thought I might be useful in... er... tracking down Alan."

"Are you helping him?" I inquired, because if he was....

"Sort of," admitted Cam. "I've been doing the least amount of work that I can. I mean, I'm all for proving that Alan's sentient and stopping the Luddites from destroying him, but.... Well, you've heard the rumors. What if... what if he really is building an army, Torrin?"

I didn't want to think about it. "I don't know."

"Do you think it's possible?"

"It's possible." But I hoped it wasn't true.

"I hope there won't be a robot apocalypse like the Ambinet's been talking about."

"Me too."

We'd come to an ending point in the conversation. Cam stood up.

"Well... see you."

I didn't reply, but I was glad to have my friend back.