Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 116

"Are you online?" said Josef.

"I'm here," said the True_AI module.

The voice was female, which made the prospect that much sweeter. His father had never been one to take orders from a woman, and now the man's entire company was about to--

He shook his head. It hadn't happened yet.

"Good, it's time for a warm-up. Develop and implement a strategy to solve the following problem: a dangerous rogue selfiebot has infiltrated the building and must be captured."

He turned to inspect his father's response, but the old man was giving nothing away. Even Ms Glas showed little beyond boredom. Impressive for a light projection.

"You know to use all resources at your disposal?" he said.

"Sure," said the AI. "I've worked it all out."

Who needed Mathison?

Lines of text -- letters, numbers, symbols -- flashed on the screen and quickly scrolled away, only to be replaced by another page of binary encoded data. Exx and Zerro were both contacted, with Libbi's current position ascertained and provided.

"A security guard staring at screens all day long," said Hydan. "Congratulations, Junior, this certainly demonstrates the capabilities of your little computer program."

"It only requires general descriptions," said Josef, "of the type prescribed in boardrooms all across the country, from which it will develop a strategy, delegate and empower the people under it to execute that strategy, and provide reports with appropriate levels of abstraction. It's what a cee-ee-oh does!"

"Are you sure about that?" said Hydan. "The last time you were in a boardroom you covered the walls in crayon." He turned to Ms Glas. "His mother begged me to take the child off her hands for a day. It was the last time."

Ms Glas cackled...? Snickered? No, it was meant to be a polite laugh, but the image of her gaunt face and beady eyes gave the appearance of a Condor devouring carrion.

The AI then made a precipitous noise of her own, as if squeezing air out the top of its mouth.

"Err," said Josef, raising his voice, "once the aye-eye has completed the task, and when the head of your major shareholder arrives, we can get to the main event."

"Remind me why you want him to witness this," said Hydan.

"You've recently fully automated your trading house, algorithms responding much faster to changing events, which has lowered the need for management as a result. This is just the next logical step."

His father's enigmatic stare didn't waver.

Nothing was going quite right, but Josef wasn't about to stop here. The stage was set, even if the actors were performing their roles haphazardly. It reminded him of the warehouse scene for his panel appearance and went to show that even if you paid them well -- far too well -- people would always let you down. This was the most constraining aspect to life. If only you could achieve what you wanted without them.

Right now he was banking on a non-person to make a name for himself, to help him step clear of his father's shadow.

Should she have a name? He wasn't about to burden the True_AI module with the same moniker as its creator, the way he was; subjecting it to a life with no identity of its own. After all, who were you if not your name?

"What's a good one for you?" he whispered.

The AI's indicative scrolling text paused a moment. Then, as if recovering from a blockage, quickly caught up, continuing unabated.

"What's your name?" he said.