Pandora's Brain (20 page)

David avoided thinking about the memorial service as much as possible. Sophie was also finding it increasingly hard to contemplate the idea of facing dozens of people,
however well-meaning. Thankfully, Leo understood
their feelings without having to be told, and gently took over the organisation of the event. Through a friend of a friend, he managed to obtain the use of a stately home near David and Sophie’s home town for the day, a property not normally open to the public because it was leased to a government department which used it for confidential conferences and summits. Security was a high priority.

Thanks to Leo, David and Sophie were more relaxed when the day finally came around than they had
expected. David had buried himself in the scanning and
modelling work for several weeks now, and he reflected that it was no bad thing to lift his head and try to gather some perspective.

It was a beautiful day in March. The air was crisp and clear, and although spring was still several weeks away, the deadening effect of winter was lifting, and it seemed to David that the fields and the hills were
picked out in sharper colours. The green-yellow lichen spattering the grey stone blocks of the house
reproached him for not paying attention to the natural and man-made beauty of his home countryside – a countryside which Matt had loved and thrived in. He caught himself wondering what combinations of neurons within his brain were responsible for giving him this heightened sensitivity to the visual messages reaching his cortex, and he mocked himself for not being able to simply appreciate the beauty without having to
analyse it. He had been cloistered in the scanning
room so much that it was almost startling to be outside in a beautiful garden, with birds sailing on a gentle breeze, and the sounds and smells of the countryside saturating his attention.

He turned his gaze to the hills that had drawn him to this part of the country many years before, and the quilt of fields that covered the contours of the Weald. The handsome brown cows were like bugs in the distance, beetling lazily across the landscape, grazing without haste and pausing, contented, when they chanced on the ideal clump of grass. Further away, migrating across one of the hillsides, small white dots of sheep busied themselves mindlessly keeping their stomachs full, the flock rippling gently like pondwater whenever a walker or a cyclist passed them.

The house was largely a creation of the sixteenth century. The giant double-storey bays, striped with long vertical slabs of windows, faced out across the lawn towards the hills, silently but confidently asserting ownership and dominance. They wore their balustrades and roof decorations like crowns. The house was built on a rise, from which two broad lawns stepped down in succession to meet a long field heading away towards the hills. The memorial service took place on the second lawn. Two hundred chairs were set out on the grass, in well-spaced rows of 25. The event could not have been more open, and yet more private.

David and Sophie had timed their arrival to avoid having to speak to anyone before the service. Leo was already there, marshalling the house’s staff as they made the final arrangements. They had agreed that Vic would again stay away. Most of the two hundred or so guests were family, and friends from the town, but Matt’s fame was still a major draw, and requests to attend had been received from many journalists. Malcolm Ross was one of the few whose request had been granted.

The service was confidently orchestrated by Leo, who also gave the opening and closing addresses. He was calm and impressive, and David felt a surge of gratitude mixed with pride well up within his sorrow as he realised how ably Leo was managing the event. He exchanged a glance with Sophie and squeezed her hand.

Leo opened the service by describing Matt as the miraculous result of the marriage of the two most wonderful people he knew. He spoke of his own vicarious pride as he watched a growing Matt reveal and exercise his gifts and talents. He said that the story of Matt’s adventure was so well known that he did not need to re-hash it now, but he marvelled at the resilience and ingenuity displayed by one so young and still just at the start of life. What might Matt have achieved, he asked, if he had been granted a full term?

Simon Jones, Matt’s favourite teacher, was next. He related a handful of stories about Matt’s life at school. His dry, understated delivery was in perfect keeping with Matt’s clever but shy approach to life, and his shrewd, gentle sense of humour. As Simon went on to talk about Matt’s role in rescuing his father, David reflected what an extraordinary situation his family found itself in. If the project to upload Matt succeeded they would be the first family in history – perhaps even mythical history – to reincarnate not one, but two of its members.

Carl was the third speaker. He was less polished and more nervous than Leo and Simon, and his speech contained more raw emotion, a more naked sense of loss. While Carl was talking, David noticed that Alice’s head was bowed, and that she was sobbing into cupped hands. He felt a stab of guilt at having spent almost no time with Alice since Matt was killed. He made a mental note to speak to her afterwards.

Carl claimed that his best friend had an unusual combination of analytical horsepower, lateral thinking skills, and well-grounded common sense. Using an example which slightly missed the mark for some members of the audience, he illustrated his claim with a story about a video game where Matt had escaped
from a seemingly fatal trap by using some rope, a
skateboard, and a refrigerator. Like Leo, Carl asked what Matt might have achieved if he had been given the time to show the world what he could do. Poignantly, he described how, in a teenage culture where street credibility is everything, Matt had blithely ignored the tyranny of convention, and chose instead to spend his time with people based solely on whether or not they were interesting, and kind.

After the speeches there was a buffet inside the house. David found the interior of the building oppressive after the light and space of the lawn. Amid the heavy wood panelling and the elaborate wall carvings, the life-sized portraits of long-dead aristocrats and other powerful men seemed to look down on him figuratively as well as literally. He shrugged this feeling off as Malcolm Ross buttonholed him.

‘I’m so sorry about what happened to Matt, David. How are you and Sophie coping? Your friend Leo put on a wonderful event. Most impressive, and well-deserved, too.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind. We’re OK, I suppose. It comes and goes. The worst times are when I think of something I want to share with Matt, and then I suddenly realise that I can’t because he’s not . . . he’s not there any more.’

‘Yes, it’s awful. I understand that Campbell has a committal hearing coming up shortly. Will you be attending, or will you stay away?’

‘It doesn’t interest me at all,’ said David firmly. ‘I don’t care what they do to him: it won’t bring Matt back. Of course there are times when I wish I could have a couple of hours alone with him and a blow torch, but on the whole I’m glad to say I give him no thought whatsoever.’

‘Very sensible; very healthy,’ agreed Ross. ‘So what are you doing, David? I confess I have heard some tantalising rumours.’

‘Off the record?’ asked David, looking him hard in the eyes.

‘Scout’s honour,’ said Ross, in earnest.

‘I’m working with Vic. I agreed to do it because I think it’s what Matt would have wanted. Combining my old research interests with the insights produced by Vic and Ivan’s teams looks likely to generate some useful outputs in a number of different areas of cognitive neuroscience.’

It was Ross’s turn to give a searching look. ‘I hope I’m not being too pushy, but you know what journalists are like, David. Are you working on machine intelligence?’

David smiled. ‘I think it’s very easy to exaggerate what can be achieved with today’s technology, Malcolm. But I tell you what: if we do make substantive progress towards AI, I’ll give you an exclusive interview. And now you’ll have to excuse me: there’s a young lady over there that I really must have a word with.’

Ross smiled and let him go, calling after him, ‘I’ll hold you to that!’

David joined his wife, who had an arm around the shoulders of a fragile-looking Alice. Alice’s parents were standing by, not knowing quite where to put themselves.

‘Please forgive us, Alice,’ he said. ‘We’ve hardly seen anything of you since . . . since what happened to Matt. We’ve been very self-absorbed and busy with our own troubles. How are you?’

‘You shouldn’t be apologising to me,’ sobbed Alice. ‘I’m sorry I’m making such a scene. I . . . I just can’t believe he’s not coming back.’

Alice’s mother stroked her daughter’s hair, and Alice stopped sobbing. She looked up and managed to produce an unconvincing smile.

‘They say you never know what you’ve got till it’s gone, but I suppose at least I can say that’s not true. I did know what I had: he was such a wonderful guy.’

‘Yes he was,’ said Sophie with feeling, ‘yes he was. Look, why don’t you and your parents come to lunch one Sunday, dear. It’s been too long since we saw you.’

Alice’s parents looked at Sophie and David, grateful for their attempt to console their daughter in the midst of their own loss.

‘Are you back at university yet?’ asked David, changing the subject.

‘I should be, but I can’t face it yet. I’ve spoken to my tutor, who was brilliant: he just told me to take as much time as I need to recover. He even said that if I need to, I can take a year out and go back next time round. But I don’t want to do that.’ She smiled weakly: ‘Matt would have given me hell for even thinking it.’

The rest of the event passed in a blur: David and Sophie exchanged platitudes with most of their friends and family. Some were taciturn, keen to avoid burdening David and Sophie with their own grief. Others gushed, desperate for Matt’s parents to know how much they cared. Most were calmly but profoundly sympathetic, and David and Sophie were surprised how much they found themselves buoyed by this demonstration of the universal affection and admiration for their son.

At length, Leo told David that the staff needed to clear the room, and they were finally able to say their goodbyes and head home. Their departure was delayed and rendered uncomfortable by the gaggle of reporters waiting by the gate to the grounds. Leo drove them slowly but steadily through the small crowd, grimly determined that no cameras waved in their path would stop them. He didn’t need to ask David and Sophie whether they wanted to stop and give a statement.

Two weeks after the memorial service, Vic, David and Sophie invited Leo and Norman to meet them for lunch in the laboratory’s cafeteria. They said they had some important news, and that if at all possible, Leo and Norman should clear their diaries for the afternoon.

David waited until everyone was seated in the simple blue plastic bucket chairs in the starkly functional temporary cafeteria building. As they started to eat, he got straight to the point.

‘We’re ready. The scanning is complete. We think we have captured as much of the connectome as we need.’

Leo and Norman had guessed the news, but they stared at David anyway. This was a momentous occasion.

‘So the model is complete?’ Norman asked. ‘You’re ready to upload him?’

‘Well, I suppose you could argue that we have already uploaded him; we just haven’t activated the upload,’ said David. ‘If we are all still in agreement, we propose to do that this afternoon.’

‘As you know,’ Vic explained, ‘we have been checking the connections carefully as we went along. Using the techniques developed by Ivan, we have identified a large number of sub-minds within the structure of Matt’s brain, and we are reasonably confident that the neural pathways within these sub-minds in the new version of Matt’s brain are a good match for those in the original version. What we don’t yet know is whether the linkages between the sub-units will work properly.’

‘The only way to find that out is to activate it,’ David added.

‘So, we are checking that everyone is still happy to proceed,’ Vic continued, addressing Norman in particular. ‘We would also like to re-confirm our protocol for stopping the process. Four people have a veto as to whether the activation is reversed at any point: Sophie, David, Norman and me. The process continues only so long as all four of us are content for it to do so, and if any of us asks for it to be stopped, the equipment will be powered down immediately without question. We do not have to give any reason for our decision. This protocol is mainly to protect Matt from harm or suffering, but it is also to protect the rest of us.’

Sophie looked at Leo. ‘Are you still OK with the decision that you are the only person here without a veto, Leo?’

‘Yes, I still think that is right,’ Leo said, nodding. ‘Wow, so we’re finally there: the big day. It’s exciting, and also just a little bit scary, don’t you think? There is one thing which puzzles me, though.’ He looked at Vic and Norman. ‘Don’t you guys need to obtain approval from somebody? Somebody in the US military, or the government? In fact I suppose the UK government would have something to say about it, too, if they knew what is about to happen here.’

‘It’s a good question, Leo,’ Vic replied, nodding. ‘None of us should be under any illusions about what is going on here. There is absolutely nothing illegal about what we are about to do, under either US or UK law. But we’re not being open and transparent, either, in the way that we would all like, and which Matt wanted. And we all know the reason for that. I
f we announced what we are about to do, we would almost certainly be stopped. There would be a great deal of debate, some of it sensible, much of it ill-informed, but that’s democracy for you. And in the end, who knows whether we would be able to go ahead?

‘So we’re going ahead – under the radar, if you like – because none of us wants to lose the chance of bringing Matt back. But I want to be honest: there are other reasons, too. Artificial intelligence is coming, whether we like it or not. We think we are in the lead, but whoever is in second place may not be far behind. I believe that uploading a human mind is the safest way for humanity to create its first AGI. I want Matt to be the world’s first AGI.

‘And to answer your question directly, Leo, yes,
there are powerful elements within the US govern
ment which want this project to proceed for strategic, financial, and – I won’t deny it – military reasons.’

‘So you already have their approval to proceed?’ asked Leo.

‘Yes and no,’ Norman replied. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘plausible deniability’. They do want us to go ahead, but if it all goes south they want to be able to claim that I was a rogue officer acting on my own, without authority. Naturally I can’t prove that to you, but it’s how these things work.’

‘So you will be made a scapegoat if things go wrong, or even if it works, but turns out to be wildly unpopular?’ asked David.

‘That’s right. That’s part of my unofficial job description,’
Norman said, smiling ruefully. ‘But don’t you worry about me,’ he continued. ‘I have broad shoulders and I would be well compensated for taking the fall. Again, that’s just the way these things are done.’

‘But hey, let’s not get obsessed with what might go wrong,’ Vic broke in. ‘We’re on the cusp of a dramatic breakthrough here. We’re about to reunite Matt with his family!’

He looked at Sophie and Leo. ‘It’s time for you two to see the computer room.’ He stood up, and looked around the group. ‘Shall we?’

They all stood, placed the debris from their lunches on their trays, and took them to the carousel where the catering staff would collect them and wash them for the next users. David marvelled at how the prosaic processes of everyday life carry on amid moments of great drama. They walked the corridors leading from the cafeteria to the computing room in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Sophie and Leo had both spent many hours in the scanning room, but neither of them had ever set foot in the computing room before. It was cold.

They gazed at the enormous amount of computing equipment in the room. Leo estimated there were around thirty rows of giant matt black cabinets, each about fifteen feet high and six feet wide, with shelves on both sides. They stretched at least five metres back towards the far wall. The shelves in each cabinet held row upon row of servers. The servers looked like over-sized black hi-fi units, except that many of them had spaghetti tangles of wires sprouting from the front, and were connected to their neighbours, or with servers further down their row. The servers themselves all looked identical, but the mess of cables and the sprinkling of small green lights introduced an element of chaos. A low hum permeated the room.

‘I wanted you to see this equipment close up before we start,’ Vic explained, ‘so you know where the action is taking place, so to speak. We don’t come in here often because this room has to be precisely temperature-controlled. We’ll be operating this equipment from next door. But this is where Matt is hosted. This . . .’ he patted the nearest cabinet, ‘this is Matt’s new brain.’

Sophie reached out to touch the nearest cabinet. ‘Hello sweetheart,’ she said to herself, softly. She left her hand motionless against the cold black steel for a moment, then withdrew it and shivered slightly.

Vic ushered them out of the computer room and into the control room. ‘We control everything from in here. Make yourselves at home.’

The control room was considerably warmer than the computer room, and the hum was inaudible. The whole of one wall was a large window giving a clear view into the computer room. Facing that window was an arrangement of six desks, one in front, and a row of five behind it. Three small monitors stood side-by-side on each desk, with one large wide-screen monitor above them. A great deal of cabling ran into the computer room. The ambient lighting was low, with a couple of task light sources at each desk, and other lights in the ceiling focused on a large conference table that stood behind the rows of desks. Together with the pastel grey decor, the pools of light gave the room an impressive atmosphere of calm intellectual purpose.

Except for the one at the front, each desk was occupied. The men wore open-necked shirts and chinos, and the women wore slacks and jumpers. Vic made the introductions, then moved to the front desk, gesturing at its monitor. ‘The master control and diagnostic circuits are fed to this screen, so this is where we will press the enter key which will initiate the process of powering up the model. We’ll start by feeding just one audio stream to the upload, to minimise the possibility of over-loading Matt with sensory impressions until he gets used to his new situation. Later we can add a visual stream, and the other senses too.’

He pointed to a camera and a microphone beneath the main screen, and then to a row of buttons on the desk. ‘These devices provide the audio and visual inputs, so you should probably address yourselves to them. The microphone is voice-activated, but pressing this button will keep it muted.’

Then he pointed to a speaker located on the desk. ‘Matt’s voice will come through this speaker here. The audio is modulated so that whatever strength of signal is coming through, the volume will be the same level as a voice in normal conversation. As you know, we have been working on a system to convert whatever sounds Matt makes into sounds as close as possible to the way that . . . the way that Matt used to sound. I should warn you in advance, it probably won’t be a perfect representation, but if everything goes to plan it should sound familiar.’

Vic was watching David and Sophie as he spoke. Reassured that they were bearing up well, he gestured at the main screen, and continued.

‘Later, we hope that he will be able to project visuals here.’

He turned to Sophie and gestured for her to join him at the front desk. ‘David and I thought you might like to press the key.’ He typed a brief command into a keyboard and the screensaver photo of a beach at sunset was replaced by a dialogue box, asking simply, ‘Do you wish to continue?’ Vic moved the cursor to hover over the ‘Yes’ response.

Sophie moved into position, and placed her hand on the mouse. With a final look at David, she pressed the mouse key.

The humming they had heard in the computer room increased to the point that it became audible in the control room. Through the window, they could see that a great many more lights were glowing on the servers.

‘How long do you expect it to take to . . . um . . . warm up?’ asked Leo.

‘In theory, no time at all,’ replied David. ‘It’s not like an operating system on a PC, where a whole suite of programmes and sub-programmes have to load before the machine can do anything. It’s more like your brain when you wake up in the morning. Electrochemical activity in your neurons is the information processing, and the information processing is your thoughts. From experiments carried out on people waking up inside FMRI scanning equipment, we have selected particular sets of neurons to fire up at initiation. If we have got that right, those neurons will spark others, and a coherent stream of thinking will be generated. It should be quick – if we’ve got it right.’

He leaned towards the desk and spoke into the microphone. ‘Hello, Matt. Can you hear me? It’s David, your father here. Your mother’s here too, and Leo, and some other friends, Vic and Norman. Can you hear me?’

When the voice came through the speaker they all jumped.

‘What happened? . . . Where am I?’

Although slightly metallic and alien-sounding, the voice was recognisably Matt’s, sounding foggy and disorientated. Sophie’s mouth formed a huge ‘O’ which she covered with her hand. Shocked, she sat down heavily and reached out for David who was instinctively moving towards her at the same time. They hadn’t dared to hope for such immediate success. Vic and Norman grinned broadly at each other and shook hands warmly as Leo clapped them both on the shoulder. The scientists manning the desks were celebrating too.

The celebrations broke off as Matt’s voice came from the speaker again. This time he sounded stressed, upset.

‘Dad! Is that you? What is . . . ? Where . . . ? I can’t . . . Hang on, why . . . ? I can’t . . . I . . .’

Again the speaker fell silent. After a couple of moments, David spoke:

‘Matt, can you hear me? We heard you loud and clear. Can you hear me?’

There was no response from the speaker. Sophie addressed the mike:

‘Matt darling. Are you there? It’s so wonderful to hear your voice. Can you hear us?’

Still there was nothing, and this time the silence lasted for a couple of minutes. Everyone at the front desk was straining, hoping to hear more from Matt. Finally, it was one of the scientists who spoke up:

‘The processing activity showed clear spikes when the speaker was active, Vic, but it’s gone completely flat again.’

‘Thanks Gus,’ replied Vic. He looked at the others. ‘It looks as though the processing didn’t propagate correctly. David, I think we should power down and go through those check routines we agreed.’

Sophie nodded agreement to David’s unspoken request for agreement. He turned back to Vic. ‘OK, let’s do it.’

Vic typed an instruction into the keyboard and hit the enter key. The hum in the computer room died down to inaudible, and the mood in the control room deflated in synch.

‘It will only take a few minutes for us to run the checks,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you guys take a breather, perhaps a tour of the building. . . ?’

‘I’ll stay here, thanks,’ said Sophie. ‘I don’t think I could bear to be anywhere else right now.’

‘I understand,’ Vic nodded. ‘David, we should start by looking at the activity logs on Gus’ monitor.’

As they walked over to Gus’ desk, Leo put his hand on Sophie’s arm. ‘It was always likely there would be a few false starts. We knew that. It’s amazing that we got such a strong result right out of the blocks.’

‘I know, I know. It was silly of me to get my hopes up so quickly.’

‘No, this is a really encouraging start, Sophie,’
Norman said earnestly. ‘I didn’t expect anything to happen this fast. The guys seem to be on the right track.’

Sophie nodded and smiled weakly, looking over at David. She envied him the opportunity to be busy, reviewing data, checking circuits. Waiting was painful.

Vic was right. A few minutes later they were gathered around the front desk again, preparing to press the enter key to the same dialogue box as before. This time David performed the modest ceremony.