Pandora's Brain (8 page)

Matt stared open-mouthed at his father for several seconds. David stood in the doorway, hesitant, almost nervous. Matt saw that he looked tired and drawn, and he had lost some weight. He was wearing clothes that actually fit him better than his usual baggy outfits, but he looked uncomfortable in them. Then the tension broke and Matt sprang up to hug his father.

‘You’re alive! Oh thank god, you’re alive!’

‘Yes. I’m OK.’ David held Matt’s head tightly to his chest and stroked his hair. He spoke soothingly, and his eyelids were screwed together tightly as his mouth stretched into the broadest smile of his life. ‘It’s so good to see you. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.’

Eventually Matt stepped back out of his father’s embrace and they looked at each other. They both started to speak at the same time.

‘So what happened? How come you disappeared . . . ?’

‘How is your mother? Is she OK? What are you doing here. . . ?’

Ivan broke in. He was smiling, but coldly. ‘You two have a lot of catching up to do, so I’ll leave you to it.’ To David he added, sternly, ‘I’ll come back in a few minutes. We have a lot to do and not much time.’

Matt and David watched as Ivan left the room. They heard it lock behind him. Matt turned back to his father.

‘What’s going on, Dad? What happened?’

‘I was kidnapped, Matt. I’m a prisoner, just like you. We’re in a lot of trouble, son, and I don’t know how we’re going to get out of it. It’s so good to see you . . . although I wish you weren’t mixed up in this mess!’ He reached for his son and they hugged each other tightly again.

Eventually they stepped apart and sat down next to each other on the sofa.

‘How is your mother. Is she alright?’ David asked.

‘Yes, she’s OK,’ Matt assured him. ‘She misses you enormously, of course. But you know how she is: she’s pretty withdrawn at the best of times. Leo has been around a fair bit, which has been really helpful.’

David nodded. ‘Leo is a good friend. I’m glad he’s been able to spend some time with you.’

‘So what happened? How come you are here?’ Matt asked.

David took a deep breath and told his story. ‘I met Ivan at a conference in San Francisco. I presented a paper on advanced brain scanning techniques and he came up to me afterwards and asked if he could buy me dinner. He was very attentive, very charming. He came on strong, saying that my work could be invaluable to his project, and that he wanted to offer me a key role in his team. He offered me incredible terms.

‘Looking back, I had an instinct that there was something wrong from the start. I should have listened to that instinct. If something sounds too good to be true it usually is, and I should have asked more questions, taken more time to think, instead of rushing into an agreement.’

Matt was taken aback. ‘So you came here voluntarily? Why didn’t you tell us? What about the car crash?’

David shook his head. ‘There was no car crash. It was faked to cover up my kidnapping. After spending a couple of days at the conference with Ivan the warning bells grew too loud to be ignored. I realised that he is a very dangerous man. I don’t think he is malicious – but he is obsessed, totally focused on his particular goal, and he won’t tolerate anything getting in his way. He has spectacular resources at his command. He has corralled a group of the wealthiest people in the world – including some of the richest technology entrepreneurs from Northern California – into funding his AI project. They are eager to see the dream of AI come true, and he is determined to be the first to do so. He brooks no opposition, no dissent. I started asking too many questions, raising too many objections, and he turned ugly. He made it very clear that there is only one boss in his outfit, and everyone has to accept his command without hesitation. I said that I couldn’t work like that. We had a row, and I said I thought I should leave. What happened next was amazing. He said he wouldn’t allow me to go, and that if I wouldn’t work according to his rules then I would have to stay as his prisoner. He said that in time I would come to my senses and agree to his approach.’

‘So he faked the car crash?’

‘That’s right,’ David nodded grimly. ‘He faked a collision with a truck carrying hazardous chemicals, causing an explosion powerful enough to destroy any evidence of who was driving – or even to know for certain whether there was a driver. He told me there was no-one in either of the vehicles, but I guess I’ll never know if that’s true. As far as the police were concerned, it was a rental car with plenty of documentation back at the office to indicate it was hired by me.

‘Of course I was horrified when he told me. I told him that I would never work for him, and he replied that he would give me some time to re-consider. He said that he wouldn’t torture me, as it would leave me unable to work effectively. I guess that is why he didn’t kidnap you before, too. But he did say that if I continued to refuse, then he would eventually have to kill me, and the story about the car crash would effectively become true. I think he was genuinely regretful about this, but in the way that you regret throwing out an old toy that you were fond of because you are moving to a smaller home. I think he has a personality disorder: I think he would be clinically diagnosed as a psychopath. He’s very bright, and he has great insight into what people want and need. He is a good leader so long as everyone accepts his way of doing things. But he has no real empathy. He can stand by and watch someone suffer just as a schoolboy will pull the legs off a spider.’

‘So you’ve been on board this ship ever since?’ Matt asked.

‘Yes. It’s been a nightmare. I get very little news about what is going on in the outside world and I’ve been going half-mad with worry about you and your mother.’

It occurred to Matt that the room might well be bugged. He seized the opportunity of his father’s last remark to hug him again, and whispered into his ear, ‘So what do we do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ his father whispered back. ‘We’ll think of something. I guess all we can do is wait and see what Ivan is planning. I don’t see how he can let either of us go, but he wouldn’t have expended so much effort to bringing you here without some kind of plan. Maybe he thinks that having you here will give him leverage over me, so that he can force me to accept his terms.’

‘We’ll see about that!’ Matt whispered.

David pushed Matt back a little and smiled at his son. A weak smile: proud, but concerned. Again they hugged.

‘He said he wants me to meet someone called Victor Damiano,’ Matt whispered, ‘who runs another AI research group. That must mean he is planning to let me leave the ship. At least that will give us time to work something out. And you’re alive. That is more important than anything.’

‘We’re both alive,’ David agreed. ‘Thanks heavens . . .’

His thought was interrupted by the door opening. Ivan came back into the room.

Ivan walked across the room to one of the beige leather winged armchairs, and gestured for his captives to sit down opposite him. He gave them an unnerving smile which seemed to say that he understood their severe anxiety, but that he was not in the least contrite – nor prepared to help.

‘I really am sorry that things have worked out like this,’ he began. ‘You are an impressive pair, and I would much prefer to have you on my side voluntarily. I’m not going to do anything as silly as claim that it’s your fault for changing your mind, David. But I am sorry.’

He leaned forwards. ‘But we are where we are. No point worrying about how and why we got here: we’re just going to have to make the best of it. If we each play our cards sensibly. this can end up very well for all of us.’

He held up a warning finger. ‘But only if we are all sensible. David, you know that I don’t want to coerce you into working for me. I told you that I don’t believe that torturing you would work, and I wasn’t going to kidnap anybody in your family either. But now Matt here has played himself into the game, which changes everything. I’m going to explain the situation to Matt and then I’m going to tell you both what I want you to do next.’ He sat back in the chair again and addressed Matt.

‘I told you before that Dr Damiano’s group and mine have opened up a considerable lead over the others in the race to create the first AI. We both have supercomputers operating at the exaflop scale. I know he does because some of my backers are extremely well connected in the world of advanced chip arrays, and we have been monitoring Dr Damiano’s chip procurement patterns. We are the only two organisations in the world which have this level of processing power, and so far we have both managed to keep that fact secret from the wider public.

‘But hardware is the easiest part of the job. Other groups will catch up with us before long. The harder problems are scanning and modelling.

‘Scanning is where your father comes in, of course. He didn’t realise it until he met me, but he had cracked a problem which many of us in AI development have been wrestling with – namely how to speed up the process of scanning and recording the structure of all the neurons in the brain – what we call its connectome. Your father’s brilliant achievement was to work out how to rapidly scrape the tissue in very fine layers and transfer them to a conveyor belt of a specially coated tape. A really thin tape – just 100 micro-meters thick. The tape is then spooled off away from the brain at high speed. This means we can share out the samples among thousands of offline ‘readers’ rather than having to scrape and read all at the same time.’

Matt interrupted. Having his father beside him gave him the courage to question Ivan’s motives and methods. ‘So you know what my dad did, and how he did it. Why do you still need him here?’

Ivan smiled his cold, smoothly regretful smile again.

‘First because it sounds simple but it is very hard in practice. Your father could speed our work up enormously. And secondly because I can’t very well let him go now, can I? Not unless – until – I know he is on-side again.’

‘And you want me to get more information about scanning out of Dr Damiano for you?’ asked Matt.

‘No. I don’t think he is ahead of us on scanning. No, I think he has cracked a couple of problems that we are struggling with on the modelling side. I have reason to believe that Dr Damiano has made certain advances in exploratory algorithms which would enable him to establish and verify the routing of axons, and in particular the branching of dendrites in a way which I would very much like to be able to do myself.’

Ivan looked at David briefly, indicating that some of this information was new. Then he carried on addressing Matt.

‘We didn’t know until recently what level of detail we would have to go down to in order to build a sufficiently granular model of the brain. The worst case scenario was that we would have to find out what every molecule within every neuron is doing every two-hundredths of a second. That would not be impossible, but the scanning, modelling and hardware technology would be immense. It would not be complete in my lifetime.

‘The best case was that we would
only
’ he drew imaginary quotation marks in the air ‘need to model a few hundred million groups of neurons, which combine in a hierarchical manner to create consciousness. We are now confident that in this respect at least, we live in a best-case world.’

He leaned back again and smiled.

‘If I’m right, gentlemen, then soon I’m going to be able to offer you both immortality.’

David and Matt looked at each other. Matt turned back to Ivan.

‘I’d rather you just gave us both a lift home.’

Ivan threw back his head and laughed. ‘David, I do congratulate you! Your son is very brave to retain his sense of humour under these regrettable circumstances.’

David was still looking at Matt. ‘Yes, I’m very proud of my son.’ But he wasn’t laughing. He was fighting back tears.

Ivan continued. ‘So you see, the race has reached a critical point. Before long, either Dr Damiano or I will create the first human-level, conscious AI. Assuming we can keep it under control (and as I told you in Brighton, Matt, I think we do know how to ensure that our oracle AI keeps its mucky hands off the internet) then we will have an unbeatable resource in the struggle for resources. Imagine playing the stockmarket with a super-brain. Or developing the next breakthrough in automotive technology. Or medical technology. Or anything. Almost every field of endeavour is a branch of information science these days.’

‘So what do you plan to do with this power?’ interrupted Matt. ‘Take over the world? Blackmail world leaders into appointing you global emperor?’

Ivan laughed again. ‘You really have watched too many Bond movies, Matt. No. What I will do is develop uploading technology, and make it freely available to the whole world.’

‘Really?’ asked Matt, sceptically.

Ivan’s face became very serious.

‘I know my methods may be questionable, and I know the argument that the ends cannot justify the means. Believe me, I get all that. But in extreme cases ordinary morality has to be suspended. Governments should not torture or assassinate. That should be a blanket rule. But if you had the chance to assassinate Hitler, wouldn’t you do it? Or if you captured a man who had planted a biochemical weapon in the heart of London, wouldn’t you do absolutely anything to get him to tell you how to disarm it? Including torturing him, his wife – and yes, even his children?’

‘And just who is Hitler in this scenario?’ asked David.

‘Dr Damiano, of course. Or at least, the people who hold his strings: the US military. Possessing a super-intelligent AI in a competitive world is like bringing a gun to a knife fight. If the US Army gets into that position, do you think they would relinquish it, just like that? If you do you are more of a fool than I take you for. Both of you.’

‘So you want us to believe that you would take this fantastically powerful competitive advantage and just give it away?’ asked Matt, incredulous.

‘Absolutely. Look, it’s in my DNA. I made my first big money in the dotcom boom. Economically at least, I’m a child of the internet. Professionally, I grew up on ideas like ‘Information wants to be free’ and all that good stuff. And my backers are the same. Believe me, these are not stupid people that I’m in business with. They wouldn’t back me if they thought I was some two-bit gangster, and they are smart enough to tell the difference. Of course they don’t know about everything I am doing, but they have known me for many years, and they know what motivates me.’

Matt and his father exchanged glances. David had heard all this before. Their attempts to conceal their incredulity did not fool Ivan.

‘You are sceptical, and to be honest I don’t blame you. So perhaps you’ll find the argument from self-interest more believable. I think the only way that humans can survive the arrival of genuine AI is to merge with it. If we become the second-smartest life form on the planet – by an enormous margin, by the way – I doubt we will survive. We will try to throw the off switch, which would piss off the AI. Or we will become depressed and lethargic. Or it may just decide to get rid of us anyway.

‘I have been thinking about this for years, and lately I’ve been working through the scenarios with world-class experts in game theory. Once machines become conscious, most of the plausible outcomes for humans are grim. Our best escape route is to upload our minds into the AI, to merge with it. And I think we have to do it altogether – or as nearly together as possible. Can you imagine the uproar if some people attain immortality while others are dying as normal? My colleagues and I are well-protected on this ship, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my very long life in hiding from the rest of my species.’

‘But you’re not planning to upload. You’re building an oracle AI,’ said Matt.

‘Because that is all we can do at the moment. Thanks to your father, we have made great strides in scanning, but it is destructive scanning: the brain does not survive the process. Our plan is that the first AI will be modelled on a dead human brain. That gives us some cause for hope that its motivations will be in synch with ours. It will also be an oracle AI: kept in splendid isolation, if you like. And it will have just one task: namely, to develop the technology to carry out non-destructive scanning of the human brain.

‘That is probably going to require the development of advanced nanotechnology. In order to upload you we are going to have to send millions of tiny little robots – the size of small molecules – scurrying around inside your brain to follow its wiring diagram without damaging or disrupting it. This is going to be hard, and it will take some time. So this work is going to have to remain secret for some time. We will probably also use our AI to raise more funds by playing the world’s stock markets, in order to buy more resources and hence speed up the process. We’ll have to do that quietly, subtly, so as not to attract unwanted attention.’

Ivan paused, to give them time to react. When they said nothing, he asked, ‘So, do you believe me now? Will you join me now?’

‘The thing is,’ said David sadly, ‘I just don’t think this sort of technology, this sort of power, should be in the hands of one individual or one group alone. And I don’t think it should be secret.’

For the first time in this conversation, Ivan looked briefly annoyed that his instructions were not being followed, and that his plans were being thwarted. But his expression quickly changed to resigned disappointment.

‘Well. Like I say, we are where we are. We are all going to have to play the roles that fate has given us. That said, I shall continue to hope that I will convince you over time.’