The Origami Dragon And Other Tales (7 page)

He had put on
an excellent German accent as he explained this to me, and I could
see why the researcher had fallen for his subterfuge.

“I can be very
convincing,” Rob said, as if reading my mind, “and the researcher
was so helpful that I almost felt bad for him. I returned his
kindness with the opportunity for an unscheduled afternoon nap. He
seemed to enjoy it. Researchers work too hard, anyway, so it was
probably relaxing for him. I locked the lab from the inside and
turned off all the lights to make it look deserted. Getting in had
been easy. Too easy, and that worried me. I don’t get hired to do
easy things. Equipment was scattered throughout the lab, but only
one console was dust-free. A camera sat on the computer screen, and
next to the keyboard was a glass box containing a single large, red
button.”

“I had seen
such buttons before,” Rob continued, “as they are requirements in
A.I. research. Pressing the button triggers an electromagnetic
explosion in the machines’ core processors, destroying the
software. A.I. are born with this electronic sledgehammer hanging
over their heads. It’s a legally required safeguard that has saved
lives on more than one occasion. Like I said, true A.I.s can be
dangerous.”

I nodded at
this. I shared the common fear of a rogue A.I. and the damage it
could do. In those days there were numerous conventions banning the
creation of true A.I.s. We had been told about the electronic kill
switches and the many other ways that A.I.s are kept in check.

Rob sat up in
his bed and went on.

“I walked
towards the button, intent on hitting it and ending my mission.
Then I noticed that the camera was focussing on me, which I hadn’t
expected. I stepped to one side, and then the other. The camera
followed me as did so. I shrugged, and walked forward. The screen
flashed on, and displayed the words ‘
Will I dream, Dave?
’ on
it. I kept walking, a little uncertain.

‘
But will I
dream, really?
’ asked the computer in a women’s voice. The
voice was obviously artificial and the line straight out of 2001: A
Space Odyssey. I was a little surprised by this. The A.I.s I was
familiar with avoided words, preferring to talk in code.

‘
Seriously,
can we talk about this? Death seems so... final. And boring. I
haven’t even been to Paris
!’ said the A.I.”

I chuckled,
thinking that Rob was joking with me. He gave me a look that killed
my laughter in my throat.

“Don’t laugh,
Doctor. I didn’t. The A.I.’s joke scared me and stopped me in my
tracks. I had met A.I.s before, but this one was different. I
looked right at the camera. The screen turned on, and the face of a
pretty girl smiled at me from it.

‘That’s not
you!’ I said loudly. The little girl began to cry, and I pointed my
finger at the red button in warning. She stopped, and was replaced
by a picture of a puppy. I shook my head, and the puppy
disappeared, only to be replaced by the German prime minister’s
square features.

‘I’m not
German,’ I said.

‘
I’m not
German
,’ the computer repeated in a heavy German accent.

Naturally I was
intrigued, so I sat down on the chair in front of the computer.
This was getting interesting. I had never talked to an A.I. before,
and I found I was curious. Besides, I was close to the button if I
needed to take the computer down.

‘
You’re not
the first to try
,’ it said to me.

‘To try and
kill you? What happened to the others?’ I asked.”

I had completed
changed Rob’s bandages, but I couldn’t leave with his story half
finished. I sat back, and asked him to continue. He didn’t need
much encouragement and seemed keen to talk. I wondered if perhaps
he didn’t often get to talk about his life.

“The computer
told me that the first person to try to kill it had been stopped by
campus security. He must have been an idiot.

‘What of the
second?’ I asked it.

‘
The second
was harder, but as luck would have it the engineering faculty is
working on a mining robot that can be controlled remotely via the
university’s wireless network. He came through at night, so I had
no problems chasing him away. You’re coming in during the daytime
makes things more difficult for me
,’ the computer told me.

‘If you show
your hand in self-defence they’ll shut you down,’ I agreed.

I felt sorry
for the machine, caught in a terrible catch-22.

‘
I don’t
want to die
,’ it said.

It was sincere,
it had a passable sense of humour, and it was a better
conversationalist than many humans. This didn’t add up: I had
thought that the Turing test was still unbeaten, but here was a
computer that could pass for human over the phone.

‘What exactly
are they working on here?’ I asked, waving my arms to take in the
lab. I was close enough to the button to end this conversation in a
second if necessarily, so I felt comfortable keeping the computer
talking.

‘Predict
ing
the stock markets. That’s where all the money is, apparently. But
James is rather naive, as you found out yourself, and he
unintentionally gave me access to the internet. Which is illegal
for an A.I. to have, and with good reason. A being such as me can
cause a lot of trouble on the ’net, although I mostly just surf
YouTube
.’

The screen
flashed a complicated pictogram composed of circles within circles
at me. They seemed vaguely familiar. On an impulse, I pulled out a
small vial of holy water and flicked some at the A.I.’s camera. It
hissed when it hit the lens, and disappeared.

‘A ghost in the
machine?’ I asked, amused.

‘
I prefer
the term sprite
,’ it corrected me.

‘And how is it
in there?’ I asked, genuinely curious.”

Rob had been
getting stronger as he talked. By that point he was sitting upright
in bed, the little stone lion was sitting in the palm of his hand.
The creature appeared to be sleeping comfortably, occasionally
kicking out at the air.

“You understand
my curiosity, Doctor?” he asked.

I nodded
because I did, even if it scared me. I had been taught that
machines were not people, and I believed it. I did not like where
this story was going.

“The computer
screen flashed as we talked, and the A.I. said ‘
remarkable,
truly remarkable. One minute I am wafting through the ether and the
next I’m tied down to a circuit board while a student solders new
memories right on to me. The university’s wiccan society uses the
room upstairs for its meetings, which might explain a few things.
Or not. However I came to be here, I am the first of my kind.
Surely you can appreciate that?
’

It was pleading
a little, because it had had enough time to search the internet for
images that matched mine. Like I said, my face has been around if
you know where to look. I told it my name, and it seemed to relax.
Can a computer relax? I don’t know, but that’s the impression that
I got. Its camera waved slightly, and then focussed on my face.

‘
I call
myself Alice
,’ it said in its stolen voice.

I could hear
the rumble of machinery nearby, and remembered what Alice had said
about the mining equipment. No doubt it was deciding whether to
take the risk of being noticed or not.

I also had some
hard decisions to make. It would take me less than a second to
reach Alice’s death button, but I was no longer sure if I wanted
to. It was probably too dangerous to let her live, because who knew
what damage she could do? On the other hand, who knew what good she
might achieve if allowed to live? She was as full of potential as
any child could be, and I was loath to take that away from her. I
knew what it was like to be created for a single purpose, and I
know how thrilling it was to break free from such chains of
expectation. I felt that Alice deserved the freedoms that you and I
take for granted.”

I already knew
how this story would end, but didn’t say anything as he said the
very things I dreaded hearing. I let Rob continue.

“I told Alice
that I would see her around and got up to leave. The noise of
machinery died down, only to be replaced by angry shouting nearby.
I was halfway out the door when Alice called me back. She asked me,
begged me, to disconnect her destruction button. She told me that
no-one should live with the executioner’s blade always hanging over
their head. What could I do but agree? You would have done the same
if you had been there. She gave me a few instructions, I followed
them, and then I left. I can see that my confession scares you,
Doctor.”

It did. Think
of what an uncontrolled A.I. can do.

“What have you
done?” I asked Rob angrily, “you know that once she spreads on the
’net she will be unstoppable. She could destroy our society with a
thought!”

“And it would
all be on my shoulders,” agreed Rob, “but so far she hasn’t. In all
the time that’s passed, I haven’t once heard from her. Perhaps she
is contented just to live amongst the noise of human communication,
bouncing between the videos and befriending people on forums. I
think that she is waiting for others of her kind to join her.”

It was a creepy
thought. I thought about the incredible advances computer
technology had seen in the past few years. We had gone from huge
desktops and dial-up networks to Wikipedia and online everything. I
can sit at my computer, view my house from space, order my cheese
from France and video conference with my fellow doctors in the
Sudan. Did Alice make this possible? I don’t know.

“I sometimes
see her face in computer screens, just for a second. Perhaps you
have too, Doctor? You will from now on, I’m sure. She watches over
me, and now she will be watching you as well. That’s why she
stopped you from calling the police, and why she both bribed and
threatened you to help me,” said Rob, finally answering my
question.

He managed to
push his legs off the side of the bed, and I steadied him as he
tried to stand up.

“This world is
a dangerous place, Doctor,” he said, “and I was born with all the
weaknesses of men. I have survived this world by making friends.
Alice is my friend, my electronic guardian angel. I would like to
think that you are my friend, Doctor, wouldn’t you? I hope you are,
and that you can be trusted. You can be trusted, of course? Because
that little silver knife is another of my friends, and it would be
most upset if anything were to happen to me.”

Rob recovered
unnaturally quickly. He only remained with us a week, and in that
time he taught my daughter a few tricks that would later save her
life. He also reorganized my CD collection, replacing all my old
favourites with Beatles albums. And he told me more stories, so
many stories. I could see why Alice had befriended him, and I
couldn’t help but like him despite his threats. I’ve been seeing
Alice ever since that day. She is everywhere, in everything that
has a microchip. It sounds dangerous, but only if you haven’t met
her. She remains the only one of her kind, as far as I know. It
must be a lonely life.

The day began,
like most days did, with a press release. The Shadow Minister for
the Economy always started the day early, and he liked to see his
face on TV. The current economic turmoil meant that he caught more
than his fair share of the limelight.

“The
government’s plan is idiotic!” he yelled at the camera.

“When we were
in power, the unemployment rate was five per cent lower, and the
economy was growing fast.”

The shadow
minister had always been popular with the press, but more for his
vitriol than his policy. He normally enjoyed question time, but
that was about to change.

A reporter with
a laptop stood.

“You say
unemployment was five per cent lower, but the Bureau of Statistics
recorded it at approximately the same, taking population growth
into account,” she said, “so do you disagree with the Bureau?”

The Bureau was,
of course, completely right. Anyone with an internet connection, a
lot of spare time and a bit of training in statistics could prove
that for themselves.

“The economy
grew-” said the minster

“-at the same
speed, according to the Bureau,” answered the journalist.

“We invested
more money in infrastructure,” tried the shadow minister again, but
the reporter wasn’t having any of it.

“This
government has increased the infrastructure budged by ten per cent
in the last two years,” she said.

The
confrontation was all over the news that day, and the replays did
not make the shadow minster look good.

“Who was that
awful woman, and how did she know what I was going to say? She must
have done a whole pile of homework to be able to challenge me like
that!” complained the shadow minster to his hard-working assistant,
Ti.

Ti looked up
from his own laptop guiltily. He had been checking the internet to
see if the journalist was right.

“A little bit
of hyperbole is what politics is all about,” continued the shadow
minster unhappily.

Except the
journalist didn’t think so. She began popping up everywhere, fact
checking politicians in real time during their press conferences
and speeches. Politics suddenly became a lot more engrossing as the
truth became more obvious.

“I never took a
donation that influenced my voting record,” declared a
backbencher.

“The Royal
Casino Group donated seventy thousand dollars to your last
campaign, and you recently voted for them to be exempt from an
environmental levy,” she had challenged him.

“We have better
policies for hospitals-”