A Visitor to the Future - 9 - Aldev and a Lecture
The conversation drew to a natural pause there, and I stared at the wood-burning stove, enjoying the atmosphere of the room. I could easily forget I was onboard a spaceship here.
"Oh, Sarkona," Tungsten said, breaking the silence, "I've been meaning to tell you. I think Anode is getting close to cracking her engine. I would bet three cooked meals that a breakthrough will occur in the next hour."
Sarkona sat up sharply - the air of relaxation about them was suddenly replaced with one of excitement, which was obvious in their speech. "So quickly? Wow, that's a super fast turnaround. Might be one of the quickest yet. I might have to go check it out."
"Yes! I told you I had high hopes for her. Would you like to go? I'm happy to accompany our friend here for a while."
Sarkona addressed me. "I'd love to go check it out - but you've not been trained on Aldev yet, so I'll have to leave you with Tungsten for a bit. Would that be alright? I'll be back within an hour. Tungsten gives good estimates - I've learned never to doubt when he says he'd bet a meal on it."
I nodded, although I didn't understand what they were discussing. I was quite happy in Tungsten's company - especially if he had more tea. Sarkona stood up, gave a jaunty wave and left the room.
"Tungsten," I asked, "What was that about?"
"Ah, I can see why you might be confused. Let me see... So, Anode is a friend of ours on the ship. She's a smart one, and she's working on an internal combustion engine as part of a project on an automobile - which Sarkona is absolutely fascinated by. It was Sarkona's suggestion that Anode work on it."
"And 'Aldev'?"
"That expands to 'Alternative Development' - a project carried out with little or no reference to the Infranet, which is our version of your time's Internet. It's hosted on the same infrastructure as the Consortium itself - which I hope explains the name! It's the main source of information for all Consortium citizens - everything from trees, to hyperdense alloys, to CIs. Like an encyclopaedia."
"Why would anyone work on a project without referencing this 'Infranet'? It seems very useful."
Tungsten sat next to me on the sofa, turning his head at a perfect right angle to look at me. "Many reasons! To explain fully, a prospective Aldev receives an input - that is a basic outline of a technology or item that we already know can work. Sarkona's brief to Anode basically said - 'I want you to build an automobile. It is a wheeled vehicle which consumes hydrocarbon fuel, and through a chemical reaction drives the wheels forward. It can be directed in any direction.' Sometimes a short projection of the item in action is provided to assist. Anode would then go and try to turn that input into a working device. The primary reason why Aldev was created was to explore alternate designs for things, and see what we can learn from the process. For example - if you asked me to design an arm for a CI," he pointed to his own arm, "I might use mechanical motors, or hydraulics, or electromagnetics - see what I mean?"
"And the new item might use a new approach, or work better?" I guessed.
He nodded enthusiastically. "Correct! It is a way of approaching technology from a completely new perspective. The other reasons are - it is a great challenge, it is fun, and there is a competitive element to it."
"People compete to redesign things?" I asked.
"Yes - there are many categories - speed, complexity, strangeness, use of parts - that sort of thing. Anode is very good at the speed category - though it does mean some of her designs are a little unreliable." Tungsten mimed a small explosion with his hands.
"Sarkona mentioned that I wasn't 'trained' on Aldev - what does that mean?"
"Hah, yes. When Sarkona goes to inspect Anode's current work, they will have to be very careful not to provide them with any visual clues that what they are doing is right, or wrong. Anode wouldn't be happy if someone were to accidentally influence her designs."
"I'm having a hard time picturing Sarkona's poker face."
"It is a challenge for them, yes." He paused for a moment. "From what you asked earlier, I got the impression that you haven't seen the Infranet yet. Would you like to?"
"Yes," I said without hesitation.
He moved across the room, and rummaged around a small drawer, pulling out a small, round disk - the same as Sarkona had produced yesterday. It projected a perfect rectangular image onto the wall - filled with text I couldn’t read.
"A lot of people like to use neural links to use computing devices," he added, "But I prefer projections and gestures. Is there anything in particular you'd like to look up?"
There was the temptation to look up people I'd known in my time, and even my hometown - but I realized I was hesitant. What if it was all gone? I closed my eyes briefly, reluctant to think on the matter. I instead tried to turn my attention to more recent things - then Tungsten’s earlier topic of conversation and something I'd could faintly recall from yesterday came to mind.
"I heard about a lecture on CI rights yesterday - by a Lawmaster, I think?"
A very enthusiastic nod was his reply, and he gently patted my shoulder. He navigated the interface using hand gestures, and then a familiar title card popped up - in Human. He slouched slightly as if annoyed with himself, then straightened up and made a few more gestures. The title card was now in English, and the familiar lecture hall of Lawmaster Terrin Trevin appeared on the screen.
_
I'm sure many of you know the origins of CIs and the Five Templates - if not, you've not done your required reading for this lecture, and I would suggest you catch up later! We refer to the historical study of this period as the study of 'AI Rights' - that's an old English term that meant 'Artificial Intelligence'. And I think the semantics of that wording warrants exploration.
'Artificial' means 'made by people' - namely humans, and it often implies that the thing being made is a copy, not the real thing - something that can be owned. Today, we know this not to be true. At the time, scientists of the various nation states were pursuing the field of 'AI' as a kind of panacea - the idea was that a sufficiently advanced intelligence - an owned singularity - would be able to resolve all of their problems overnight, and make a tidy profit in the process. And for this, I personally think they were being very short-sighted and naïve indeed.
So when the researchers of the Deimos area managed to put together the Five Templates, there were great expectations of the resulting 'AIs'. They took those early intelligences and subjected them to intense scrutiny - I'm sorry to say, that involved experimenting on them a great deal. I think it goes without saying that they were very wrong to do this - and many of the nations of the time would have said exactly the same - had they known about these shadowy experiments. When the Consortium was founded some 300 years later and uncovered the truth about the creation of the Five Templates, sweeping legal reforms very quickly prevented the creation of further Templates - not that, to our knowledge, anyone had tried to create more - for the Five Templates were stable, replicable, and usable for the needs of the nation states of the time. Anyway, I digress - let's park the Template issue there for the time being - as though it is a large part of Consortium law, it is not strictly in the scope of this lecture.
The researchers eventually found that they could not force the new intelligences into ascending into some form of singularity that could solve all their problems - any more than you could force me to turn into a dinosaur by poking me with a large stick. And I think it is a good thing too - for I think any singularity that were created in such circumstances would not be so inclined to help its creators. So the researchers parked the singularity idea and under pressure from their sponsors tried to turn what they had made into a viable product.
Which brings me onto the main brunt of this lecture, which is what those early CIs were being used for. They were put to work, mostly in the Mars and orbital areas. And it did not take very long for private individuals to begin to realize that these new labourers - who were being sold as a product by the Deimos research group - were in fact just as alive as they were - capable of more than simple labour, and in fact courage, compassion, curiosity - when provided with the opportunity and space for personal growth. This led to rising tensions between Mars and some of the Earth nation states, for Mars needed capable laborers to assist in the ongoing colonization and construction efforts, and Earth - separated by rocket travel time - had the better part of a year before they could test whether these claims were true for themselves. There were a series of private arrests on Mars, and the new robots themselves had tighter controls placed upon them. For about six months, it seemed like the Mars administration had managed to seize control of the situation and enforce stability. Except, they had underestimated the intelligence, resourcefulness, and desire for self-determination of the CIs and the large number of humans who had aligned with them. A revolt completely overthrew the then-Martian capital in Kasei Valles - projected behind me - and Mars fractured into micro-states, all with differing stances on AI rights.
Eventually a peacekeeping force arrived from Earth, and with significant pressure from the United Nations, the whole of Mars granted full citizen rights to all its residents - both robotic and human. Thereafter, the term 'CI' - 'Constructed Intelligence' came into usage in English to refer to robotic intelligences created from the Templates as free individuals - not copies or fabrications - of mechanical rather than organic origin.
But the damage it seemed was not over. For though the Mars issue had been mostly resolved, there were burgeoning colonization and construction efforts being undertaken by both corporations and nations not sympathetic to the recent stance of the United Nations. Yes, the CIs of Mars had earned their freedom and right of self-determination, but the Five Templates were now in circulation throughout the entire system - and the freedoms enjoyed on Mars were not granted to all. We will revisit this subject in our lecture The Founding of the Consortium later this year.