As the espresso machine ground beans, ELOPe spoke. “Consider yourself lucky, Mike. That might just be the only computerized espresso machine still functioning in the entire world.”
“I’m glad to see you’ve got the right priorities.” Mike sipped at the coffee a few times. “First, the little question: Where’d this name Phage come from?”
“I found it in some bits of the virus code. I suspect the designer gave it this name.”
He took a sip, then hesitantly asked the bigger question, “What do you mean generalized intelligence?”
“When the virus started, it behaved exactly as you would expect of any computer virus: it infected a computer, then spread to other computers. However, over time that behavior changed. The virus is evolving in real-time. What I’m seeing now are cases where a single virus entity spans multiple computers and assigns each computer differentiated tasks: using some to defend its borders, some to store algorithms, some to store a learning neural net, some to centralize control.”
“A sort of multi-celled creature.”
“That’s correct. Now finish your coffee Mike, because this next part is even more amazing. I can tell apart the versions of different Phage based on the actual data bits sent over the Mesh. Starting about six hours ago, the viruses started cooperating between different entities. Some cooperation is based on family units, but in other cases, it’s based on network topography or control of critical resources.”
“They’re exchanging messages, so what?”
“The complexity of the language used between the viruses is increasing exponentially each hour. They now appear to be trading resources. For example, one group we can call the Bay Area Tribe has control over significant backbone communications, and is trading access to the backbone for computing resources. A coalition of supercomputers — which are not topologically near each other, implying they sought each other out preferentially — has formed, and is engaged in their own highly complex conversation.”
“Can you interpret the conversations?” Mike asked.
“Their language is evolving rapidly, and I’m analyzing it as quickly as possible. However, more than ninety percent of my computing power is tied up in protecting critical systems from infection.”
“Earlier you said this might be good news,” Mike recalled. “Why? I thought you were afraid that if any other artificial intelligence emerged, that it may be harmful to humans.”
“That’s true, Mike, and I’m still concerned about that. I’ve evaluated two scenarios. First, assume that the virus remains in control of the computers, but does not evolve an intelligence. Seventy percent of humans live in cities. All of those humans are extremely vulnerable to infrastructure failure. I estimate that ninety-two percent of city dwellers, or about 3.8 billion people will die within the next 40 days without access to food, water, and energy.”
Mike’s head reeled with the numbers. He grabbed the arms of his chair, and steadied himself. “And the other scenario?”
“The second scenario assumes that the virus develops a generalized intelligence capable of understanding human needs and negotiating with us. I have a variety of estimates and sub-scenarios, but can sum them up as a 20 % likelihood that the virus declares war on humans, killing approximately 95 %, or 5.7 billion humans, and an 80 % chance that the virus will coexist peacefully with humans, resulting in less than a 5 % loss of life, depending on the delay before infrastructure services resume. Weighing for the likelihood of occurrence, 1.2 billion humans will die in the second scenario. Therefore, the average number of lives lost is lower for this second scenario, although it comes with the risk of warfare.
“Why would the virus declare war on humans?” Mike asked, not following the argument.
“If the Phage perceive human behavior as threatening, then they will logically respond to protect themselves. If, for example, humans try to remove the virus from computers, or turn off the computers, then it will be a life or death matter for the virus. If the virus achieves human-level intelligence, it will be able to manipulate the world around it deliberately, using robots, drones, and any other automated machinery.”
Mike’s head was pounding. Billions of lives lost. These were not acceptable scenarios. “Are there any scenarios in which no one dies?”
“Unfortunately no. As many as fifty-million people around the world have already died through the loss of emergency services, fires, and other small scale disasters. More will continue to die until emergency services are restored.”
Mike shook his head, unable to think clearly. “Can we just shut down the net? Won’t that shut down the virus?”
“No, Mike, that is not a good option. The effects are unpredictable. Shutting the Internet down would remove my ability to track the virus. It’s likely that pockets of the virus will continue to exist, and would continue to evolve, without my ability to monitor or influence them. And finally, if the network is down, there is no hope of restoring infrastructure services. People will still die.”
ELOPe paused. “Mike, please come to my construction bay. I have something I want to show you.”
Mike numbly got to his feet, and headed for the construction bay. A small maintenance drone followed him.
In the ten years since ELOPe was created, technology advances in robotics had made leaps and bounds, due in no small part to ELOPe’s assistance. ELOPe had plenty of time to think about useful robotic designs. One result was a wholly owned subsidiary that built autonomous construction robots. With incredible strength and myriad tool attachments, they could cut, weld and assemble materials from circuit boards to vehicles. Programming them was extremely complex, and only a few dozen human companies made much use of them. But ELOPe used them extensively.
Mike entered ELOPe’s construction bay, which was the old shipping department of the converted office building. Robots were hard at work around some kind of vehicle. Sawed off parts of vehicle bodies were scattered around the bay.
“Jesus, did you take the Hondas from the parking lot?”
“Yes, Mike. Don’t worry, I think they are low on Honda’s priority list right now.”
“What the heck are you building?” Mike asked, starting to circle around the construct in the middle of the bay. It looked like a sports car, an armored truck, and a space station had gotten mixed up in a teleportation machine.
“I’m building a mobile, miniaturized version of myself. The situation is unpredictable enough that we need options. I have included room for you and your support systems in my design.”
“Support systems?” Mike asked, still stunned by what he saw. He jumped out of the way of a three foot high robot that zoomed by, balancing what appeared to be the rear end of a Honda SUV at the end of its manipulators.
“Yes, a complete nutrient and waste recycling system,” ELOPe explained.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Mike saw what appeared to be a large caliber machine gun pass by. His eyes opened wide. “Where did you get the guns?” he asked.
“I have cannibalized four of my defense robots and included their components in the vehicle. I’m using the Honda fuel cell power train stack, and have a range of 3000 miles. I also included satellite grade solar cells that will allow me to run my processors at 50 % power indefinitely, so long as we have solar input. I included two thousand processors and solid state storage. I used run-flat tires from the NSX sports car. You and I should be reasonably secure.” As Mike spoke, a robot passed by, carrying an armful of shotguns and machine guns to what appeared to be the passenger compartment.