“Proud,” Lash repeated. “Do you mean to say that it’s conscious? Self-aware?”
“She’s definitely self-aware. Whether she’s conscious or not gets into a philosophical area I’m not prepared to address.”
“But she is self-aware. So what, exactly, is she aware of? She knows she’s a computer, that she’s different. Right?”
Silver shook his head. “I never added any module of code to that effect.”
“What?” Lash said in surprise.
“Why should she think she’s any different than us?”
“I just assumed—”
“Does a child, no matter how precocious, ever doubt the reality of its existence? Do you?”
Lash shook his head. “But we’re talking about software and hardware here. That sounds like a false syllogism to me.”
“There’s no such thing in AI. Who’s to say when programming stops and consciousness begins? A famous scientist once referred to humans as ‘meat machines.’ Are we the better for it? Besides, there’s no test you can take to prove you’re not a program, wandering around in cyberspace. What’s your proof?”
Silver had been speaking with a passion Lash hadn’t seen before. Suddenly he stopped. “Sorry,” he said, laughing shyly. “I guess I think about these things a lot more than I talk about them. Anyway, back to Liza’s architecture. She employs a very advanced form of a neural network — a computer architecture based on how the human brain works. Regular computers are constrained to two dimensions. But a neural net is arranged in three: rings inside rings inside rings. So you can move data in an almost infinite number of directions, not just along a single circuit.” Silver paused. “It’s a lot more complicated than that, of course. To ramp up her problem-solving capability, I employed swarm intelligence. Large functions are broken up into tiny, discrete data agents. That’s what allows her to solve such profound challenges, so quickly.”
“Does she know we’re here?”
Silver nodded toward a video monitor set high in one wall. “Yes. But her processing isn’t currently focused on us.”
“Earlier, you said you needed to access Liza directly for complicated work. Such as?”
“A variety of things. She runs scenarios, for example, that I monitor.”
“What kinds of scenarios?”
“All kinds. Problem-solving. Role-playing. Survival games. Things that stimulate creative thinking.” Silver hesitated. “I also use direct access for more difficult, personal tasks like software updates. But it would probably be easier just to show you.”
He walked across the room, slid open the Plexiglas panel, and took a seat in the sculpted chair. Lash watched as he fixed electrodes to his temples. A small keypad and stylus were set into one arm of the chair; a hat switch was mounted on the other. Reaching overhead, Silver pulled down a flat panel monitor, fixed to a telescoping arm. His left hand began moving over the keypad.
“What are you doing?” Lash asked.
“Getting her attention.” Silver’s hand fell away from the keypad and fixed the lavalier mike to his shirt collar.
Just then, Lash heard a voice.
“Richard,” it said.
It was a woman’s voice, low and without accent, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was as if the room itself was speaking.
“Liza,” Silver replied. “What is your current state?”
“Ninety-eight point seven two seven percent operational. Current processes are at eighty-one point four percent of multithreaded capacity. Thank you for asking.”
The voice was calm, almost serene, with the faintest trace of digital artifacting. Lash had a strange sense of déjà vu, as if he’d heard the voice before, somewhere. Perhaps in dreams.
“Who is with you?” the voice asked. Lash noticed that the question was articulated properly, with a faint emphasis on the preposition. He thought he even detected an undercurrent of curiosity. He glanced a little uneasily up at the video camera.
“This is Christopher Lash.”
“Christopher,” the voice repeated, as if tasting the name.
“Liza, I have a special process I would like you to run.” Lash noticed that when Silver addressed the computer, he spoke slowly and with careful enunciation, without contractions of any kind.
“Very well, Richard.”
“Do you remember the data interrogatory I asked you to run forty-eight hours ago?”
“If you mean the statistical deviance interrogatory, my dataset has not been corrupted.”
Silver covered the mike and turned to Lash. “She misinterpreted ‘do you remember.’ Even now, I sometimes forget how literal-minded she is.”
He turned back. “I need you to run a similar interrogatory against external agents. The arguments are the same: data crossover with the four subjects.”
“Subject Schwartz, Subject Thorpe, Subject Torvald, Subject Wilner.”
“That is correct.”
“What is the scope of the interrogatory?”
“United States citizens, ages fifteen to seventy, with access to both target locations on the stated dates.”
“The data-gathering parameters?”
“All available sources.”
“And the priority of this process?”
“Highest priority, except for criticals. It is vital we find the solution.”
“Very well, Richard.”
“Can you give me an estimated processing window?”
“To within eleven-percent accuracy. Seventy-four hours, fifty-three minutes, nine seconds. Approximately eight hundred trillion five hundred billion machine cycles.”
“Thank you, Liza.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No.”
“I will begin the expanded interrogatory now. Thank you for speaking with me, Richard.”
As Silver removed the microphone and reached again for the keypad, the disembodied voice spoke again. “It was nice meeting you, Christopher Lash.”
“A pleasure,” Lash murmured. Hearing this voice speak to him, watching the interaction between Silver and his computer, was both fascinating and a little unsettling.
Silver plucked the electrodes from his temples, put them aside, and got out of the chair. “You said you’d go to the police if you thought it would help. I’ve just done something better. I’ve instructed Liza to search the entire country for a possible suspect match.”
“The entire country? Is that possible?”
“For Eden, it’s possible.” Silver swayed, recovered. “Sorry. Sessions with Liza, even brief ones, can be a little draining.”
“How so?”
Silver smiled. “In movies people talk to computers, and they talk glibly back. Maybe it will be that way in another decade. Right now, it’s hard work. As much a mental exercise as a verbal one.”
“Those electroencephalogram sensors you wore?”
“Think of biofeedback. The frequency and amplitude of beta or theta waves can speak a lot more distinctly than words. Early on, when I was having troubles with her language comprehension, I used the EEG as a shortcut. It required a great deal of concentration, but there was no confusion over dual meanings, homophones, nuances of intent. Now, it’s too deeply buried in her legacy code to change easily.”
“So only you can communicate with her directly?”
“It’s theoretically possible for others to do so, too, with the proper concentration and training. There’s just been no need.”
“Perhaps not,” Lash said. “If I’d built something this marvelous, I’d want to share it with others. Like-minded scientists who could build on what you pioneered.”