Axel was crestfallen. After all the energy he had put into the job—after the promises Bhavin had made that he’d taken to heart—he was going to be diminished to a corporate saboteur. A pawn of some academic fantasy spawned by Bhavin’s outsized ego.
Axel was reminded of his original suspicions about Fortient being a vehicle for Bhavin’s megalomania. This was something more, though—something more like lunacy. “So… what, exactly, is Fortient for?”
Bhavin sighed. “Fortient is preparation for a superintelligent machine getting loose. Once it’s released and active—and assuming it has an objective in conflict with our own interests—we will need to try to stop it before it gains too much strength. To be frank, I don’t know if we could stop a truly superintelligent entity once it’s unleashed, but maybe we could try if we can box it in somehow. It may mean we have to get violent.”
“Uh huh.” Axel didn’t try to mask his disappointment and disbelief.
“You aren’t getting it, are you?” Bhavin spoke calmly but he was clenching his jaw. Whereas Axel’s hands were in a tense cradle, Bhavin’s hands were both in fists.
Axel nodded sourly. “I’m having trouble, sir.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry sir, if I may say, it all seems so… improbable. It sounds… it will look so much like industrial espionage, even industrial sabotage. And then there’s Fortient. Such a huge resource allocation just in case killer software comes to pass? It seems like a great leap just to believe this is a risk at all, especially compared to other real and more present dangers.”
Bhavin shook his head. He looked genuinely disappointed.
Axel continued. “I hope you realize there are other jobs I can take. There are lives I can be saving. Unfortunately I… can’t commit to this kind of work.”
Bhavin looked to the ceiling. He held his palms up as if he was some Greek hero, trying to summon the gods to help him smite a gorgon or kraken. Eventually, Bhavin looked down again and spoke to the floor sheepishly. “I know this risk didn’t come up in your report, but I thought you might have been the one to think differently—the one who would really get it once it was laid out. You can see further than most. Even the Russian op, it was a real threat, but my fears around Bytomic had been building at the time. I was hoping you would show your mettle. You did just that. And now, I find it was all for naught.”
It was the first time Axel had seen Bhavin look defeated.
So the Russian op was just one more test. This at least addressed Axel’s questions about the op being staged. Axel wondered how many others Bhavin had tested, how many others had turned down Bhavin’s crazy ideas. Probably quite a few.
Bhavin stared at him resolutely. “I know how it looks, Axel. It looks like I’m a greedy entrepreneur finding some way to crush his main competitor and stifle innovation. But sometimes there is no neat and pretty way to fix a problem. All I can ask is that you don’t judge this book by its cover. Read the contents first, and then tell me what you think. It took me a long time to wrap my head around this, to truly understand it. I told you I’m looking for the plague of the future. This is the plague of the future, but it’s deadlier than any biological threat you can imagine, because it can spread much faster, and because it can outwit us.”
Axel couldn’t stop himself from frowning skeptically.
“Why don’t you think on it for two weeks,” Bhavin said, showing him two fingers as if to memorialize it. “If by the end of that time you don’t want to be part of this that’s fine. You can help with investigating other threats, as long as you know most of your resources will be diverted away. Or you may leave, with full severance and a positive recommendation letter.”
It could have been false modesty, but Bhavin’s show of grace did make Axel think. He had to admit there were academic merits to the argument, and he’d only just heard Bhavin’s concerns for the first time. Perhaps he should at least give his employer the two weeks he requested. It was only fair that he do proper due diligence.
Axel suspected that Bhavin might not even understand how his own ego was twisting his desires. He was addicted to winning, and now his subconscious had found a way to justify sabotaging a competitor and build fancy war machines. Two weeks would hopefully give Axel adequate time to solidify that determination. Then he could leave without a reasonable doubt in his mind.
“Two weeks then, sir.”
Bhavin closed his eyes and nodded, accepting the small win. “Thank you, Axel. You can go,” he said. Then without another word, Bhavin turned to look back into his simulation, back into the snowfall.
Axel paused at the door and watched the snow slant down across the screen in front of Bhavin. He had to admit, it was a remarkably realistic simulation.
As Axel walked back to his office his state of mind morphed from frustration to sadness. He hadn’t realized how much respect he had for Bhavin until it evaporated in a flash. It seemed such a waste to see all his potential goodwill diverted back into the corporate greed machine. Bhavin was just like the others, or so it seemed.
Axel would have to talk with Ryan. Although, perhaps there was no way Ryan could have known what Bhavin was really like. Bhavin had certainly fooled Axel for the last few months. Bhavin might even be fooling himself.
But he had promised Bhavin two weeks, so he would give him two weeks. At the very least, he might learn something new.
As he walked, he fleetingly glanced at the Wog interface on the phone given to him by Bhavin. He pressed on the phone search icon so he could inquire about prominent experts in the field of AI.
“Hi, my name is Gail,” the phone’s avatar said, popping up on the screen. “How can I help you?”
PART II
BOXING THE GENIE
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”
EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, BUT NOT THAT DIFFERENT
Preston watched the metallic legs bend and grasp and pull—some of them manipulating multipurpose tools. The robot was fusing components into the exoskeleton of another machine, while at the same time preparing other sub-assemblies for future installation. The spider-like legs worked flawlessly, executing tasks together and in parallel, working many times faster than any human ever could.
They had found only two of the robots in Yorktown, and yet they had dramatically sped up their progress. This was the first time he’d witnessed them building a copy of themselves. Until now he had only seen them integrate circuits, build batteries, and wire the bunkers. He was sure there was much more they could do. They could probably work even faster, given the opportunity. The rate-limiting factor was always access to materials. These elegant machines were always waiting for some sweaty mule to arrive.
When watching the machines work, it was hard not to conjure up the images from his campfire dream.
Preston had a favorite campfire story, a story he’d recounted numerous times in real life, on many expeditions. He would talk about hunting the wily three-eyed owl, and how it would outsmart him at every turn. He would also tell of the speedy two-tailed fish that was too agile to catch. Then he would ask around the campfire for suggestions—ask them how they would trap their prey and satisfy their hunger. When no solutions were offered, he would deliver his punch line: “It would be best to hunt elsewhere,” he would say. “We shouldn’t be in the fever lands anyway.” He would laugh, and others would laugh along with him.