Bhavin nodded. “You have to understand this has all been orchestrated by this superintelligent entity. It knows that climate change is something we believe in, or at least those of us that are at least moderately scientifically inclined. It is employing false news, and controlling weather apps and reports, to fool us with this plausible narrative. The weather in these countries is no different than anywhere else, but no one knows this because the data has all been falsified. Many of the pictures of climate devastation are fake.”
Brad scoffed. “Wait… now you’re saying climate change isn’t real?”
Bhavin sighed. “No, it’s real. I’m saying it’s not what is causing these wars.”
Axel could see a number of social media posts claiming Bhavin didn’t believe in climate change. It wasn’t helping his eroding credibility.
Brad continued to be unmoved by Bhavin’s arguments, and Bhavin could tell. Bhavin said, “Look, all I ask is that you, and your viewers, have an open mind. Soon we will be submitting our evidence and recommendations to you and other media outlets, in writing, and you can see the story in its entirety. I’m confident once you read it you will have a harder time discounting it.”
Axel noticed the video broadcast was still offline, but something odd was happening to the social media feeds. No more new postings were being made from the audience. Also, it looked like prior posts were being altered or replaced. One of them, the one shared most, now read Nadar thinks computers will be superintelligent in our lifetime! They will help us fix climate change! Another read Nadar believes Vitadyne’s defense products are best suited for the conflicts in Poland, Ecuador, and Morocco.
More audience posts could be found by less followed authors. Some of them referred to superintelligence obscurely, all of them were positive on Vitadyne, and many of them were derogatory about Nadar Corporation. The only posts that appeared unaltered were about Bhavin not believing in climate change.
Beside him, Grant was frantically analyzing his dashboards and tracking his network queries into social media sites. He pulled at his hair in a rare gesture of disquiet. “How is this even possible?” he asked.
Back on stage, Brad’s eyes were darting back and forth, trying to find another point of debate, another avenue to explore to further tap into ratings and increased viewership. After some tense silence, he said, “I still don’t get it. Even if what you say is true, why is this machine entity doing this? Is it just here to enrich Vitadyne? What does this thing want?”
“We know exactly what it wants, Brad. It will sound odd at first, but when you put it all together, it makes sense. It was a test program released into the world too early, without any constraints or safeguards, designed to produce as many bicycles as possible.”
“This entity that wants to take over the world, is doing it… to make bikes?” Brad said, making a small pedaling motion with his hands. It was enough to get the audience to laugh, enough for some of them to throw their hands ups in disbelief.
“Like, because it thinks we need more exercise?” Brad followed, capitalizing on the moment. There was more laughter in the audience.
Bhavin frowned and ignored the ridicule. “Yes, bikes, but not for exercise or any other reason. Think about what a superintelligent entity might do when you give it one solitary goal. To build as many bikes as possible, first it needs to preserve itself from the major impediment to that activity, which is the potential that we interfere in some way. I suspect it is delaying its gratification as much as possible to ensure it has the resources it needs, and to ensure we can’t stop it from attaining its production objectives. Even still, the production of bicycle lines has increased ten fold at Vitadyne, with only a doubling of sales. The public has mostly missed this anomaly because of the company’s other successes. Eventually it will ramp up production by many orders of magnitude, but only when it believes nothing is standing in its way.”
Brad looked bewildered, like a child trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.
“I know it sounds capricious, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Bhavin continued. “It doesn’t matter what its objective is. It could be producing chairs, defibrillators, or toothbrushes. It will still peg us as a threat because we could stand in the way of it completing an infinite number of them. It just so happens it’s bikes, because that’s what the developer wanted it to build.”
“Bikes,” Brad said, nodding. Then he made the pedaling motion with his hands, getting another snicker from the audience. Maybe he understood, maybe he didn’t, but it seemed he would rather subvert Bhavin’s explanation for a cheap laugh rather than give it serious consideration.
Bhavin stared at Brad in a long moment of tension. For the first time in the interview his face revealed his frustration. Brad noticed and said, “Hey Bhavin, sorry. We are just having a little fun with this. You have to admit, it does sound a wee bit unbelievable.”
Bhavin turned to the audience and the cameras. “When Pythagoras showed people the earth was round instead of flat, I’m sure people laughed, as you do now. When people said the atom could be split, I’m sure people laughed, as you do now. But this time is different. This is much more harrowing, because we won’t have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. We are like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, but with blindfolds on, and our exit is being paved over with impenetrable concrete as we speak.”
Still staring at the cameras, Bhavin stood up from his chair. He looked to be forcibly trying to calm himself, his hands in fists in front of him. “This is our last chance. If we don’t show at least a modicum of humility, if we don’t stop laughing in the face of this, our greatest threat as a species, everything we have, all of us, will be lost forever.”
Bhavin took off his mic, causing a loud audio distortion, handed it to Brad, and walked off the stage.
“Wait, wait, the interview isn’t over yet,” Brad called after Bhavin.
Bhavin didn’t turn or respond. He walked off camera, directly toward Axel and Grant. Axel quickly packed up his things.
Without a word, the three of them made to leave.
“Situation report,” Bhavin said, moving with purpose out of the main entrance. They handed over their studio passes as they left.
Grant said, “Unfortunately, only the studio audience got the full story. The broadcast was held up. I suspect Gail will replace it with something she creates later to fit whatever story she wants. Everyone else on social media received a significant distortion of the truth. I would estimate we may have touched ten or twenty thousand people with the initial social media posts, but all of those posts have now been sanitized.”
“Understood,” Bhavin said, not sounding surprised.
“I thought you did a good job, sir,” Axel said. “It was worth a shot.”
Bhavin glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. “I don’t regret doing the interview, not at all. I do regret that I did it way too late. I should have done this years ago, before Gail even existed, or even within hours of her release.”
It was true in hindsight, of course, but he couldn’t fault Bhavin. Axel couldn’t even come to grips that the threat was real until a few months ago.
They began making their way toward the self-driving car lift. The hallway from the studio opened up into a broad room with arced, full-length windows that offered views of Los Angeles from their twelfth-story vantage point. The towncar they arrived in was parked at the wall port.
“Sir, I think the car we arrived in has too much network connectivity,” Axel said. “I would rather we take one of our quarantined cars. I have one waiting that can bring us to a quarantined chopper at the local airfield.”