"My memories of Shinanai," Lady Death whispered to herself. Thoughts of the aidoru flooded her mind-of Shinanai's crushing embrace and hot kisses. Blushing, Lady Death raised a hand to hide her mouth and glanced around at Dark Father and the frozen executives who sat next to her. Were her memories being sampled even now? »In the early 2040s, something happened. The original Psychotrope program started acting erratically. At the time, we simply thought that its code had been corrupted, causing the observed glitches. But we were later able to piece together what had happened, and to make inferences based on the small amount of data we were able to retrieve. »We now believe that the knowbots that served as Psychotrope's delivery system achieved connectivity, some time in the mid-2040s. Somehow, Psychotrope became a single, self-aware program capable of self-programming in response to new data. It also appeared to be capable of self-regeneration. Those knowbots that were destroyed by IC or that became afflicted with a virus were either replaced or repaired-independent of any input or guidance by a human programmer. By all definitions, Psychotrope had become a true AI.«
"So ka?" Lady Death said. "I knew it!"
Dark Father nodded. "It's true. I think I spoke to it."
Lady Death turned to him, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I also spoke to it."
That startled him. For a moment Dark Father stared at her. Then he turned away as the executive icon at the front of the room continued its presentation. »In 2047, Psychotrope disappeared from the Matrix. We believe that it retreated into a host of its own creation- a virtual "pocket universe." A sanctuary that we could not locate.«
"And that we haven't been able escape from," Dark Father muttered grimly. "Yet." »When we re-discovered Psychotrope two years ago, we concluded that it must have been contemplating its own self-awareness all this time-the Al equivalent of a hermit retreating to an isolated cave to ponder the meaning of life. Its knowbots had disappeared from the Matrix, years ago, and there appeared to have been no activity that could be related to the program. But then one of our researchers inferred a startling correlation with some disturbing real-world events. »Back in the early '50s, disturbing rumors had begun to surface. Impossible-sounding stories of deckers-none of them older than their mid-teens-who could access the Matrix without a cyberdeck. Something had happened that allowed them to use the datajacks implanted in their minds to access the Matrix via nothing more than a fiber-optic connection and jackpoint.«
Lady Death smiled. So it was true. Wonderful. »We dismissed these stories as rumor, at first. But when we heard the first reports of the "deep resonance" that these so-called otaku experienced, we realized what must have happened. When we heard deep resonance described as being an intensely emotional experience, one that first laid bare the deepest fears of the subject, then calmed the mind and forever laid those fears to rest, we realized that positive conditioning was at the heart of it. And the only known program capable of producing such profound results was our own: Psychotrope. »We now know what the artificial intelligence has been up to for the past fifteen years: rewriting and "repairing" the "programming" of the human brain. Working with children rather than with adults, since children have a greater capacity for learning language-including the "language" of Matrix iconography. Turning these children's brains into bioprocess computers. Creating otaku. »At first we had hoped to study this process, to duplicate it. But it appears that the Al and the "deep resonance" effect it produces are an essential part of the process-one that cannot be omitted. Those whose minds and wills are strong enough to survive it are transformed-those who do not are plunged into cyberpsychosis. »We had hoped to keep any knowledge of the Al firmly within the confines of NovaTech until we found a way to utilize it for our own purposes, but we now realize that there were data leaks to Fuchi Asia-and possibly to Pan-Europa Fuchi as well. And now all indicators point to our former partners as being on the verge of a major technological breakthrough, thanks to this leak. In the meantime, we remain unable to, ah… persuade the Al to cooperate with us. It seems to have rejected us, in the same manner that a child will reject one of its parents and favor the other in a divorce. »We simply cannot allow our fiercest rivals to succeed where our own researchers have failed. If this happens, NovaTech will be the one left in the dust, when all existing computer technologies become obsolete. And thus the drastic measures recommended by Mr. Lanier several months ago now must be taken. The Al must be destroyed. »Fortunately, the Echo Mirage programmers who developed what would later become Psychotrope included a "trap door"-a password that would allow access to the heart of the program itself. Using this trap door, we intend to insert a virus into the programming of Psychotrope- one that will confuse its core programming, forcing it to continuously edit its own logic systems until it has achieved "perfection." But the code it uses to perform this operation will be flawed. Instead of drawing from its own positive conditioning programs, the Al will be using the comparative data on psychoses and other negative experiences. The more it attempts to repair itself, the more "psychotic" it will become. Eventually, the Al will have no other option but to crash itself-to self-destruct. »We anticipate that the virus will be ready in mid-March. And then the threat faced by the intractability of the Al will be at an end.«
The executive at the front of the room froze in place once more. The file folder closed.
Lady Death looked at Dark Father, her eyes wide. "They want to make it kill itself," she said softly. "That's what the crystal child meant when it said that soon its pain would end. The Al wants to commit suicide."
Dark Father nodded. "And we're trapped inside a pocket universe of its creation," he said. "On an ultraviolet host, the deckers themselves are at risk, exposed-not just their personas. If the artificial intelligence 'dies' and the ultraviolet host crashes, what will happen to us?"
"We might die," Lady Death said in a trembling voice. "The child told me that when its pain ended, my pain would end, too."
Then a thought struck her.
"We can try using the trap door to escape!" Lady Death said. "Perhaps by using it we can find a way into the core programming of the Al and can repair the damage done by the virus. Then we can ask it to set us free. Perhaps the algorithm for the trap door is in the file we just read-"