So there I was a few days later in Israel, presumably accompanying my new bride to an astronomical conference in Haifa, then taking a honeymoon trip to archaeological sites, culminating at the Tel Ain Makor dig, northeast of Jerusalem. Kilonova believed in realism, so I quite enjoyed the pretense. Indeed, I was pondering the possibility of proposing an indefinite extension of our ruse, which so far seemed—in addition to other advantages—to stave off more assassination attempts.
This meant that the powers intent on keeping me alive were at least evenly matched with those wanting me dead.
But why? This can’t be just Johann Mazella. Even if that ruthless mogul caught wind of our spycraft at the Golden Palace (and by now I doubted he ever would), time would surely have dissipated any rage down to the “you’ll never work in this town again” range. He’d know that was plenty punishment for a guy like me.
As Milla and I made our way back to the tour van, past layer after layer of failed civilizations, I pondered.
No, it has to be about Liar-Outer. A lot of powerful people have been inconvenienced. Some even had their careers ruined by our credibility scoring system. Could it be revenge?
But that didn’t make sense either! I’d broken no vows to members of the diffuse oligarchy. I had behaved as a member of an opposing team. You don’t kill honest adversaries out of pique, lest it turn into a tit-for-tat bloodbath. Revenge? No, there was something else. Something much more likely to propel murder.
Prevention.
I confronted Milla with my suspicion that evening, over dinner at our hotel near Ramallah.
“You know something I don’t know.”
She nodded, with a guarded expression, and gave an evasive answer.
“How would you know something that I know but you don’t?”
No, no. Evasion doesn’t make for good marriages.
“You and Sophia. Your predictive engines. You figure that I’m going to do something. And that potential future action would put me in danger. That’s why you showed up last Sunday at the Tuscany.”
A glint in the eye. She knew a subtle tell was all the confirmation needed, as I worked at the logical chain.
“Moreover, it’s something strong. A future condition attractor state that others were likely to detect, as well. Others who would not approve of my future course of action. Hence, you came to rescue me. My knight in black-spandex armor.”
This time a slight smile. A tight nod.
“The least service I could perform for a magic man.”
“And this thing I am about to do…can I assume it has to do with prediction?”
Another nod.
“Well, then,” I started to fume. “If you ladies are so good at fortune-telling, why don’t you go ahead and invent whatever-it-is yourselves! Why do you need me? I could’ve gone on, oblivious and perfectly happy—”
All right, that was a lie, and Milla could read it well enough. In fact, I never felt better about being alive than right there by a glittering swimming pool at the edge of the miraculous Israel-Palestine Economic Development Zone, looking at her and doing verbal jousting.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she explained in a very low voice, out of habit, since we had good anti-eavesdropping gear. “Our newest method is very person-specific. We focus on creative people and tell when they are having what’s called an aha moment…when they’re working on a tough problem and seem utterly confident they have a brilliant answer.”
I had to blink.
“So, I’ve been a lab rat. Watched. Studied.”
“Ever since your success with Liar-Outer. You and ten thousand other creative types. And, sure, it’s somewhat of a privacy breach—”
“Somewhat!” Of course, face recognition was by now old hat. Initial public revulsion quickly passed when folks realized that banning such systems would never prevent governments or corporations or criminals from using them. But this was the first I ever heard of “aha” detection…zooming in on people at the very moment of triumphant realization.
“But aren’t those types of people always under scrutiny?” Milla asked. “By the curious? Or by competitors? Or by those hoping to ride the next thing? Anyway, the science came out a year ago, and in another year everyone will have the Aha! app on their specs. It’s the interim between that’s dangerous.”
The danger interval. That period between when techies develop something and the public owns it. Before it gets into the open, there’s a span when elites get to monopolize the breakthrough. Use it to their advantage. Maybe even prevent it from becoming public at all.
“Unfortunately, some bad people and groups have been aha scanning too,” she went on. “There’ve been situations where powerful men didn’t want a problem solved. We’re still investigating the case of an inventor who was working on a new kind of solar power. One day, she absolutely radiated her aha moment. By nightfall—before presenting to her colleagues—she was dead.”
“But science doesn’t work like that!” I protested. “Her team…they’ll fill in the gaps, have their own aha moments—”
“Of course they will. But in the world of Big Money, as in gambling and war, sometimes even a small delay can be worth many millions.”
I chewed on that a bit…before experiencing a mini-aha.
“But I don’t recall having such a moment recently! You say this was after Liar-Outer became successful.”
“That horse is out of the barn. It’s fast becoming part of civilization. Some cable news professional deceivers may want you dead for spoiling their meal ticket, but they’ll never act on it. No, this is something new.”
“And you have no idea what it is?”
Kilonova shrugged. “What do you think we are? Magicians? Mind readers? We can just tell that you’ve seen the light, so to speak. Had a great big idea. And that it has to do with the prediction problem. And you’re confident it’ll be a game changer. Alas, there are others—who also saw your moment—who don’t want the game changed!”
I threw up my hands.
“My life is being fought over by crazy people. I swear, I’ve had no such aha moment! Don’t you think, if I did have one, that I’d know about it?”
Milla offered up one of her rare, genuine smiles.
“Oh, sweetheart, of course not.”
The unconscious. It’s always there. Young Sigmund Freud, in his Introductory Lectures, brilliantly demonstrated the existence and power of that inner realm, hidden from our surface veneer—the theater of conscious awareness. (Alas, that younger scientist gradually transformed into a tendentiously warped guru-bully; but that’s another story.) Although it’s not currently fashionable to talk about the unconscious, in this era of drugs and electrode probing and organic meddling, we know it’s down there, fizzing and popping and sometimes pushing us in directions we would never choose, logically, to go. Multilayered and many-faceted, it probably makes up the vast majority of thinking that goes on in our complex brains.
All right. So my aha moment must have been unconscious, but so strong and so close to the surface that I was blaring a specific kind of pleasure—realization tells—for maybe a week or more. Huh. So much for pride in my poker face.
Looking back, I could vaguely recall feeling great. Happy and confident. But over what? My head is always so full of stuff! Fantasies and passing schemes and thoughts that sci-fi authors call what-ifs. Heck, I’m lucky ever to make sense of that jumble of half-formed ideas. Hence, it took me some time—despite Kilonova’s blithe confidence—to zero in on the thing.
Freud (the young-smart version) offered methods. Like free association—allowing words, phrases, and images to roll out of the imagination, writing them down, and doing a little detective work. Correlating and finding common threads. For example, I already knew the aha must have to do with predictive methods.
Not tracking and scoring of would-be public prophets. Liar-Outer and FIBuster were already doing that and had a full head of steam, with thousands of eager players innovating new methods daily.
And not the aha moment detection system, either! I knew nothing of that a week ago.
What I had been thinking about, lately, were those prediction markets of Sophia’s, how to utilize the wisdom of crowds. Find potential errors and opportunities—land mines and diamond mines—in the murky realm ahead. Despite some progress, results from existing markets were still disappointing. They didn’t measure up to what math-ists said prediction markets ought to be accomplishing.
Of course, the problem was obvious. People were hedging. Failing to commit. Hemming and hawing and letting mass opinion influence them. It was all very good to harness human competitiveness, but conformity could be just as strong. What we all needed was a way to get their most honest predictions, free of superficial repressions. The frank, candid, even rude opinions bubbling out of the great calculation engine of—
I sat up in bed, so fast that dizziness made me sway, before my pounding heart caught up.
The great calculation engine of the unconscious, of course.
Moreover, I knew how to do it! I had known for a couple of weeks, in fact. And the realization had almost killed me.
Kilonova rolled over, opened one eye to glance at me, and sighed. A sigh that said: Ah, dummy’s finally figured it out.
“Milla, I think I know—”
“Great.” I could tell that her rapid evaluation swiftly settled on no danger and, losing interest, she floated back toward sleep. “Proud of you…tell me in mornin’.”
And she rolled over the other way.
I sat back, letting this secondary aha settle in. Unlike a passing dream, I wouldn’t have to write it down.
You see, the human face is a window into those lower realms, beneath conscious awareness. We all use facial cues to some extent…except for unfortunate folks whose brains skip that innate skill. Meanwhile, a few in every generation—some priests, merchants, charlatans, healers, magicians, con artists—learn how to peer through that window for opportunity, truth, insight, or advantage.
All of which is being automated. First machines learned to recognize that a face is there. Then to recognize one face out of billions. Simple biometric scans led to perceiving smiles and frowns, then lip-reading words.
They say we’ll soon have visage-based lie detection. And if only elites get to use that, then we’ll have Big Brother forever…
…but if instead all citizens can apply such tools on politicians and oligarchs and salesmen? Then we’ll have Big Brother never.
So many threads coming together, almost all at once. The Singularity, some called it, though day to day, month by month, the process of adaptation always felt like—well—normality. Always vexing. Always verging on the new. Life. Not the future at all.
And now we were all going to get apps to detect each other’s aha moments. Yeesh.
But all of it came together when I thought about prediction markets. The problem was that participants kept squelching their answers for reasons like conformity, timidity, or fear of being judged immoral for betting on a dark possibility. Was there a way to get past all that, and learn what the participant really thought, deep down?
The tell. I had been using it all my adult life, from poker games to mentalist shows, to helping skeptics solve hoaxes. My art form was reading human faces. And now, all my tricks and tools were going online, available to any Tom, Ahmed, and Sally. And to Sophia or any competitor who wanted to set up a predictions market. So long as the wagering participants did so over a video link, revealing their faces.
Let them make one bet consciously…but also take note when their unconscious clearly disagrees! Let both sides of the participant play and make wagers. Including the side that doesn’t care about social niceties, or tact, or conformity. The side that some autistics tap into so easily. A side of you that knows when you’re lying to yourself.
Of course, I was absolutely determined that this could only be voluntary. Participants have to know, top to bottom. But then—after some initial, reflexive outrage, why would they refuse? It’s just another modern tool. Another means of self-expression. Only this time for another, inner you.
Another way, possibly, to win your wagers.