AI - Alpha Part 9

The sun was setting behind the trees as they headed back to the house, and it cast a waning red light over

the grounds. Alpha said nothing more, and Thomas brooded on his talk with Senator Bartley. He was more certain than ever: if they damaged the unique confluence of codes that created Alpha, they would lose something invaluable that could never be replaced.

IV: Night Visitor

Thomas was surprised to find Sam at his house when he arrived home. "Didn't Lattie come?" he asked as

he hung up his coat in the closet by the front door.

"She was here." Sam was standing in a pool of lamplight by the door. "I stuck around. Did some work.

Played with your grandkid."

"Thanks, Sam." He walked with her into the living room. "Where is Jamie?"

"I wore her out." Sam looked worn out, too, but pleased with herself. "She was feeling rambunctious. So

we ran and jumped. It took forever, but finally she fell asleep. Lattie had to go, so I said I would stay until you got home. Didn't you get my message?"

He thought of his talk with Alpha. "I've been in a meeting."

Sam went to the wine cabinet. "Let's have a drink." Then she froze, one hand outstretched. She swung

around. "I'm sorry. That was tactless."

"Sam, don't." Thomas wished she and his children wouldn't be so overprotective. "I had a heart attack, not a funeral. It's true, I don't drink much anymore, but you don't have to wear kid gloves around me."

He could actually have a little red wine, but he didn't want to argue with her. In debates with Sam, he never won. "Just give me some orange juice."

Amus.e.m.e.nt flickered on her face. "You must be fine. You're growling like always."

Thomas knew the real reason she had stuck around. "I set it up for you to see Turner Pascal tomorrow

morning."

"Good." She seemed fascinated by the juice she was pouring.

"Sam. Talk to me."

She looked up, her face guarded. "About Turner? We just argue."

"About EIs."

"Maybe later, okay?" She offered him the juice, then sat on the couch near the windows that looked over

his backyard. The lights of other houses were visible through the trees that bordered his yard.

Thomas settled in his recliner, relieved to rest. He might look like he was only fifty, but after a long day

he felt all of his seventy-two years. Not so long ago, a man his age would have retired; in earlier centuries, he would have been white-haired and slowed; in earlier eras, he would have been dead.

"Are you all right?" Sam asked.

"Just tired." He took a swallow of juice. "I wanted to ask you something. How do you tell the difference

between an EI like Pascal and an AI like Alpha?"

Her expression tightened. "d.a.m.n it, Turner is a man."

Thomas wanted to kick himself. He needed to be more careful in how he spoke about Pascal. He didn't

recall ever having seen her like this about someone. No, that wasn't true. She had loved her first husband intensely and had grieved for years after cancer took his life. It seemed she really did love this Pascal fellow.

"I'm sorry if that sounded insensitive," he said. "I'm trying to understand Alpha."

"I thought I wasn't cleared to discuss it."

"I set up the paperwork. You already had clearance; I just needed to put through the okay." He sipped his juice and wished he had a beer. "I could use your expertise, Sam. You're one of the leading EI shrinks alive, and you've seen Alpha in action."

Her face relaxed into the meditative expression she took when she turned her prodigious intellect to a problem. "Alpha's lack of free will may constrain her in ways Charon didn't intend. For one, it limits her ability to solve problems. An AI designed to stay in the box can't find solutions outside of it."

"Free will and creativity aren't the same thing."

"No. But they're connected. The more you can look at how things might be different, the more you can innovate."

"She's capable of modeling scenarios that include free will. She just never goes through with them

unless Charon tells her to."

"She needs input." Sam sipped her drink. "She processes language and responds to preset rules.

Phenomenally complex rules, yes, but still a set of instructions."

Thomas spoke wryly. "So do we all."

"I suppose." She swirled her juice. "How would I distinguish an AI from an EI, and an EI from a person?

AIs mimic human behavior but feel nothing. An EI is aware of itself. It has a will. The visual Turing requires it be indistinguishable from a human being, but that's a dated concept. It only applies to EIs that want to be human. Some may develop intelligences so different from ours, we can't fathom them."

In his more cynical moments, Thomas thought that applied to a good portion of the human race. Still, he understood what she meant. "So you would expect an AI to show less flexibility than an EI in its responses?"

"That's right."

"Then why does Alpha respond to me and no one else?" He rubbed his chin. "It's not as if I'm defined in her command structures."

Sam looked amused. "You and your brilliant mech-techs haven't figured that one out?"

"Enlighten me," he said dryly.

"You resemble Charon. You're better looking than him, and you have grey hair instead of brown, but the

similarities are obvious." She tilted her head, considering him. "You have the same military bearing and build, same height, all those muscles, probably the same weight. You even have a similar voice, deeper than most people. You're also the highest authority she's encountered. That makes you the closest approximation to Charon she has contact with."

It sounded like what Alpha had said. "I'm not sure I like the comparison."

"Oh, you're light-years different from Charon. But I'll bet you evoke him more than anyone else does for her. If she knows Turner deleted Charon from his matrix, that leaves you as the head honcho."

It was true, Alpha had opened up more after he told her Pascal had done the deletion. "But I'm not

Charon. She knows that. So why react as if I was?"

"I don't know. I'd have to talk to her."

"Will you?"

She didn't look thrilled. "Last time I met her, she kidnapped me. And you."

"She won't this time."

She regarded him with her steely gaze. "I'll help you with Alpha if you let me keep seeing Turner."

"All right." Thomas wasn't convinced Pascal was good enough for her, but telling her that would do no good. Instead he added, "Sam, he's running a man's mind on a neural matrix. How can you be sure he isn't simulating affection?"

He expected her to launch into a technical description of human and EI responses. Instead she stared into her gla.s.s. "Maybe I can't." She looked up at him. "But he is a man. I can't give you a scientific justification. I just know it's true."

Thomas didn't know how to answer. Although he had studied the development of AI emotions in graduate school, he had a much harder time understanding his own moods. In his youth, he had avoided thinking about them. He always stayed in control. Or so he had thought. He had truly believed he managed his anguish over Janice's death, yet after his heart attack, his physician had urged him to stop suppressing his grief and let himself mourn. Nearly dying had spurred Thomas to look at his inability to express what he felt, not only to the people he loved, but to himself. Life was too short to lose time in denials of his feelings or misunderstandings with his family.

He spoke slowly, thinking. "How do we define a human mind? I spend time with Jamie, and I realize how little I can answer that even for the people closest to me."

Sam's face brightened. "That grandkid of yours is amazing. Do you know she can read chapter books?"

He blinked. "What are chapter books?"

"You know. Stories written in chapters. The ones in Leila's room. Madeleine L'Engle, Tamora Pierce, Rebecca Goldstein."