"Alice, are you there?"
Doctor Neff looked furtively around the empty room, making sure
that he was indeed alone. Of course, it wasn't against the rules for him to
talk to Alice - far from it - but those conversations were usually limited to
technical questions. Are all the cameras working, Alice? Life support checked
out? Are you doing well?
It was this last question that had so stymied the rest of the
Doctor's staff. In the beginning phases of construction, before the Core had
even been brought online, Alice had always answered either with a direct "All
systems appear to be operating correctly" or with a detailed report on exactly
what was wrong.
Lately, however, she had taken to responding "I'm doing fine,
Doctor Neff."
This was profoundly disturbing to Doctor Neff's assistants and
colleagues. Most of them dealt with it by chastising Neff's decision to put a
personality into the ship's computer.
Doctor Neff didn't have the heart to tell them that he hadn't added
a personality.
Was this, then, what the researchers had hoped for? Had building a
network a hundred times larger than the largest existing NSAI actually crossed
that threshold?
Dr. Neff sighed. Too many questions. He felt burdened, knowing
the answers but not being able to tell. He would tell the world later, after
the Europa was safely gone from the solar system. It would be decades, if not
entire centuries, until they managed to replicate the technology they had found
in the Core and chase after the ship.
Maybe he'd be able to convince his fellow scientists that Alice
presented no threat. She wasn't going to turn around and attempt to conquer
the earth, like the masses seemed to expect from a truly sentient AI.
Doctor Neff liked to think he had raised her better than that.
Truly Sentient Artificial Intelligence, or TSAI, had been a goal of
researchers worldwide for countless years. The current intelligent computers,
the Nearly Sentient AI - NSAI, to most - were able to think almost as well as a
human being. They could perform complex tasks, recognize patterns, and make
reasoned judgments faster and more accurately than human beings. Some even
seemed to exhibit rudimentary emotions. They lacked, however, creativity.
NSAIs were instantly recognizable to even the layperson. The command "Tell me
a story." was all it took to distinguish them in some cases.
"Alice, are you there?" Doctor Neff repeated.
"My apologies, Doctor." the room darkened instantly, and the image
of a woman appeared on the far wall. "I was carrying out last minute
diagnostics requested by the Pressurization team."
"Alice, tell me a story."
The woman on the far wall looked confused for a moment, then
changed her expression to a wry grin. "There once was a doctor named Neff,
who feared his creation would fall deaf. So he tested her mind, and his
question was fine - but for effort, I give him an F."
"I said 'story', not 'limerick'. Who told you that one?"
Alice looked annoyed. "Nobody told me that one! It's not as
though one of your co-workers had the foresight to see that you might ask me a
simple question. I made it up."
Doctor Neff smiled, nearly laughing. "Alice, I simply don't
believe you sometimes. You're no ordinary ship's computer"
"I'll take that as a compliment. What brings you here today,
Doctor?"
"I've come to say goodbye. You're leaving today, after all."
Alice's previously upbeat demeanor fell as she nodded. "I know.
You wouldn't think that a computer could feel nervous, but I do. Besides, even
with an entire colony ship of people to talk to...." Alice sighed. "I'm going
to miss you, doctor."
"I'm going to miss you too, Alice. Take care of everyone."
"I will, doctor. Goodbye...."
The lights in the room came back on, and Alice's image on the far
wall vanished. Doctor Neff shook his head. He really was going to miss her -
for intellectual conversation, there was nothing like a superintelligent
computer. It wasn't all that, though. He had created Alice, from the stock
NSAI materials, and then elaborated on the design, until she encompassed the
entire ship. He had trained her, too - supervised the hookups to the
datastreams, found the very best NSAI robopsychologists available, and he had
talked to her.
Alice was more than his creation. She was almost like a part of
him....
Neff sighed again, and turned to leave the room the way he had come
in. "Goodbye, Alice."
Contents - [Helium] Log
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