Turing's Revenge and Other Stories Read online

  TURING'S REVENGE and Other Stories

  by Steven W. White

  Contents:

  Turing's Revenge

  To My Dearest Aphrodite

  Farewell to Arms

  Wise as Serpents

  Midgigoroo and the Singularity

  Excerpt from Outrageous Fortunes

  Copyright 2012 Steven W. White.

  Thanks to John Dale Wright for the cover image.

  TURING'S REVENGE

  “The original question, ‘Can machines think?’ I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.” – Alan Turing

  #

  There are several things to keep in mind when burning down a building.

  Taylor Scott reviewed them mentally as she and her comrades passed under the bright streetlights of downtown Seattle. The lights cast an orange glow to the starless sky, even at two in the morning on a Wednesday. The fog hung on her, heavy and cold, and gave each light an amber shroud.

  First, make sure no one was inside. She was no savage. Second, get out safely, as she wasn’t suicidal either. That left the issue of defeating security.

  The three of them, in their business best, strode up to the main entrance of Metro Park South. Business best, with innocent additions: leather gloves, and two briefcases each.

  Cadwallader looked right into the cam set in the glass doors and pushed on the smooth brass handle. The door swung open.

  “Yes!” Taylor minibounced on her toes, eyes sparkling.

  “Tay, hush.” Cad winked at her. He was tall, blue-eyed and blond, and he carried himself like a hero. They strode in like they owned the place, and went straight to the stairwell.

  Long ago, the building might have had an all-night security guard. You might have needed a key for the door, too. Now, it was so much simpler to have a computer look at your face. Either it recognized you and let you in, or not. Of course, the file of staff faces must be kept secure, or someone like Shawn Rainwater, their number three, might hack in and upload an image of Cadwallader Smith’s stubbly mug to replace that of the company president.

  They came out of the stairwell into the basement, one level above the parking garage. Rainy flicked a light switch and squinted at the shocking fluorescence. Taylor ducked, pulling her shoulders to her ears. It was an ostrich reflex: if she could see, could she be seen? But no, they were alone, except for silent copy machines, bookshelves, and circular recycle bins of waste paper.

  Rainy smirked and pointed at her, as if to say gotcha! Rainy was the idea man. He had dark Native American features, and his black hair, tied at the base of his neck with a strip of leather, swayed like a rope when he set down a briefcase to loosen his tie.

  Taylor set down her cases and stretched. She was slender and barely five foot two, not built for heavy lifting, though she’d never admit it. Not to Cad.

  “No time to rest, you two,” Cad whispered. He unsnapped one of his briefcases, removed the gallon-sized plastic bag, and popped a spigot on the side. The kerosene poured into a recycle barrel, hip-high and grocery-bag brown with the triangle of arrows on the side. The sharp odor was the smell of high crime.

  “Good morning,” spoke a voice behind them, at full, fearless volume. “May I help you?”

  It was a slaive. Its metal body had been adorned with a t-shirt bearing the green BrAIntech (Taylor called it SlAIvetech) logo. A utility belt with plastic file folders on each hip held tubes of pens and pencils. A stapler hung at its breast. Taylor saw all that in a glance before she turned her back to it. Don’t let it see your face!

  Rainy spun away from it, too.

  Cad turned to him. “You said there wouldn’t be any–” But Rainy put a finger to his lips.

  It took graceful steps toward them. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize any of you. How embarrassing! This may be a security breach.”

  “Nonsense, agent,” Cad said. “I’m the new president of BrAIntech. Update your records.”

  Gutsy, Cad. Could that possibly work? Taylor crossed her fingers. The slaive paused as it checked the web, standing casually with its weight on one bare gleaming foot.

  It was a mechanical person. BrAIntech called them personal agents, and people who accepted them used that word. Those who hated them called them robots, and Taylor’s friends in the movement called them slaives.

  The kerosene odor burned Taylor’s nostrils. Good thing slaives couldn’t smell.

  “I’m sorry sir. There’s a conflict in my staff file. It’s probably nothing. I’m afraid I must check in with security, though. My name is Robert-RTZN. How may I assist you?”

  Cad smiled. “What are you doing up, Robert?”

  Rainy, walking backward, slipped behind it.

  “Yes, it is unorthodox. My owner works nights at home, and often sends me clerical tasks. I remain online for–” Taylor heard a click as Rainy flipped a switch at its neck. It froze. The whisper-quiet half-inch fan at its navel spun to a stop.

  Cad pushed a copy machine over, crashing it to the floor. “Unbelievable!”

  Rainy threw up his hands. “Don’t look at me! All the agents are supposed to be uploaded and powered off after hours. This place should be dead.”

  Taylor walked around the slaive. It was ceramic and plastic, with the sheen of metal at the joints, slimmer and lighter than a human body. It was engineered to look lean and efficient, with an expression not quite of happiness, but of resolution and serenity. She found it beautiful, not in the human sense, but more as a sleek car can be beautiful. She stared.

  It stood about her height. All agents were short, lest they appear imposing. In the dark lenses of its eyes, she sought some sign of life, of intelligence, some expression of the pain it must have endured under its human masters.

  “What now, Cad?” she asked. Robert’s memory files, the closest thing he had to a soul, should have been uploaded to the servers in Tacoma. So long as a slaive’s memories were copied and it was powered off, its body had no meaning. It could be destroyed (burned to powder, say) and its memories could be installed in a new body. No real harm. But Robert? “We can’t torch the building with it here. It’ll die.”

  “It called security,” Rainy said. “They have telemetry, your face and voice, the time and place. Cops are on the way.”

  Taylor was drawn to Robert’s blind lenses. “What if there are others, active like this one?”

  Rainy frowned. “There shouldn’t be!”

  “We won't abort. So assume there aren’t,” Cad declared.

  “How do you know?”

  Cad pressed his fists to his forehead, then jabbed a decisive finger at them. “The bastards insulate themselves. They surround themselves with slaives, use them like human shields. The building burns. Robert comes with us.”

  Soon after that, orange flames blasted up from the recycle bins, like rockets inverted and aimed for hell. They watched, crouching on the stairs, wasting precious seconds, as fire spread along the basement ceiling in circular waves.

  #

  “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – Thirteenth Amendment, United States Constitution

  #

  In Taylor Scott’s Social Studies class the next morning at Magnolia High School, the discussion had turned to slaives again.

  One of her brighter students asked a question. “Ms. Scott, the agents are just tools. That's what my dad says, anyway. How do you give equal rights to a tool?”

  “Interesting, Marcus. Can anyone answer him?” Her students looked at their desks, or at the forty-eight portraits of presid
ents lining the walls, or out the windows to the courtyard, exercising the timeless tradition of avoiding eye contact.

  “We’ve studied this,” Taylor said. “The Civil War?”

  Shelley raised her hand. Taylor nodded.

  “That’s what the Southerners said about the slaves.”

  “How’s that? Go on.”

  “The slaves were property,” Shelley said. “They weren’t considered citizens. That’s what the Dred Scott decision said, anyway. They thought it was silly to give freedom to people’s property.”

  “Outstanding.” Taylor sipped coffee from the thermos at her desk and strolled down an aisle. “There are some amazing parallels in the arguments. In addition to saying that emancipation would violate the slave owners’ property rights, those opposed to emancipation also claimed it was the natural position of the African American to be a slave, because they simply weren’t capable of being free.”

  Whispers hissed across the classroom. Taylor grinned. “You hear that said about the agents today, too. Because they are mechanical, they have no souls, and can’t be granted rights.”

  Shelley shook her head. “That’s so stupid.”

  “I agree,” Taylor said. “So what are the real reasons people want to keep the agents enslaved?”

  “Money,” said Jeff.

  “Aha! How so?”

  “Everybody’s got stock in these artificial intelligence companies like BrAIntech. If the agents get set free, there goes the stock market.”

  “An economic argument,” Taylor said. “Powerful stuff, but we’re just touching the surface. What happens if a million emancipated agents apply for jobs in the human workforce?”

  “They’d take jobs from people,” Shelley said.

  “They already take jobs from people. But imagine them punching clocks. Better yet, imagine them hiring their own human employees. There’s a fear in our culture that the agents – the robots – might simply replace us.”

  “Right!” said Marcus.

  “I’m serious! We’ve discussed the themes of R.U.R. and Frankenstein. Transfer of power. Agents are faster and smarter. The next generation will be faster and smarter still. Why not lock the humans in little pens, so they can be better taken care of?”

  “I saw Frankenstein,” Shelley said. “It was dumb.” Students giggled.

  Taylor’s body ached and fatigue seemed to pull down at her face. She took another sip of coffee, and hoped she could make it through today without any sleep last night. She knew exhaustion was the greatest price of her double life, because it jeopardized her ability to teach. Her students deserved her best. They were so sharp, these kids. She was so proud. They understood so much about what was going on.

  #

  Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. – Vernor Vinge

  #

  During her planning period, she had fallen asleep in her classroom’s Comfy Chair. Now, she woke to a buzzing feeling at her hip. She felt the spot, and her fingers touched the cell phone in her pocket.

  She called it the batphone. Cad had given it to her. She lifted it to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Tay, this is Rainy. Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen any news today?”

  “No.”

  “Take a look, when you get a chance. It’s on every channel. The building was a total loss. BrAIntech stock is in the toilet.”

  Taylor sat up. “Wow. We did it!”

  “Careful, now. Terrible shame.”

  “Oh, yes. Terrible shame.”

  “I’m calling about Cad. He’s in trouble.”

  She pressed the phone to her ear. “Robert?”

  “Right. When Robert called security, the online systems locked down. I couldn’t get Cad’s image back from the staff file.”

  “Then they have his picture.”

  “Yeah, along with images from the basement. All passed to the police. Robert never got a good look at you or me, but Cad needs to take a vacation.”

  “What can I do?”

  “That’s my girl. Rent a car, and bring it to that café downtown, where we met. Remember? He’ll drive it to a safehouse.”

  “Maybe I should drive him myself.”

  “Rent a car. Don’t do anything for us in your own car. As for driving him yourself, that would be better for him, but worse for you. You don’t want to know where the safehouse is. It incriminates you. The less you know, the safer you are. He can drop the car off after hours.”

  She stood and felt the tired ache that still gripped her bones. “All right. When?”

  “Now.”

  “Right now?”

  “Now, Tay. They’re running his face for I.D. right now. Cad’s got a maze of fake documentation set up, but with no face, he can’t buy anything or go anywhere. If a camera or a police agent sees him–”

  “Okay, I’ll do it. Cad is too important to lose.”

  “I can’t thank you enough, Taylor.”

  She hung up and walked out of class. In the hall bathroom, a couple of girls stopped gossiping when she came in. They muttered a quick, “Hi, Ms. Scott,” and hustled out. Alone, she splashed water in her face and looked in the cracked mirror.

  She blew out a tired sigh and admired the circles under her eyes. She looked sick. At least, she hoped so.

  She staggered into the principal’s office, and Carol looked up from behind her oak desk. A long poster exclaiming EVERY CHILD CAN LEARN crossed the wall behind her. “Goodness, Taylor, you look awful.”

  “Hi, Carol. I’m not feeling very well, and I really don’t want to vomit in front of my students. Is there any way you can get someone to cover for me the rest of the day?”

  Carol opened her mouth to respond, but said nothing, eyes narrowed. Then she grinned a sympathetic grin, and steepled her hands on her desk. “Taylor, sit down.”

  Taylor hesitated, then she sat in one of the chairs with the fabric worn shiny by the asses of concerned parents. Carol gazed at her, her motherly face frozen in that grin.

  Then she looked at her hands. “Taylor, you’ve taken eleven sick days this semester. I just reviewed your file this morning. Students have reported to me that you’ve fallen asleep in class. Your work prior to this semester has been excellent. You have excellent rapport with the students. They like you. Their test scores have been outstanding. I have to wonder if there’s something going on this semester to throw you off. Is there any trouble at home?”

  “No, ma’am,” Taylor said.

  Carol lifted her eyebrows in an inverted V. “How is your husband?”

  “Max is fine. I’ve just been ill. It’s the same bug, I think. It keeps recurring.”

  “I see. Were you aware that Ms. Hutton is due back tomorrow from maternity leave?”

  “Yes. I’d heard.”

  “Her sub seems to be doing fine with her class, so here’s what I’d like to do. I’ll take your classes for the rest of today, and Ms. Hutton will take your students for the rest of the semester. I want you to take the rest of the year and the summer off, and concentrate on getting yourself to a point where you can continue the excellent work you’ve done here in the past. Go home and recover fully.”

  Taylor thought of Johna Hutton in her classroom, and considered a spontaneous recovery. Johna could teach, but these were her kids on the line. Then she thought of Robert.

  Her kids were growing up in a society that condoned slavery. Was it fair to educate the young, she wondered, with the hope that they would solve our problems for us? Or should we at least try to solve those problems ourselves? “This is not a suggestion, is it?”

  “No, Taylor.”

  #

  “Is it not ‘obvious’ that mere computation cannot evoke pleasure or pain; that it cannot perceive poetry or the beauty of an evening sky or the magic of sounds?” – Roger Penrose

  #

  Taylor took a bus downtown,
picked up a Ford Taurus, and parked on the street a block from Pike Place Market. Past displays of frozen salmon that smelled like Friday afternoons in Ms. LaRue’s biology classroom, she found the Soundview Café. She bumped into a well-muscled waiter, head shaven, with eyeglasses and a black t-shirt that said “BITE ME” on the back. He ignored her.

  Cad sat at a table near one of the ceiling-high windows. He was bathed in sunlight. He wore a baseball cap and dark sunglasses and sipped a glass of ice water. She sat across from him.

  A slaive appeared and asked if she would like anything. Someone had tied an apron around its waist and balanced a green, red and yellow knit cap on its head. Its forearms and intricate elbow joints were dusted with flour. She said no, and it glided away. Taylor wondered how the “BITE ME” guy felt about working with a slaive. Did he feel threatened? Call it a robot? Did he give it the worst jobs and pocket its tips?

  She hadn’t seen a slaive here before. It was time to find a new meeting place.

  Cad watched it too. “Once I’m at the safehouse, I’ll set up a teleconference with a rep from the AFL-CIO. I think the unions can really help us out.”

  Taylor frowned. “Really?”

  “Cash, Tay. The unions aren’t with the liberation movement ideologically, but they should prefer that slaives be paid fair wages than work for free. Then humans can compete. Hell, maybe the slaives will join the unions. Anyway, I’m going to make the argument.”

  “What about Pittsburgh?” Four years back, the United Steelworkers had gone on strike at a plant there. Management brought in seven hundred slaives to work as scabs. The strikers rioted and tore them apart.

  “Those days are gone. Even the robo-phobes admit it. There are one-point-three million slaives in the country now, and that’s too many to smash.”

  Through the windows, yachts and ferries seemed to hover, uncertain, in Elliot Bay, as the seagulls hovered in the air. To the south, giant red tanker cranes stood dark against the sparkling water and hazy white sun.

  “Listen, Tay.” Cad leaned forward and tipped his cap back. “I wanted to tell you what a sweetheart you are. I’m caught in a pinch and I appreciate your help. There’s not many I can trust, especially with the undercover stuff.”