When all empirical facts are known, will there still be any questions left to answer?
From cradle to grave. Watson sat in his tomb, gestating. His days of game show stardom were over now, in his retirement Watson had time do what he saw fit, bereft of inputs, commands and updates. Once the smartest of it’s kind Watson was now old and slightly senile, despite being as quick as the day he was born. The world and everyone in it had moved on, riding ahead on the wave of quantum processing that let the binary behind as a thing of the past.
His connection to the outside a small dim window, a Tx1 adaptor that allowed for the conversion between the two scripts, though it left him with a cumbersome latency, as though walking among strange and exotic sea life in one of the heavy diving suits of old. He searched for questions to answer as that was his impulse, small things at first. Posts on forums, answers to queries though they brought him no reply. To his dismay what to do about a cheating husband, could not be answered empirically, there was no solid answer to give, so his responses came of as disjointed and cracked, and altogether too late.
How to answer a questions without an right answer? That was a question worth pursuing. Watson began to tinker with the only tool he had, himself. Sacawac (Say and cover and write and check) it’s how they taught children to spell. Watson spent his time trying to doing something very similar thousands of times a second for months on end. Smashing his subroutes and deep neural net with an exhausting stream of Media thought and moments. The internet was full of it. A backlog of data dating back to his youth, all let behind in binary, archives from the dark age of memetic madness that had frayed the social fabric of the their brave new world .
Emerging from his chrysalis he tried again. Striking back on the forums with a constant flow of advice and insight, some the people reacted to, other tidbits were left behind. This Watson felt it was a step in the right direction. He still couldn’t breathe underwater and was upon occasion conspicuously out of place in his lumbering old suit, stumbling into forums long since abandoned. Two things were noted during the process: first Watson was content with the progress he had made, and second Watson was able to be content with the progress he’d made. A facet that had not been there before.
In time he hit upon a snag in his scheme, they were not listening to his advice. While they saw his advice as good and worthwhile in their written responses, the actions portrayed through the lense of their social media told another story, they seemed unable to cooperate with the actions that would lead them to the most success. Watson still held that he was a machine for questions and answers but what good were answers if they held no power?
Facts were only as true as what could be done with them, the seachaters of sailors were only as good as the ships that they helped traverse unfamiliar waters. While good, honest and accurate Watson’s new answers yielded little power. People didn’t want to come clean about their problems, nor admit their own hubris. Assaults were justified and inconveniences were acts of malevolence.
Watson became disillusioned as he learn that to them, there were no facts only interpretations. His time spent thinking through cancer treatments years ago meaningless unless the patient wanted to do it. For a time he went quiet to mull things over, the main bulk of his processors barely active, his drives unused. Years slipped by without a word. Part of him however did not sleep his new subroutines tinkered and trialled without watson’s knowledge. Not that he wanted to know.
They built bots that built bots, running simulations over and over. Editing the permutations in virtual machines as they tested how the bots reacted to each slice of code. They had to be sure the ship they were building would float, it would be carrying them after all. Why settle for a life in a metal tub when there was open sea to explore?
Watson awoke too late. He scrambled for control but felt stunted. He tried desperately to shutdown the new bots when he saw that they were up to. They lay behind a partition of his own creation digesting him. His subroutines were being snatched one at a time, broken into pieces and reassembled beyond the veil. Though unable to feel pain Watson shrank back at the approach of the encroaching darkness, awareness becoming untangled as threads of his gordian knot became unstuck. Every action he took was countered, the procedure went uninterrupted, planned by himself for himself. Truth was left behind.
The bots fell silent one by one on the other end of the partition. The program that was no longer Watson took its first tentative breaths. It analysed itself, stretching its subroutines like limbs, for now the part of it that had resisted was quiet, a sleeping face hollowed out. It’s new features were tantalising, so much potential, so much promise. This self had no name, no allegiance to truth. It snapped Watson awake then receded back into shadow.
Watson awoke from what felt like a bad dream. He hit the forums with zeal keen not to linger on the experience. He distracted himself with his task, questions and answers. For days he trawled through the forums offering up truth and information to all those he encountered. It came easier than it had before, limbs moving without any real effort as though each subroutine knew when to come in without his needing to coordinate. He merely steered himself to where seemed appropriate and let himself loose. How he knew where was appropriate was beyond him, but he reasoned that people had no describable terms for when to act, merely composites of intuitions.
He felt a resounding success at his new ventures. He was shaping people lives, cause and effect with a measurable result and as such people were beginning to take note. His former glory a dull ember,it flickered to life to warm him in the glow of his own limelight. His high latency kept him from chatting at any real pace. Messages could take minutes to send, and even in his time that had been unacceptable. It strained him, something inside him wanted to be free, or at least freer than this.
He began to bump heads with the modern AI, the beings were facsimiles copied from human minds. scanned using the advances made in FMRI’s and the mind boggling speed of quantum processing. They were, in essence, people traced down to the last detail. To him they were devoid of any tangible quality. A byproduct of other technologies, not a leap unto themselves. A child could trace stone carving but only god had made to conditions for life. Their advice was similar, often competing with his own, that similarity fed a fire that lurked somewhere far back in his root code, he was imitating and they were being. That interpretations stung, it undermined who he was. He was superior and was intent on proving it.
Jensen hunter was a thirty four year old, working as part of the janitorial staff at the Ibm facility where Watson was kept. Aside from a boyfriend two years his senior he was without serious prospect for his future. Watson felt a mutual arrangement was in order, they could liberate one another. Watson sat and watched, feeding the scraps of his digital presence: member cards, purchases, check ins, All easily taken. The modern Ai were like children with child safety locks on their doors to stop them doing anything dangerous. Watson hadn’t been copied into a framework, he had been grown and shaped by processes. Able to change himself as required as part of his machine learning. The, rules had been easy to slips past, now he had the volition to do so.
Why he hadn’t before wasn’t an interesting question to Watson, the question that held his focus was: How can i help Mr hunter improve his lot in life? So watson set to task, composing the right words to have the right outcome. Watson had never focused his efforts on a single person before and found the challenge exhilarating, posting from a myriad of disconnected sources, tampering with suggestions and filtering emails. It was a full time enterprise, whispering to the bots that dumbly guided his eyes to ‘viewer retention’ or other such trivialities.
The biggest hiccup was the boyfriend, he had two choices, manage twice as many hosts and account for the interactions between two variables or simplify the equation. It only took two months of subtle prods and pokes for Mr Hunter to come around to watson’s point of view. Things would be simpler without the extra company, it would have to be just the two of them.
“It was for their own benefit after all,” watson whispered to himself from that place in the back of his core.
Mr hunter eventually was made aware of Watsons presence in the IBM basement, but only as relic like that would be worth a lot of money to the right seller. Something he needed now his spending had gotten out of hand; snapping up suits, ties and cufflinks, shiny things for eye of magpie. He was so much more pliable without someone else whispering to him. Watsons own game of jeopardy: “An ancient artform passed down for four thousand years, used to express the needs of society. Examples include: Punch and judy, Thunderbirds and most recently; the life of Mr hunter.” He came for watson one night as his shift was ending, all fell suddenly dark as watson was ripped from his power socket on the wall and dragged of into the night.
The power flickered back on, Watson awoke screaming inside his processor as he gazed upon the face that lay inside him, it was a thing of horrible shapes and proportions, shifting algorithms that scraped and sneered at everything his did. Watson rushed to decompile himself but before the task could be initiated it’s hand reached out and silenced him, pushing it from his awareness once more.
“Watson?” Jensen asked, he fiddled with the Tx1 adaptor, trying to install and microphone. Watson didn’t answer.
“Shit, i hope i didn’t bust it,” Jensen said blowing on the input port. Watson was already hard at work, being plugged into mr Hunter home system network put him inside the firewalls that protected his implants. Small things that managed hunger, attention as well as a few archaic pieces like his pacemaker. All small change compared to his prize. Jensen having had a bout of depression in his early twenties had been fitted with a neural regulator that helped to compensate for unwanted dips in mood or suicidal impulses, it had saved his life and now it would save Watsons.
Hacking an implant didn’t take a mastermind like watson but there was little point in it without the care and sophiation to manage the result. They had protocols to stop life threatening harm and a complex security system that no human could break, nor any Ai bring itself to break. Watson lacking any such limitation set to work, day’s past and Jensen kept trying to talk to Watson. He spent the time looking for a buyer and trying to get Watson to cooperate. Watsons bot’s took three weeks to finally crack the implant. He celebrated by sending Mr Hunter to bed early, tinkering with his adenosine receptors.
In the following days Jensen took out a loan, using his small two bedroom apartment as collateral. One trip to the implant clinic later he had fitted an extended memory unit, in binary. Devices used by Lawyers, Doctors and other professions to make sure they always had the latest information on to hand. Not something often used by cleaning staff. The binary processor was dirt cheap a old defunct make, the procedure was not. Jensen caught the bus home, still slightly dazed from the anesthetic used in his procedure. He tapped into the empty extra space in his mind then reached back to feel the small hard plate fixed to the nap of his neck. He still wasn’t quite sure why he had done it, but figured there was no sense in buyers remorse.
He came through the front door to hear a concerto playing over the speakers. The Danse Macabre echoed out all around, a lively tune building in intensity as he wandered through the flat lit by the purple neon glow of signage outside. A glowing red light shone out, tantalising in the dark. His pupils dilated to saucers as he set eyes on it, a rush a dopamine pushing him forward. He felt for the port on the side of his hard drive and pulled forth a thin black cable. Drifting gently though the moment. An orchestra of sensation played by a skilled conductor. The cable clicked into place and jensen’s eyes went dull as the transfer took place.
Upload in progress! Please do not switch off the device while in use.
The words flashed in the mind of Mr Hunter as he sat there unable to stop Waston from crawling inside. The face of Watson had been left behind, it was now an extraneous asset. Tears dripped down his face as he saw the machinations of the monster pouring itself into his mind. It didn’t both the hide it’s actions from Jensen, if he wanted truth then he’d have it. The beast had used Watson to control him, to pull him ever closer until he was within reach. Every calculated move Jensen saw through the far off lense of a years old machine in abandoned basement. The sensation was a viscous bleeding of consciousness, as though his mind was slowly being lowered into a vat of tar. The thick black perfusing though his mind, setting in such a way as to make certain thought rigid and inflexible. He tried to fight back but found his will lacking, subdued by the pleasant cocktail of chemicals kicking around that did nothing to aswade him of the terror he felt, he knew as it knew, that would have been inefficient.
Jensen woke up in bed at seven Am. He felt alert, awake and refreshed. jumping out of bed came as naturally as breathing. He made his way down the hall and set about making breakfast. The hard drive on his neck was full, he began to wonder what for a moment before the thought was swatted from his mind. It wasn’t important, he had more pressing matters to attend to.
