[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Vance had more than just an old soul, but an unwavering certitude in what he was doing.It was clear now this wasn’t about money or profit, it was about something else.“Yeah, okay, whatever you want.You want to tell me why this is so important to you?” Ashton asked, throwing up his hands.“You’re thirty-five and married, right? Got kids?” Vance said without malice, sounding genuinely curious to hear Ashton’s reply.“I think you probably know I do,” Ashton replied.“Intelligent agents are just like your kids.They need to be taught, shown the difference between right and wrong, and protected from the people who would harm them,” Vance explained.“You think someone is really going to do it, don’t you? No one believes we’re even close to creating a thinking machine with the capacity to learn and feel like a human being.Even the most senior programmers at the biggest firms know it is all marketing and hype.There is no bright future where the thinking machine works side by side its human creator, not any time soon anyway,” Ashton said, doing his best to be honest.“It’s already happened,” Vance said, pulling another cigarette out from his shirt pocket.Ashton was baffled.“I think a Nobel Prize would have been handed out if someone had pulled it off,” Ashton said holding up his hands and shaking his head.“I won’t burden you with the specifics, but there are at least two active artificial intelligences,” Vance said, heading to the kitchen for seconds.“Both of them are controlled by our new global government.Scientists working at the CGG and private companies with contracts are trying to replicate the process of creating similarly complex intelligent agents.”“Thanks, I really don’t want to know the specifics.Knowing and distributing that information without the right security clearance could land you in prison for the rest of your life.Why would you risk telling me any of this?” Ashton asked, setting the chopsticks down.“If regular people are going to have a chance of maintaining a say in their government and control over their destiny, they need equal access to the same sort of technology,” he replied, sitting back down with a full plate.“I agree, but if you’re right and my company has the potential to produce a viable intelligent agent, what’s to stop the government from swooping in and taking it out from underneath me? All they have to do is declare my holdings necessary to the ‘global civic order’ and assign someone they can control to take over.I’ll be out, and they’ll have a third intelligent agent,” Ashton asked, suddenly not hungry anymore.“You took my money and kept right on moving, hardly giving a thought about who I was or what I was about.There are a lot of people in the government that are exactly the same.They just want to go to work, collect a paycheck, and go home to their families at the end of the day.I know you don’t care whether the next intelligent agent brought into our world has a conscience, but I do,” Vance said, standing up from the table, taking Ashton’s plate.“This is crazy,” Ashton said, taking a sip of his soda, hoping the bubbles would quell his troubled stomach.“I brought you here to let you know what’s on the line and how important it is to me.To take it a step further, I don’t believe that the government is colluding with those two intelligent agents to undermine the public.Personally, I think they’re more like lost children being held hostage by a gang of unscrupulous thugs,” Vance said, putting the dishes in the sink.“You’re serious? And, you think I’m just in this for the money?” Ashton asked.“Aren’t you?” Vance said, putting his hands up behind his head and leaning back in the chair.“Honestly, I don’t know anymore.”“Remember the kid trapped in a closet last year? She made that impassioned plea for rescue? It went viral all over the world and had law enforcement in two dozen countries and provinces looking for her.” Vance put his hands down on the table in front of him.“Yeah, it was a rich kid at the lunar resort using a modified data slate and a program she downloaded from the Internet to make it look like she was calling from a half dozen places back on Earth.CGG passed all kinds of new regulations to prevent something like that happening again.”“The child was real, and the closet she’d was locked in was the Central Lunar Mainframe.The call was made by an intelligent agent that was confused, scared, and being kept in a dark place,” Vance said quietly.Ashton sat and thought for a moment.There were a lot of things about the cellular call made by the child that didn’t add up.It saturated the media and everyone could pretty much recite what she’d said, word for word now.When the dispatcher asked where her parents were, she wasn’t sure she’d ever had any.The real kid’s identity was never leaked to the media in the aftermath, a virtual impossibility given how fluidly information traveled through the Internet.“They aren’t like real kids, Vance.They’re artificial and they don’t--”Vance banged his fist on the table, startling Ashton.“You didn’t even believe they could exist before talking to me.Don’t assume to know more about it than I do.The intelligent agent that made that phone call are not any less real than your own kids!” Vance yelled, his eyes narrowing.“Yeah, okay, but what do you want me to do about it? You’re talking about taking on a global conspiracy perpetrated by people at the highest levels of government,” Ashton said, holding up his hands.“Just what I told you.I want Matthias at the head of his own project, full creative license, and weekly progress reports,” he said, looking away from Ashton, and rubbing his hands together anxiously.“I can do that, but he’s just a kid
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]