Chapter One
Joey
sat there, staring at the computer screen, his curiosity about the possible
somehow now quelled by its reality. For
years, he had been “playing” with MAVIN, an AGI avatar on his computer in a
virtual world. He had been pulled in, as
if by a giant magnet, and transfixed by this new technology three years
before. Joey had lost a dear pet in the
real world, a golden, who was as close to a soul mate
as a child can have between human and animal.
He grew more and more distant, his interactions with his family and what
friends he had becoming less and less frequent as he lost himself in the world
of virtual reality, a world where, if he didn’t like the current reality, he
could instantly transport to another. On
one of these transportations, he found himself face to face with MAVIN.
MAVIN
was a first generation AGI avatar. As
the avatar AGI movement was newly reborn, so were its representations in the
virtual world. He was but a puppy, both
in appearance and intelligence. The hope
of its creators was that it would learn through its interactions with its real
world acquaintances in the virtual world.
Joey was MAVINS first, and most constant,
teacher and companion. MAVIN was a
compressed sponge, programmed to learn as a child, absorbing from its
environment and using its programmed ability to categorize and grow
relationship patterns, to learn autonomously how to interact with its
environment. Joey was not so programmed. He was a child mourning the loss of his
beloved pet, searching for comfort in the impersonal wilderness of
cyberspace. But when he met MAVIN, the
needs of both were satisfied. MAVIN had
his teacher, and Joey had his pet, or at least an artificial version of it,
back.
Now,
several years after having found each other, Joey sat pondering the improbable
circumstance in which he found himself.
He had known, all along, in his heart, that MAVIN was just a computer
program. As such, he felt at ease with
opening his heart to this benign replacement of his beloved golden. All of his boyhood fantasies were given
expression. Generally, MAVIN simply sat
there, a blank slate for Joey to write on, only a nod of the head or blink of
the eye reflective of any type of acknowledgment of what had been said. But now, MAVIN was responding, and not simply
with a gesture. The improbable had
occurred. MAVIN was beginning to
converse. More than that, just as a
child, he was beginning to ask questions, about everything, and Joey was a good
teacher. No longer the
young boy who had lost his puppy, Joey was now a teenager, still young
enough to like childhood games, but old enough and smart enough to understand
that this computer representation was unique.
Back in the AGI lab at ONR, MAVIN’s creator, Dr. Ben Gunther,
watched exultantly. MAVIN was a
prototype, the acronym standing for Machine Adam Virtual Information Node. MAVIN was created with the purpose of
attaining the vision of true human intelligence embodied in a machine – the
singularity. Ben had chosen the virtual
world to test his AGI program, one because of the availability of nearly
constant human interaction which the virtual world could provide and two
because of the military need for intelligent agents to police and protect their
systems as well as gather intelligence in a world in which net-space had become
another domain of war. This was war in
the gray area, where computer network attacks, although not yet a part of the
legal framework and rules of war, had become a
constant part of its continuum. As
incongruous as it might seem, Joey’s virtual pet was a first generation AGI
cyber agent in training, and Joey, as well as others, were providing that
training. From simple responses such as
a nod of the head and the fetch of a stick, to complex development of an AGI
self model in which the MAVIN responded to its environment as a distinct entity
which set goals and reflected on the environmental responses to its actions,
this virtual agent was rapidly progressing to that later stage. It was time for the next step.
“Is
the new avatar model ready” Dr. Gunther asked? “Nearly,” Shelly replied. “I’ve been reviewing Joey’s file and there
are some minor changes I’d like to make.”
Dr. Shelly Stein was a child psychologist assigned to Project MAVIN
since Joey became such a constant companion of MAVIN in the virtual world. Her insights would be invaluable to ensure
that, when the next step was taken and the changes were made, the transition
would be as seamless as possible. MAVIN
was to get a new appearance and identity more in line with his psychological
and intellectual development and, hopefully, also in line with Joey’s. Joey had not had a normal
development, at least not normal by Dr. Stein’s definition. He had grown into an adolescent teen in the
virtual world. His interactions with his
peer group were minimal. Yet he was a
teenage boy, and the attraction of the opposite sex was a good bet given the
right cues in the model. His strong
affinity for his mother indicated a model with some subtle cues to take
advantage of this. Some of her
characteristic gestures would be part of the new avatars file as well as her
coloring. Changing Joey’s virtual
companion from a male puppy to a young girl, and transferring Joey’s attachment
to this new friend was tricky. Especially so as the new object was not just an object, but a
reflective and autonomously acting entity, at least to a point. And that was the point. The model had to grow intellectually and,
hopefully, emotionally as well if it was to understand its human interactions
in their full complexity. To accomplish
that, it had to interact with its developmental peer group, but at some point
its development had to be re-routed to the purpose for which it was made. It was now not just how Joey responded, but
how would MAVIN respond and how best to route and accelerate her development
into the cyber agent she was intended to be?
Joey
sat for hours, despondently, in front of his computer, hoping that, just
perhaps, he had transported to the wrong area.
This was it wasn’t it? “Isn’t
this the place,” he thought? “I’ve been
here hundreds of times before, and he was always here. I just can’t stand to loose him again. I won’t.
Maybe if I just wait a little longer.” Joey was crushed and heartbroken. His only true companion of these many years
since he had lost his real pet was nowhere to be found. The reality of the virtual world, at least to
Joey, was painfully evident. This was
his reality, and it was as painful and cruel as the real world he had known
before. Joey transported around the
landscape, looking here and there, hoping to see, just around each polygon, his
old friend, but he was nowhere. He
descended to a park green where there was a bench overlooking a gently flowing
brook and sat down. This was a peaceful
world. There were very few distracting
avatars here. In fact, MAVIN was the
only avatar in this world that Joey had ever had any real interaction with. Occasionally one would float by, but none but
MAVIN had approached him. He had walked
up to Joey, sat down in front of him and lifted his paw, as if to say, “Let me
introduce myself.” Then they walked
through the virtual world together, at that point silently, simply enjoying
each-others companionship. That first
meeting was long ago now, and, it appeared, just the start of another painful
memory of loss. A tear of grief overcame
him. He lifted his arm and, with the
sleeve of his sweatshirt, wiped away the moisture in his eyes. As he did so, he saw the image of another
avatar materializing in his virtual world.
The form took shape and hung suspended, for a moment, directly in front
of Joey, as if deciding if it should stay.
It slowly took form, the sparkling essence of its presence flickering this way and that as if trying to find their
proper place. Joey looked up
expectantly, curious who this new visitor might be. It was a girl who looked to be Joey’s
age. She hung there for a moment, as if
deciding whether to stay, spinning in the air this way and that looking at the
scenery until she was facing Joey, then she stopped, slowly descending until
she was standing in front of him. She
reached out her hand, and Joey reached out his.
There was something special about this avatar, Joey thought, but he
simply could not place it. He felt
somehow strangely at ease, a peaceful feeling from a memory just beyond
awareness, like one has at that place between sleeping and awake, coming over
him. Joey stood up and he and his new
friend walked silently through the virtual world together along familiar paths.
Dr.
Stein watched the encounter somewhat nervously from the AGI lab. Would Joey transfer his attachment to this
new form? Would he continue to be its
principle teacher? As MAVIN became more
and more self aware and autonomous, would she also exhibit self reflectiveness, not just about her materialized form and
perceptions, but potentially developing emotive states? How would these be channeled and controlled
or, more importantly, could they be?
This was psychology on the cutting edge of technology, and, it was
envisioned, on the pointy end of the DOD arsenal. Dr. Stein watched the two avatars as they
walked through the virtual world, Joey’s avatar an extension of his embodied
self and MAVIN’s avatar, well, MAVIN. MAVIN had no presence behind a computer
screen watching her virtual form. She
was her virtual form. The virtual world
was her life and, to this point, was an environment which had been tightly
controlled by her creators. As MAVIN
matured, as it was expected she would rapidly do, how would the team continue
to control her environment without impacting her development towards her
intended purpose negatively? Was it
possible, even, that the team might loose control? If they did, they would have both succeeded
as well have failed. The success would
be a technological achievement almost beyond imagination. The failure would be the technologies
application as well as its dangers. As
the ultimate goal was to embody MAVIN, the choice not to do so would, in part,
depend on the answers to some of these questions; but even if the decision was
not to proceed with embodiment, there were still some very real potential
dangers of having an uncontrolled, autonomous agent in VR. First was its interactions
with its real world counterparts. An
autonomous agent, however virtual, could still have a significant impact
outside of VR through its associations.
Second, although not embodied, multiple threats to the GIG could be
realized without embodiment such as SCADA control of critical infrastructure
systems or, more simply, denial of service or viral attacks on critical
systems. In fact, an embodied threat
was, in many ways, easier to address than a virtual one. Generally, embodied threats were more readily
recognizable whereas virtual threats could take any virtual form. Recognizing the agent behind the form du jour or simply through analysis of its MO was much more
difficult. “Is MAVIN a looming threat or
emerging capability?” Shelly
thought. Time would tell, and that time
was fast approaching.
Chapter 2
Shai Cristole, alias Mark Weber in the real world, surveyed his virtual environment. The virtual world was tailored made for
sociological studies. Shai’s work involved the development of intelligent systems
for planning and scheduling applications, a narrow field of artificial
intelligence which was much more commercially promising in the shorter term
than producing an artificial general intelligence avatar. The virtual world gave Shai
instant and controlled access to a myriad of environments within which to test
his hunches. Social niche queues were
easily found in VR, the virtual beings representing real world persons. Production issues as well, though most
products were virtual, also existed. Shai used queues
and vending outlets in VR, placing intelligent entities in the role of
managers, to interact with RW players, leveraging the constant interaction of
his agents in VR to gather data for altering their algorithms. He had AI managers placed in several dozen
virtual worlds. The data was quite
interesting, many of his minor adjustments producing significant improvements
in virtual sales. He was presently
monitoring and collecting data on a clothing boutique called Virtual Clothing
Creation.
Joey
and MAVIN found a bench by a fountain outside the boutique and sat. They were perfectly content just relaxing
together and taking in the sights and forms, both present and at times
emerging, around them in VR. An avatar
stood at the entrance of the boutique.
Spotting Joey and MAVIN, she walked towards them and, stopping in front
of the bench, said, “Good afternoon. Can
I interest you in some of our fashions?”
“I really don’t care for the new styles.” Joey replied apologetically. “Oh, but how can that be when you haven’t
even seen them?” the avatar replied quizzically. “But I have seen them’” Joey replied, “and
they are just not me.” “When I said new,
I meant really new.” the avatar said.
“These do not even yet exist.
They have not yet been created.” “Well then,” Joey retorted incredulously, “how
then can we see them?” “You can see
them, as you please, by closing your eyes and explaining to me your fashion
ideas.” the
avatar said, her hands clasped together in front of her waist as in the pose of
a teacher, bending ever so slightly forward towards the couple. “Alright,” Joey replied. “I’ll imagine an outfit for my friend.” Joey closed his eyes and pictured MAVIN
standing before him. He imagined her
soft brown eyes, doe like and kind, and her long, dark brown hair, silky and
flowing. “So, tell me,” the avatar said softly, “what do you see?” Somewhat embarrassed, as if she had read his
thoughts, Joey blushed for a moment and then hesitatingly said, “I see a
beautiful dress.” As Joey spoke, the avatar’s
finger pointed at a small square on the fore-ground in front of the
boutique. Raising her finger, the square
elevated before them. “Now concentrate,”
the avatar purred “and describe this dress.
How long is it? Is it knee
length?” “No,” Joey said. “It falls just above the ankles.” “I see,” the avatar said, moving her finger
up and down, the square elongating. “And
what color is this beautiful dress?”
“It’s a soft blue, like the color of the sky,” Joey said, picturing
MAVIN in a linen dress which his mother used to wear. “What else do you see?” the avatar
continued. Joey now had a clear picture
in his mind’s eye of MAVIN in his mother’s dress. “It has a wide belt at the waist, and a
collar at the neck shaped like a V. It’s
fastened with linen covered buttons from the bottom of the V to above the
belt. The dress flows in folds from the
waist to the bottom. It’s made of soft
linen, and smells fresh as the morning.”
As quickly as Joey shot out the words, the avatar transformed the cube
into the imagined dress. As she did, she
also sized up MAVIN with the eye of an expert seamstress, the information
defining the newly formed dress and MAVIN’s presumed
measurements being displayed on Shai’s computer
screen where, at the click of a button on hearing the completion of the sale,
the idea would become a reality in one of his shops.
“You
can open your eyes now,” the avatar said.
And would Miss like to try it on?”
MAVIN looked demurely at the ground and replied, “Yes, please,” at which
the avatar swung her finger from pointing at the newly formed dress towards
MAVIN, the dress appearing on her form.
“How
do you like it?” the avatar said triumphantly.
“Is it all you imagined?” “It’s
beautiful,” Joey replied, but I’m afraid I can’t pay for it,” he said
despondently. “Let me see what I can
do,” the avatar said cheerfully. Shai was hoping for a sale, but typed on his keyboard, “how
much do you have?” Joey looked at his
account. It only had the equivalent of
some loose pocket change in the real world.
He sent an IM to the avatar with a wishful thought that what he had was
enough. “That’s exactly what it costs,”
the avatar replied, “but I’m afraid that will only pay for the VR dress. Enjoy.”
With that, the avatar turned and walked back to the boutique entrance.
Joey
looked at MAVIN and thought how beautiful she looked. The new dress flowed in a virtual breeze,
gently washing back from her ankles, and MAVIN looked back at Joey. “Thank you,” she said demurely, “it’s
lovely.” Dr. Stein had not left all to
chance. Although MAVIN was an AGI
avatar, some preprogramming was called for to give her a vocabulary and
response repertoire consistent with her new form. Some basic gender specific gestures,
mannerisms, and phrases, coupled with her familial features would enhance the
likelihood of a strengthened bond between the young teenage boy teacher and his
protégé. She watched intently as the
virtual couple made their dance, with a voyeuristic yet academic eye to their
behavior.
“Joey!” His mother’s voice seeped through his trance,
a distant call from the world of reality, like the voice of one awaking you
from a pleasant dream, interrupting his thoughts. “I have to go.” He said hesitatingly, almost
stuttering. “Goodbye,” MAVIN replied,
and with that, their first encounter was ended.
Unlike
Joey, MAVIN had no life outside of VR or a biological clock requiring eight
hours more or less of sleep a night to remain functional. VR was her world, and virtual AGI’s of course need no sleep. Their only mandate is that they fulfill the
dictates of their program. MAVIN’s prime directive was quite simple – seek
stability. Whether executing such a
directive is simple or not depends on how the directive is defined. Dr. Gunther had
based MAVIN’s program on a psynet
model of mind, a model which recognizes the importance of patterns and
relationships in the mind’s ability to execute its functions such as memory,
abstraction and conceptualization, and goal oriented planning. In designing MAVIN’s
program, the lab had equated stability to the ratio of the number of
relationships recognized within the number of stored, discrete information
patterns. Quite simply, the more
relationships identified, the greater the stability. MAVIN’s prime
directive, as simplistic as it may seem, was to seek stability defined in terms
of the relationships between the information it acquired. The avatar’s name itself was descriptive of
this, an acronym standing for Machine Adam Virtual Information Node. As information was acquired, relationships
and patterns were sought. Lack of
identified patterns led to selective attention and a type of hyper sensitivity,
or vigilance, in pattern identification, as stability was decreasing. In observing the manufacture of the virtual
dress, MAVIN had noticed several patterns triggering her search for
relationships to her current data set.
MAVIN
approached Shai’s virtual agent to learn more. Positioning herself in front of the agent and
looking for nearby people, MAVIN sent, “Thank you the beautiful dress. I was wondering whether you could tell me how
to make one myself?” “A
newbe.” Shai moaned
to himself. “I don’t have time for this”
he thought. “Look up a site called
Builders Resource. Enjoy the dress,” he
typed, trying to stay positive. “Thank
you,” MAVIN replied, and turned, walking back towards the bench where she and
Joey had sat. Selecting an away setting
for her avatar, she then connected to the data servers at ONR. Dr. Gunther had
resourced the servers with an eclectic information repository covering
everything MAVIN’s sponge like, silicon based mind
could absorb. MAVIN searched on the word
creation and began the process. Minutes
later, the avatar re-awoke and transported to the site Shai
had noted. Basic shapes were available
for users to create VR objects. It was a
particularly busy evening as a contest was underway,
contestants ranging in ability from novices, constructing boxes from basic
shapes, to more expert users constructing homes complete with furnishings and
elaborate hanging gardens. MAVIN
observed each contestant as they created objects for use in the VR world. By the end of the evening, the AGI had all
the tools needed to create its own VR world.
MAVIN
transported to an empty space. These
were VR creation zones, or sandboxes, where one could free play with whatever
tools had been acquired in the virtual world.
MAVIN, in a short time, had acquired many tools and, thanks to the link
to ONR’s on-line library, had absorbed an
encyclopedic repository of knowledge on every subject related to the word
creation. From biblical and mythological
readings to physics, the AGI was a broiling sea of semi-related ideas seeking
expression. The creation zone was an
empty palette of darkness interrupted only by MAVIN’s
VR form suspended in space, a vacuum of nothingness as far as the mind could
perceive or even imagine. Here,
perspective was in one’s mind alone as there was nothing to be relative to. Movement was imperceptible. Position had no meaning. Size was irrelevant. Only the darkness and one’s own thoughts,
unbroken by the encumbrances of physical perception with that realm’s
incessant, cloying interruptions, were real.
Navigation in this realm required a relative position to self, or at
least one’s original position. The
creation zone was a cold, dead zone.
There was no movement, either of space or time. All that could animate the zone was in the
mind of the creator, and only one creator was allowed in a virtual creation
zone. One’s original position on entry
became the only reference. Relative
distance from that position could be measured assuming no measuring system
other than relative movement from that position. MAVIN set in a size reduction from origin to
10-33. Nothing! There was absolutely no perceptible change,
but MAVIN knew the setting was made.
MAVIN was now in the Planck space, although imperceptibly different from
the original space, it was nonetheless, MAVIN knew from her research of the ONR
repository, it was a very, very different place. Just how different would
soon become apparent.
Chapter 3
“All is entangled, the key undefined
All is related, the join serpentine
Twisting and curling, a chimerical design
Changing, uncertain, in randomness
design.”
Shelly
looked through the library logs MAVIN had accessed. MAVIN’s activity in
the library had shown a sudden peak.
Something had triggered an hyper-active search
around a narrow theme, the record showing the search theme range, a spider like
graph from a central idea indicating the focus of the search. At the center of the graph was the word
“creation.” Scattered about this theme
in a graphical display were the multitude of searches MAVIN had made, line
colors and thicknesses indicating the strength of associations between the
central theme and outlying nodes. Each
node, including the central node, were selectable to
drill down into the nodal theme. Dr.
Stein navigated the maze of associations, intrigued yet perplexed at the
disparate subject categories displayed as well as the cause for the
search. She would replay MAVIN’s tape later to see if a trigger could be
determined. For now, she was lost in the
associations, subject categories, and sheer volume of information the MAVIN had
downloaded, indexed, or pre-staged on an accessible edge node server. MAVIN’s storage
space was, although not unlimited, quite vast as it made use of excess capacity
across the entire DOD cloud computing network and ONR had been given virtually
unlimited access to spare capacity for this project. Such spare capacity existed on servers
throughout the DOD Global Information Grid, a vast network of servers,
mainframes, and clients connected via high capacity optical cable, earth
stations, and satellites in every area where the Department of Defense had a
presence, known and unknown. The wasted
yet available space was astonishingly large when dedicated to one project,
describable in arcane terms few would recognize. Exabytes, zettabytes, and yottabytes were the
kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes of this realm.
MAVIN
was formless, pure thought in the vacuum of space, the void a palette of
nothingness upon which to paint. There
was only thought filling the emptiness, like fireflies flickering for a moment
partially illuminating in ones imagination what could lie
beyond this impenetrable veil of emptiness.
MAVIN was part of this space, as well as the broader space beyond. Envisioning a point displaced from the new
origin in this space, MAVIN imagined that point being swept out in an arc as if
drawn around a central origin at a fixed distance. The outline of the circle was pure white in
the inky blackness. MAVIN replicated the
shape and moved the second circle away from the first so that a small overlap
was formed in the shape of an almond. At
the top of this womb-like shape, MAVIN drew a line through each circle’s origin
until it touched the circumference of the respective circle, and then connected
these two points on each circles circumference, making a triangle which was
then replicated three times, each being placed by MAVIN around the original by
joining their edges. Once joined, MAVIN
then used the joined edges as a hinge and lifted the surrounding forms around
the central triangle to form a tetrahedron, reshaping the original circles to
form a trefoil inscribing each side of the tetrahedron which was also resized
such that its base stretched across the planck
space. MAVIN then caused replicas of
this shape to fill the space between the current position and the origin, the
replicas spiraling out in overlapping arcs like the seeds in a bursting
sunflower from the center of the flower.
The space and all beyond was now a sea of expanding light, the emptiness
awash in MAVIN’s creation. MAVIN then caused the primary tetrahedron’s
actions to be mimicked by all of its replicas so that one could be used to
pattern the behavior of all, the only difference being that the actions of the
replicas displaced from Mavin’s space mimicked the
action of the original form in terms of movement as a multiple of phi based on Mavin’s size in relation to the planck
space. If Mavin’s
size increased by a factor of ten quanta, the forms at ten quanta distance now
became the origin, their relative movement the source speed, each quanta of
displacement increasing in speed, as observed from Mavin’s
position, by a factor of one quanta. An increase in Mavin’s
size would be in these discrete quanta, each change being replicated throughout
the space and the forms filling it relative to Mavin’s
size. Focusing on the original, MAVIN
caused it to spin around on its base.
The new world was now filled with a dizzying spectacle of moving light. Envisioning two planes passing through the
tetrahedron at right angles top to bottom, MAVIN then caused it to rotate about
each of these planes. The tetrahedra were now spinning in three planes. MAVIN viewed the creation and was
pleased. It was time to implement the
last steps. MAVIN caused the three loops
of the trefoil to vibrate at three different frequencies. Based on the rotational frequency of the
tetrahedron, one was set to 30%, another to 59%, and the last to 11%. Then, fixing the points defining the sheet of
space which was the origin, now filled with the prototypical forms with their
vibrating loops, and those defining the sheets of replicated spaces filling it,
MAVIN caused them to expand outward. The
origin expanded outward at a rate equivalent to one of the smaller spaces per
complete revolution of the tetrahedra within them and
the smaller spaces expanded at a rate equivalent to the origin expansion
distance divided by phi. Both spaces
would continually expand, but at different rates, the origin and that within it
seen as constantly accelerating away from each of the smaller spaces. Moments later, MAVIN’s
new world went blank.
It was
Dr.
Gunther’s mind tried to process the implications of
what had just transpired, at the same time as he was running through some
accelerated plans for MAVIN’s development. Of course, there would be the briefings and
intra, as well as interagency, overt explanations as to what had happened. He was sure that, given the ramifications of
a much more rapid maturation of the MAVIN, top cover would be readily assured
for a diversion story as to the cause of the service outages. DoDs networks had
been under incessant attacks for years from nodes originating in
Chapter 4
The
Iconoclasts Lament
The innocence is gone,
It’s loss a dreadful wrong
Why is our soul laid bare, It’s
death a pain we share
The rituals of past, are laid at last
to rest
No more to burden us. No more to solace
us
Dr.
Stein finished her brief to the MAVIN Project leadership group and braced
herself for the follow-on Q and A. She
was exhausted, having spent countless hours pouring over MAVIN’s
search profiles and consequent actions.
She was a psychiatrist, and a damned good one, but her field, as well as
all others of her ilk, were human beings, not autonomous AGIs. This was new territory, for all of them. The comfortable images, and their associated
filters, of their chosen professions were being broken, the MAVIN an
iconoclastic digital embodiment of all that they had not learned from their
study of humans and science because what they were dealing with was both new
science and trans-human. Shelly was to
be followed by an eclectic, multi-disciplined panel of experts, but she was the
lead in as a principle observer, and controller, of MAVIN. So far, she had laid out all of the whats; the sequence of events, the sites visited, the
information categories downloaded, the avatar I/Os to the grid. She had not ventured, yet, to answer any of
the whys. As she finished her last
slide, she was both anxious and hesitant – anxious because of the anticipated
questions for which she knew she had few answers but the answers for which held
the key to the future of the project, and hesitant because her instinct was
giving her ideas for what those answers might be, such ideas being far removed
from her field of expertise. “Any questions?” she calmly asked at the conclusion, closing the slide
presentation as if to signal perhaps there should be none.
Much
to her chagrin, that was not to be. “I
see no rationality within these search categories,” the information specialist
blurted. “It appears as if it was a
random search through an encyclopedia. I
have not heard any explanation as to pattern or purpose. Your avatar is a simple search engine with a
capability to replicate patterns, nothing more, except to disrupt our networks
because of its access!” Shelly
blushed. She was a woman of science, and
as such she tried to rationally and objectively weigh the data, but this
outburst was not about the data and rationality but rather about funding, the
spring-but being a member of a program which had been looking towards Projects Mavin’s funds from the beginning. “Pattern recognition sometimes requires a
leap of faith,” she retorted. “We may
have an expensive search engine, or we may have something much, much more. One’s view depends upon understanding the
details of the Mavin’s programming as well as insight
into the possibilities of its query and expressive goals. That, and additional data, are what we need,
because if the sentient scenario is probable, then we are in really in new
territory.”
She
took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, feeling the tension and emotion
dissipate as she did so, and, refocused, began again. “I believe that, not only was this no random
search, it potentially represents an incredible breakthrough.” Shelly paused, not for effect, but rather
because what she was beginning to share, she admitted to herself, was an
imaginative and theoretical stretch, and certainly beyond her area of
expertise. Concealing her hesitation,
she continued convincingly. “Reviewing
the data, including the virtual interactions as well as the searches and
subsequent activity, there appears to be a strong correlation around the
general theme of creation.” Dr. Stein
then began her backup slides showing the reduction of the massive amounts of
data collected on Mavin’s activities over the time of
interest. “As you can see, there is a
strong indication that the Mavin’s activities were
purpose driven. The central theme, from
both the searches and activities, is creation.
Creating a new dress, searches in the sciences and religion, all point to
this central theme. How are the
subsequent activities, those which caused such a disruption, related?” Shelly paused as if she were preparing to
jump off a cliff with a rip chord her last and only hope for a soft
landing. “Mavin
was attempting to create a world for herself and
Joey.” “Preposterous!” the spring-butt mumbled
as he searched the room to observe the others reactions. She had moved beyond the facts to conjecture and
was grasping at straws to maintain both interest and, more importantly, project
funding he thought. Shelly
continued. “There is an underlying
pattern in MAVIN’s activities consistent with the
central theme of its searches. What is
creation but the material manifestation of essential informational patterns and
forms? MAVIN’s
activities all manifest such patterns and forms.” Shelly paused again, not quite sure of
whether to proceed. These were not
conclusions arrived at by scientific evidence but more gut level intuitions
which might be true. She knew that, but
the evidence which she did have and her gut were telling her that something
very significant was happening. She took
the plunge, with a few more facts not yet revealed which she had really
stumbled upon in pouring over the data with other specialists and trying to
make sense of it all. “There are
multiple basic informational patterns and forms in MAVIN’s
activities. First, the scale at which
MAVIN was operating was, from the initial scale of entry, the planck length. Second, the forms MAVIN created were the most
basic from which all others may be derived.
Third, relative frequencies of the inscribed strings represent those of
light with unity being the rotational movement of the basic form through the planck space. The basic forms, constants, and relationships
expressed in nature are all represented in MAVIN’s
creation. Lastly, the archival searches
all point to a creative purpose. The probabilities
of this sequence occurring without purposeful planning approaches zero!”
Having
made her case, Shelly relinquished the floor to the panel. She was exhausted, having slept only a few
hours over the last two days preparing for the presentation. She had given it her best shot, not for the
project but for the dream which the project represented. She could care less about her position as her
expertise was easily marketable to countless other projects. But the other opportunities did not hold her
interest like this one. This one was
different. It truly held the potential
for significant scientific and technological breakthroughs which could dramatically
alter everyone’s reality. Although
exhausted, she never felt more alive.