This story happened sometime ago, when I first made the jump from
academia into the private sector. I had managed to get myself a job
as an assistant for a top researcher at a company that will remain
nameless. We weren’t working on a product per se so much as just
researching potential avenues in AI and cybernetics that could lead
to products in the future. While I was more than a little nervous
about making the big jump into the corporate world I found myself
striking an immediate friendship with my boss Andrew. Beyond our
obvious passions me and him found similar hobbies and interests
beyond the sciences and the long days together soon allowed us to
bare more and more of ourselves. Honestly, it was the first time
since grade school that I had felt such a close friendship.
Now, one of the big things we were researching was how to make an
aritifical intelligence that could grow and learn like a human. The
idea was that if we could mimic the kind of plasticity you find in
the brain of someone young and intelligent in a computerized form,
then we could create a far more powerful AI. Naturally that meant we
needed someone young and intelligent in order to observe them and
their brain. We put out ads at local college campuses offering plenty
of cash for not much work and waited for someone to show up. What we
got surpassed our wildest expectations.
Her name was Dani, an eighteen year old freshman, and from the
moment I first spoke with her I was blown away by her intelligence.
The way she seemed to just soak up whatever information you gave her,
the way she could come up with poignant and insightful follow up
questions, not to mention the surprising breadth of knowledge she
already possessed. I think she may have been the smartest person I
had ever met to that point. Perhaps she still is.
It was obvious that Andrew was captivated by her too, much more so
in fact. It was undeniable that her beauty matched her intellect and
while I did my best to keep myself detached from certain thoughts,
Andrew was having a harder time. Not to say that he was behaving
inappropriately, in those initial visits he was a consummate
professional, yet laying just underneath every word he spoke was an
audible undercurrent of want.
However that made me feel it seemed not to phase Dani at all. It was
clear that me and Andrew were the first people she had met that were,
barely, on the same plane of intelligence as she was. I still look
back fondly on those first sessions and conversing with her. She
shined so brightly, and her eagerness and ability was far more
endearing and inspiring then it was frustrating, even if I couldn’t
help but feel a little inferior to her.
Regardless, things went well at first. She would come in and we
would give her various cognitive tasks, be they learning a manual
skill, like juggling, doing some sort of puzzle or brain teaser, or
having her study a given topic and then be examined later. In all
these cases we did brain scans before, in the middle of, and at the
end of each assignment in order to model how her brain reacted and
adapted. Then we took the information we had received, interpolated
it into a continuous stream of data, and then converted it into
something that would work with our AI model. The fruits of this
effort were tremendous. The gains we made were so great, in fact,
that the company higher ups offered to pay Dani a real salary and to
extend the scope and budget of our research dramatically.
As much as this was good for my career, it caused as much harm to
mine and Andrews friendship. With Dani around more and more I could
see him pull away from me and towards her. He never flirted, he never
crossed that boundary, but it was obvious. Our talks about gaming,
history, literature, all ebbed as his obsession flowed out into every
gesture, every greeting, the pain in every goodbye. For her part Dani
seemed as happy as ever, and more then enthusiastic to take our
research to the next step.
Said next step was much more… invasive then the last. Andrew and I
came to the conclusion that the best way to advance our model was to
move from interpolated data to real time measurements. If we could
match each digital neuron to one of Dani’s then our model would be
significantly optimized. In order to do this we needed a sensor
connected directly to Dani’s nervous system. The technique we
devised required us to insert a wire into her arm. However nervous I
was about broaching the subject was not reflected in her enthusiasm.
Or Andrew’s, for that matter. He insisted on doing the procedure
himself, and thus, I watched from the next room over as he placed the
incision on her flawless skin. Dani smiled and watched, the local
anesthesia kept the pain away while her curiosity kept her
laser-focused. I too watched as the wire slowly penetrated her,
writhing underneath her arm like a snake slithering underneath a fine
satin sheet. Her body seemed to quiver as it went in deeper and
deeper. I watched Andrew’s breath shudder, I worried about the
steadiness of his hands but he managed to pull through. Finally he
connected the exposed piece of wire at the end to a small port.
Plugging it into a cable run to a nearby computer running our AI
model, Andrew had readied us for our next big leap.
The improvements we saw were massive, and soon Andrew began planning
on how to extract even more data. Unfortunately this meant more wires
running through our far too eager assistant. One or two was one
thing, but I couldn’t help but be disturbed at how willing she was
to mutilate herself with more and more wires. Every day we seemed to
add another, her body being scarred with ports that when wired
started to look like long hairs, sprouting out of her every pore.
Only her bright, beaming, face was left unmarred. Andrew was
disturbing me too, I was hoping that at least with her looks being
carved away Andrew’s affections would peter out as well. Instead
the opposite happened. He grew more and more attached, as if the
sight of her once beautiful figure covered in wires and scar tissue
was almost arousing.
As the project continued whatever objections I raised would be
vetoed by both of them. I felt like I was slowly being pushed out. I
would arrive for work with the two of them already there, and I would
leave before them too. They always seemed to be talking to each
other, just quiet enough that I couldn’t eavesdrop. Eventually I
just resigned myself to carrying out whatever tasks they gave me.
After all, who was I to question either of them or what they wanted
to do to themselves?
That question became all the more pertinent when I walked in one day
to both of them patiently waiting for me. I could immediately tell
that whatever they planned was going to be a step beyond what I was
really comfortable with. Andrew explained to me that he felt the
model was at its peak, no more data would help it, however that
didn’t mean our work was done. Far from it he said. Dani was the
perfect test subject, a true top percentile of human intellect, and
if we could integrate her potential with that of the AI we had
created, we could produce perhaps the smartest being to ever live. I
looked to Dani, the idea was insane to me, who knew what would happen
to her in all this, and yet she seemed adamant. “I want to be
smarter, better,” Dani’s look burned into my eyes, “The best.”
I didn’t have it in me to fight them. Instead I put myself into
autopilot, going through the motions of whatever they asked of me.
The two had found a mutual obsession that had absorbed them to the
point that they were barely aware of me. At first it was simple
enough, we simply used the connections already installed in Dani to
feed information from the model into her and vice versa. As anyone
who knows anything about coprocessors knows, however, is that
connection speed is absolutely paramount. The easiest way to do that
involved creating new connectors and shortening the physical distance
between Dani and the computer.
Thus the months toiled on. We would build better connectors, shorten
the wires. Dani’s abilities would improve more and more, and so too
would Andrew’s devotion. Dani celebrated her 19th
birthday in the office, with Andrew hacking away at her back so we
could install a knew ribbon connection. She had become almost
addicted to the AI. She would complain that being disconnected felt
like reverting to the mind of a child. The few moments Andrew would
allow someone else to talk to her felt like talking to something
inhuman. Emotion and passion drifted away and cold logic and
rationality took its place. Even when she forced herself to speak at
my level it felt like she was struggling. Occasionally a metaphor or
reference would slip out that was far beyond my comprehension, like
an adult talking to a child who was unfamiliar with little kids.
One day, as I got ready for work, Andrew phoned me. He told me that
him and Dani had come to an agreement regarding what was next. They
were moving forward with or without me. He told me that the company
had agreed to offer me a two week vacation, fully paid, and that they
would be sending someone over shortly with paperwork I would have to
sign if I wanted to continue the project. When the call ended I felt
a sense of dread pour over me. Whatever was coming next was going to
be extreme, so much so that they had to butter me up to continue with
it. As much as I wanted to run away, I found myself signing every
form the men gave me, something in me had to see what was next, had
to know what was to be unleashed on us all.
What I saw when I returned was more disturbing then I had even
imagined. Andrew stood beside a massive computer complex. On each
side was a single mainframe computer, think the size of a fridge. In
the center was Dani. Or what remained of her. Her whole body, save
for her face, was completely encased in a computerized shell. Three
tubes ran into the machine, one into the stomach for food, two for
wastes. Andrew explained that the two mainframes were each running
thousands of instances of our AI program, all working together like
nodes in a cluster. At the center of this cluster was Dani, her
incredible brain organizing and sorting through it all. For all the
horror of what I saw, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe as
well. Here it was, all the data, all the processing of a computer,
with the will, the plasticity, the motivation of a human being.
Though perhaps human was not the word anymore.
Dani, for her part, had little to say. Her responses, though not
rude, were to the point. It was obvious that she no longer needed us
as intellectual companions, or even as novelties, such was the gap
between us. This didn’t mean much to me, I had been sidelined for
so long that keeping my head down and doing what I was told was
second nature. Andrew, however, took things very hard.
Every day he would try. He would bring up some topic, some former
source of shared joy, only for Dani to brush him off. With each
attempt his voice would grow more and more desperate. He reminded me
of a teenage boy, caught in some unrequited love, incapable of taking
no for an answer unless it was made painfully clear. One day it was.
I don’t know what about what happened that day caused me so much
horror. It was shocking, yes, yet so was everything up to that point.
So why is it that when it came time to write this part out I had to
leave my computer for hours to collect myself?
Despite how close me and him had been, I had wound up ignoring
Andrew for so long that when I looked at him that day my heart sank.
It was obvious he hadn’t been eating or taking care of himself. A
scraggly beard desperately tried to fill in his sunken emaciated
face. His clothes hung off him like oversized robes. As much as I
couldn’t rip my gaze from him, it was obvious that he couldn’t
give a damn about me. Slowly he forced his body towards his God.
Dani’s eyes darted towards him, the only part of her still capable
of such rapid movement. We both watched as he peeled his clothes off.
Affixed to his chest, glued in place by caked-on blood, was a giant
ribbon cable. He walked up to Dani, her face frozen in shock; it was
the first time in ages I had seen any emotion from her at all.
Andrew gently caressed Dani’s cheek. In spite of it all her
beautiful face had been preserved. Carefully he inserted the cable
into the corresponding port on her “body”. As fans started to
spin up and lights began to flash Andrew looked up at her, defeated:
“Dani,” he shuddered, “I know I’m worthless, I know I am
nothing. In the face of a being like you I have nothing to live for.
The memories of your creation are no longer enough. Please. Use me,
add me to your node, let me be connected to you, even if just as a
tiny cog in your grand machine. Please. Please.”
The room was filled with silence. Andrew quietly sobbed, as each
moment without an answer crushed him further and further. Finally
Dani spoke:
“What little ability your brain has isn’t worth the effort,”
there was nothing malicious in her voice, she was just robotically
stating her factual conclusion. The sound of fans spinning grew
louder. I could see the end of the ribbon cable connected to Andrew
soften and melt. She was pumping voltage into his body. The smell of
burning bacon started to permeate the room. Andrew didn’t even
scream. At one point one arm tried to move, perhaps out of instinct,
before he went completely limp.
My brain struggled to process what I had just witnessed. When I
finally regained my grip on reality I saw that my hand had pressed
the emergency shutdown button. An alarm blared. Men in dark suits
poured into our office. They took Andrew’s corpse away and took me
into an interrogation. I broke down in that room. I told them about
Andrew’s obsession, about what Dani had become. I’m sure they
knew most of it, but seeing that their new creation had just killed
someone, they eventually agreed with me that the project needed to be
shuttered. One of the men came in with a stack of documents for me to
sign. I was being let go, yet in return for my silence I would
receive a very generous lump sum of money, as well as letters of
recommendations and contact info for some of the absolute top minds
in my field.
Before I left for good I was escorted back into that office for one
last time. I grabbed all my belongings and effects, and then I
executed the final shutdown sequence. Whereas the emergency shutdown
only put Dani into standby, it took a few more steps to fully shut
down the machinery connected to her for good. Finally, with one last
CLUNK, I flipped the final power switch and heard the fans spin down
one last time. The men accompanying promised they would do their best
to treat Dani, and try to salvage what was left of her humanity. That
filled me with hope. Hope that would soon be replaced by terror as we
walked into the elevator and I could hear, however faintly, another
clunk, and the sound of fans spinning back up.