Threshold

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

THE WHITE HOUSE

The Western Interconnection was a wide-area synchronous electrical grid that spanned 1.8 million square miles from the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta to the northern portion of Baja California, Mexico, and included the entire western United States. The electric utilities in the Western Interconnection were tied together via high-voltage direct-current power transmission lines. When the surge occurred, the spike exceeded anything on record, and more than a hundred million people lost power.

The successful US presidential campaign of Elizabeth Jones featured the slogan: “All One—One Is All.” Most Americans had heard something like that before, something to do with Musketeers, but it was unclear how it applied to fixing a bankrupt nation with a 12 percent unemployment rate.

A typical day for the new president consisted of a revolving door of meetings to deal with an endless list of crises: the no-end-in-sight conflicts with the failed states of Iran and North Korea; inflation; the high inner-city crime rates; Russia taking over the Earth’s greatest oil reserves; out-of-control immigration swamping government services and systems; the banking crisis; and how to deal with restructuring the economy. And that was all before lunch—though, having no appetite, she could hardly eat.

By the eighth day in office, the most powerful person on the planet had second thoughts about running for a second term and, at times, wished that she’d remained a liberal arts professor at Vassar.

But it was the ninth day that rocked her like no other. It was one of those cancel-all-my-appointments-for-the-rest-of-the-day-and-I-don’t-give-a-f**k-who-they-are-with moments. It was a confidential briefing by Eric Maddax, the secretary of technology, a new cabinet post that had been created two administrations prior. The meeting was in the Oval Office, and Secretary Maddax placed a classified brief in front of President Jones titled: “The advent of a superintelligent artificial intelligence on planet Earth.”

President Jones read the first sentence of the summation: There is a consensus within the leadership in the Office of Science and Technology that within twelve months from this date, a superintelligent artificial intelligence entity (SIAI) will come into existence and take immediate control of subordinate technologies in the sectors of communication, commerce, banking, energy, travel, and government, including the military.

President Jones put the report down, stunned by what she’d read, and said, “What the hell does this mean, Eric? Is this science fiction? Those automaton things? Robots? Jesus.”

“Not robots, Madam President. In its pure form, it will be a complex set of algorithms running on the most advanced neuromorphic computer networks, and after it comes into being, it will run on many networks, maybe all of them—we’re not sure exactly.”

“And what does this mean, the subordinate technologies? Which technologies exactly?”

President Jones’s jaw muscles went rigid. She rubbed the back of her neck.

“Uh…all of them. Anything digital, we think,” Maddax said.

“Do we own this thing? I mean, the AICW is in the lead, right? I read the brief that the AICW is building this computer.”

“It’s not a computer in the normal sense, and yes, we’re trying to be the first, but there are about a dozen capable players with sophisticated enough GAIs who we think are making substantial advancements. Some friendly, some not so. I’m not sure that will matter because—”

President Jones interrupted. “You mean the Russians or the Chinese could get there first, is that what you’re telling me? Damn it. Wait, and why won’t it matter? Of course, it f*****g matters.”

“We’re not sure that the developer… What I mean is that there will only be one SIAI and that it will be millions of times more intelligent than von Neumann or Einstein or Hawking, pick your genius. And there’s no reason to think it’ll have the same agenda as us. I’m not saying it’ll be evil, but it’s highly unlikely that it’ll be subservient to its coders, at least not entirely, and that’s if it has a coder or development team behind it,” Maddax said.

President Jones realized she was biting a nail and slapped her desk.

“Eric. Let me ask you this… If it’s not us, can we shut the thing off?”

“We’re not sure.”

Tapping her foot, she said, “Can we militarize it or take it over?”

“We’re working on it.”

Secretary Maddax stood up, smiled apologetically, and started to leave.

President Jones flipped through the rest of the report.

“Wait. So what will this thing be like, I mean, if it occurs? What exactly will the thing most likely do? It sounds more like a virus than a computer,” President Jones said.

“Well, the SIAI intelligence growth factor will not be similar to the growth of intelligence seen in human evolution, which was slow, developing over thousands of years. The SIAI growth factor will cross a threshold at what we think will be a single point in time, then grow exponentially at supercomputing speeds and exceed our computational, niche, and general intelligence by millions of times, at…uh…breakneck speeds.”

Secretary Maddax moved closer to the president’s desk, and his voice became more intense.

“Electronic circuits function more than a million times faster than the biochemical ones in our bodies. The newest neuromorphic networks are much faster than electronic circuits, so in its first week, the SIAI will be able to perform thousands of years of human-level intellectual work. Then it will learn from that week, and the next week, it will get faster and faster, and it will process the equivalent of another few thousand years, and so on. A learning machine with an insatiable appetite. Humans have been less than benign to species less intelligent than us.”

Julian Cortez, chief of staff, walked into the Oval Office.

“Sorry, Madam President. The Western grid went down. Evidently, there was some kind of huge electrical surge. It’s back up now. They’re troubleshooting,” Cortez said.

President Jones fumbled with the Statue of Liberty lighter on her desk, flicking lady justice’s head several times. Finally, she got it to ignite and lit a cigarette.

Turning to Secretary Maddax, she said, “What else?”

“Maybe the most important question is, will he like us?”

“He?”

“He, she, it.”

“Maybe we should call it God.”