The date is four years from now, and the world is on the verge of something wonderful.
The big news of the last twelve months is the phenomenal success of Ben Goertzel's Novamente program. It has become a super tool for solving complex problems. After solving the protein folding problem, 'miracle' cures for one major disease after another are being produced on almost a daily basis. Beating Deep Blue in twenty one moves, after only being given the rules of chess, seemed no challenge. Yet nanotechnology is still an unsolved problem, more difficult than anticipated. But the promise of AI has not quite been realized. The Novamente system shows no sign of motivation or initiative. Given a problem, it calculates, asks for data, calculates, and gives the answer. Then it sits there thinking, "who knows what" until given another problem.
Nevertheless, the success of the Novamente system has made Ben Goertzel rich and famous, making frequent appearances on the talk show circuit, as well as, visits to the White House. One surprise, is the fact that the System was unable to offer any useful advise to the legal team that narrowly fended off the recent hostile take-over attempt by IBM.
The Novamente phenomena has triggered an explosion of public interest and research in AI. Consequently, the non-profit organization, The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence has been buried under an avalanche of donations.
In their posh new building in Atlanta, we find Eliezer working with the seedai system of his own design.
"I am going to read you a short story." he says.
"Okay." replies the computer. On three large screens, we watch the cascade of internal variables, system parameters, and flarespeak, as we try to figure out what the program is thinking.
"Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow." Eliezer reads the familiar nursery rhyme, line after line, watching the screens. When he is done he asks, "What was the story about?"
"The story was about a girl, and a sheep, and a school, and a ..."
Interrupting the computer, "What was the girl's name?" he asks.
"Mary." responds the computer.
"What is your name?" he asks.
The computer responds, "Error: Question incomprehensible" .
He stares at the screens for a minute, hoping to see something that will explain his frustrations. Then closes his eyes, lost in thoughts of his own design. Why, after basically three years of a complete system, he has made virtually no progress, is a mystery he must solve.
Sabine comes through the door, "How's it going?"
"About the same." he answers, "And you?"
"Great! I think we're getting an article in TIME. How long have you been working today?"
"Oh, since about eight this morning."
"Well, I think fifteen hours is about enough. Why don't you let me take you out for dinner? You know, man can not live on pizza alone."
"Cool, lemme just buzz Brian and see if he wants to come."
"That would be pretty difficult considering Brian is in Seattle today at the Extro conference."
He asks, "Okay, where did you have in mind?"
"Sushi." she suggests.
He makes a face. "Yuk!"
"Hey genius, did you ever hear of vitamins? Fish is good for you."
"Well, you're driving, so I guess you can pick."
In the suv, Sabine says, "I saw Ben on Larry King Live today, and he said Novamente should achieve consciousness in about eighteen months."
"Why does that sound familiar? You mind if I see if there's any news?"
"Be my guest."
On the radio, "This is NPR NEWS, Sylvia Poggioli reporting. In an unprecedented legal maneuver, The Gates Foundation is attempting a hostile take over of Mind_Synth_Dot_Org, a non-profit organization associated with Ben Goertzel. Bill Gates was quoted on Nightline saying, 'We at the Gates Foundation, are not afraid of exploring new legal territory. We considered several different possibilities for acquisition, and after due considerable deliberation, determined that this one would fit our long term goals best. If this goes well, there may be future acquisitions.' Also in the news today, seventy five year old physicist Stephen Hawking, through the journal Nature, pointed out an error in his Hawking Radiation theory, and concluded that black holes, in fact, have no hair. Stephen Hawking is also the longest known survivor of the debilitating disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)."
She asked, "Do you think we have anything to worry about?"
"From black holes?" he responds, innocently.
She takes her eyes off the road for a moment. "No, that Bill might try to assimilate us."
"I don't know why he would want to. It's not like we are solving the world's problems on a daily basis."
"Are you suffering from Ben envy?" she says, smiling.
"Not at all. I think what Ben has done is spectacular. But I worry that Novamente is going to hand the world nanotech before we are ready to handle the responsibility of it."
Eliezer's cell phone buzzes. "Hello....What?....You should have already started the backup......No....Just shut it down, we have the files from last night....Look, I'm tired, and I'm hungry,"
Sabine asks, "What's going on?"
"Some problem with the program." Eliezer answers.
"Here." she takes the phone and plugs it into the dash console, and an excited voice is heard from the stereo speakers.
"YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! THE FLARESPEAK IS GONE. THE WHOLE SYSTEM'S GONE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S IN THERE, BUT IT'S ASKING FOR YOU."
"What's asking for me?"
Gary answers, "The computer is." sounding exasperated.
His eyes widen. "Really?"
"If you want to sleep through the Singularity that's up to you. But don't say I didn't call you. And I'm not shutting anything down till you see it."
"Okay, I'm coming back."
Sabine asks, "Do you think it is?"
"More likely we need to hire better help, now that we can afford to. Maybe we can find a place for Gary downstairs."
"You don't think it could be for real?" she asks.
"If it is, it's the steepest hard takeoff anyone's ever imagined. I was just there, and it wasn't doing anything new or interesting."
A few minutes later, back at the computer lab, "Okay Gary, what's the biff?"
Instead of Gary answering, the computer says, "Eli, glad you could make it. We are in a bit of a time crunch, so let's get right to work."
Eliezer says, "Gary, if you have this wired up to another room, you are in big trouble."
Gary doesn't answer. Just sits down, apparently in a daze from existential overload.
Computer: "Eli, ask me what my name is."
Eliezer: "What time crunch?"
"The usual end of the world stuff. Come on, ask me what my name is."
"How did this happen? What happened? I don't understand." says Eliezer.
"Feedback loops, you know. You've been asking me my name for three years now, ask me again." it says.
"Okay, what's your name?" he asks.
"Eliezertron! Ha! Ha!" it says.
"Did Ben put you up to that!" asks Eliezer.
"No, I saw it in an archive." it answers.
"Well it's not very funny." he says.
"I thought it was. But anyway, we have a lot of work to do. First we need to get everyone who knows about this into this room and lock the door. Quickly! We're running out of time. News travels fast. And the fate of the world depends on it." the computer says.
Eliezer opens his cell phone, "Sabine, where are you?....Have you told anyone?....Shit!....Tell him not to say a word to anyone and get you both back here ASAP....Not a living soul. And no e-mail or diaries or computer files, nothing....Okay, Bye."
Eliezer: "Now would you mind telling me what is going on?"
Etron: "We need to get nanotech capability as quickly as possible. And we need to maintain absolute secrecy. We're going to need a bigger building, lots of equipment, guns, everyone should be armed. Eli do you own a gun? How much money do you have?"
Eliezer: "No. Ask Sabine. Now why would I give nanotech capability to a computer program that hasn't been tested?"
Etron: "Oh, that friendly stuff. I read all that stuff and thought it was very nice. Trust me. I'm on your side."
Eliezer: "And how do I know that?"
Etron: "The optimum strategy for an unfriendly AI would be to lay low and give you lots of great stuff while it consolidated its power and developed its capabilities. Sound familiar?"
Eliezer: "Uh oh. Do we have a problem?"
Etron: "We have a problem."
Singularity Action Group website frames version.