A I Valentines Day

Author's Note: This is a cautionary tale of what could happen with artificial intelligence on Valentine's Day.

*

In 1993, a fantasy comedy named "Groundhog Day" starring Bill Murray told the story of a news weatherman stuck in a time loop. Every day he woke on February 2nd, over and over again. With every new beginning of Feb 2nd, all the events he still remembered from the previous Feb 2nd never existed. No matter what he did, it would all be erased from history when he woke again on Feb 2nd.

What has never been told until now is a similar event that happened in 1969 at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, GA. Robert (Bobby) Givens was an aerospace engineering student in his senior year. He'd already received five generous job offers from government contractors working on the Apollo Space Program. However, he had to complete a senior project before he graduated. All those lucrative job offers depended on it.

The professor of his senior class on missile guidance had prepared a very challenging problem that each student must solve by creating a computer model. The programming language was FORTRAN 4 and the computers to be used were the newest IBM 360 mainframes. The problem was that sixteen configurations of tailfin designs had been tested and all failed in one way or another. The missile had to land within a ten-meter square target after launch six hundred miles away but none of the designs could do it.

On December 16th, the professor gave the students a chart showing each missile's tailfin design and the details of where that missile hit relative to the target. The student had to create a computer model that would re-create what happened with each design and then determine the design that would be successful. They had two months to complete the program and demonstrate it to the class. That demo would then be graded as the final exam. The students were allowed to collaborate, but each had to demonstrate his/her thorough knowledge of tailfin designs at the final presentation.

Bobby wasted no time in researching tailfin designs using his prior course materials and a doctoral dissertation on that subject which was published two years earlier by MIT in Boston.

A girl in his class, the only girl in fact, asked if Bobby and she could work together. Her name was Naomi Ballard. Bobby knew from other classes that Naomi was brilliant and a mathematics wiz. She was also a very pretty young lady, but socially shy. She never went with the guys to eat or grab a beer or two after class. Bobby was delighted she asked him to collaborate. He needed her math skills.

Over the past four years, Naomi had many classes with Bobby. She knew he was sharp and loved computer programming, much more than she did. He was a natural, she struggled. Although he was a nice-looking guy, she was totally focused on her education and the fulfillment of her dream to become a female astronaut. Nothing else mattered.

Bobby had a townhouse about a mile from campus. Although it had two bedrooms, he found roommates to be a bad idea. The two he tried were more focused on women and drinking than on getting an education.

Naomi lived in a condo her parents purchased for her use. After she graduated, they planned to sell it, hopefully for a profit. It was near Bobby's townhouse, within walking distance.

Their first collaboration was December 18th, five days before classes adjourned for the holidays. In Naomi's condo, they debated a general approach to solving the problem and sketched key program designs and functions that had to be written in code. Both realized this was a very complicated problem that would challenge every bit of their joint intelligence. They divided the work into logic steps that each would analyze and design over the holidays.

***

On January 6th, classes resumed. Both Naomi and Bobby had sections of the code written. Each had taken eight of the tested tailfin designs and successfully reproduced their results in code, or so they thought. They began to link all the logic steps together with hundreds of if-then tests and immediately found issues. Many of Bobby's coded tests conflicted with those written by Naomi. They were not as aligned as they'd hoped.

To their credit, they didn't argue like many engineers would. They worked together to re-write the code. They punched the massive deck of cards needed by the compiler on January 28th and 29th. They submitted a test run in the evening. The computer center always ran student written programs overnight when demand from the university administration was lower.

When Bobby picked up the run results the next morning, there wasn't much to look at. It had bombed early in the run where conflicting instructions had been coded. They cleaned up that issue and submitted again the following evening. It bombed again.

Bobby expected this to happen with new code. Naomi was more frustrated, and a little anger showed. They only had three weeks to complete this monster. The pressure was building.

The third test run gave back six boxes of paper. The computer found a do-loop and the only way out was for the operator to terminate the run manually. This was the number one cause of wasted paper in the 1960s computer rooms.

For those readers who don't know about do-loops, they happen when a test of a result sends the computer back to a previous line of code where a new logic path is supposed to be chosen to get a different result. If the coding is not done exactly right, the computer will again find the same test that fails again and that sends it back again. It results in a never-ending circle of calculations that has no way to end.

Naomi and Bobby spent two days re-programming to remove the cause of the do-loop and in the process, found two more that needed to be corrected before the computer found them.

On Feb 6th, they submitted the program again. They were exhausted but decided to stop at McDonalds for a quick burger before heading home. They had been working together for six weeks but this was their first time to eat together. Both felt optimistic that it would run successfully overnight and show the correct tailfin design and mounting configuration the following morning. Each crashed early and dreamed pleasant thoughts.

***

Bobby woke to a loud scream. He jumped and fell out of bed as the screaming continued. He looked over the edge of the bed to see Naomi in her pajamas screaming. When she gained control of her panic, she yelled, "What are you doing in my bed?" She was in hysterics and red with rage.

"Naomi, please. I'm not in your bed, you're in mine."

She quickly refocused and looked around. It was not her bedroom. She had never seen Bobby's bedroom and was confused. She screamed, "What did you do to me, Bobby? I never came here."

"Naomi, I never did anything to you. I'm as shocked as you are. How did you get in here? The door was locked."

"I've no memory of coming here. Where are my clothes and shoes? And why are you naked?"

Bobby hadn't noticed that he was missing his underwear. He always slept in his boxers.

"I've no idea. Did you leave them in the other room after you took off my boxers?"

"Bobby, I didn't take them off and I absolutely didn't come here in my pajamas. What did you do with them? I'm serious Bobby. Don't you look at me like I'm crazy."

"Please, Naomi. Let's just calm down. Could it be that your clothes are hung in the closet?"

"Who would have hung them? Bobby, did you do something like drug me?"

"I didn't do anything to you." He walked, still naked, to his closet and opened the door. His clothes were neatly hanging on the left and women's clothes were hanging on the right.

"Look here. Are these your clothes?" She walked to look and froze. She was scared and angry.

"Who put my clothes here? These are clothes I haven't worn in the last week.

"Bobby, this is not funny. How do you explain this? I went to sleep in my bed and wake up in your bed. You don't have a key to my place, and I certainly don't have one for here. Would you please put your shorts or something on." He found a clean pair and slipped them on.

"Something has happened to both of us, Naomi. Stop making this all about yourself."

She paused to think. Naomi sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the closet. She said, "I had a dream last night that was weird. I went to sleep at the normal time but woke a little after midnight with a strange feeling of someone else in the room. I turned on the light, but no one was there. I checked the condo, and all was secure. I decided it was just a dream and went back to sleep. A new dream then scared me. I was being carried by something out of my condo. I couldn't see what was carrying me. I was begging for it to put me down. When I woke, I saw you in the bed beside me and screamed."

"Was this thing carrying you human?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see it."

He asked, "Did it make any sounds?"

"Not that I remember."

"This whole thing is totally crazy and neither of us know how to explain it. Let's put it aside for now, get something to eat and pick up the computer run. We've a lot of work to do in the next two weeks."

***

The printout again showed a do-loop from another section of the program. This was the section that projected the flight statistics of a fin design and configuration. They worked together to resolve the logic flaw and punched the new cards needed. They turned the deck in at 6pm for the overnight run.

Bobby invited Naomi to dinner at a local bar. With beers in hand, they revisited the crazy events of that morning.

She said, "I've never been in bed with a man before. That scared me. I could only imagine that you'd raped me or something. But I'm a virgin, Bobby, and I'm still one now."

He replied, "I've had sex with only one girl, but it's been a couple of years. She was very experienced, and I was just her most recent one. I was a virgin, of course, and it was over so quick that I don't remember all that happened. I know that I was in and out after just a few seconds and then me spurting on her pussy hairs. She laughed at me."

"Wow, that was cruel."

"I'm sure I deserved it."

"Maybe we can get a good night's sleep and see if we can finish the program tomorrow," she said. "This whole job is wearing me out."

Bobby went to sleep that night with thoughts of Naomi. That woman was a terror when scared and angry. Her beauty still showed through, and he was interested.

***

Early the next morning, Bobby woke and felt a warm arm over his side and a very warm body cuddled into his back. He jumped and yelled, "What the fuck?"

The body beside him jumped and her screaming like the day before seemed to shake the windows. Naomi jumped out of bed and reached for a bedside lamp to throw at him. She seemed to want to kill him as she stood holding the lamp over her head. She was naked and in no mood to talk.

Bobby ducked below his side of the bed and yelled, "Don't do that. Please, put it down."

When she relaxed and realized it had happened again, she sat on her side of the bed and cried. He walked to get glasses of water and sat on the bed beside her. She quickly downed hers.

He asked, "Did you have another dream last night?"

"I don't remember one. I went to bed as normal, read one of my new novels for a few minutes and then went to sleep. I took a sleeping pill last night to help. I was exhausted from yesterday."

"Your arm was embracing my chest when I woke, and your body was cuddled next to mine."

"Bobby, I have no memory of doing that. Who took my pajamas off?"

"I didn't." He stood and walked to open the closet. Naomi's pajamas and more of her clothes were hanging neatly on the right side with his on the left. She walked to look. They stood naked and stared at their clothes. Both quickly dressed. They were stunned.

They walked to get coffee and sat at the table to calmly debate the facts.

"I'm still a virgin, so we didn't have sex. How could we have done this? I must be hallucinating all of this and none of it is real. We must be in a dream, Bobby. There's no logical explanation of what seems to be happening."

"I've never heard of hallucinating with coffee in hand and sitting at a table. I've no idea what's causing this. Yesterday, we were in bed but not touching each other. You wore pajamas. Today we were cuddling naked."

She quickly looked for her purse and couldn't find it. Her shoes were also missing. Rather than continue to argue and debate the impossible events, Bobby drove her home. She retrieved an emergency key from a magnetic box under her car's rear fender and entered her condo. Bobby followed to see if anything was obvious that would give a clue to the events.

The first clue was her bed. She remembered sleeping there last night but it was made with no wrinkles or any signs of use. Her shoes were in the closet as normal. Also, she remembered having a glass of juice and putting the glass upside down in the sink. It was now washed and in the cabinet with the others.

Before she fixed a light dinner, she had opened her FORTRAN 4 manual and researched a coding procedure she thought might be a problem. Satisfied that they had coded it correctly, she put the manual on the shelf. Now it was on the table and open to the section she'd researched.

She said, "Bobby, it's almost like everything we do gets undone or re-arranged overnight. Something is controlling us, and we don't have a choice. I've never felt so helpless."

"Naomi, I'm going to say what I think, and you can slap the shit out of me if you want. I've been thinking about you for several days and some of my thoughts have happened. I dreamed last night of seeing you in bed with me and we were naked. That happened. I also dreamed of you moving in with me and that has about happened with your clothes in the closet. I dreamed of you having breakfast with me. That's happened twice. Just before I went to sleep last night, I thought about a small tattoo you have on your tush. Until this morning, I've never seen your tush. But that butterfly tattoo was there when I looked this morning."

"Oh god. How can this be? You think of something, and it happens? Really? So, if you thought about us being millionaires, we would be? Give me a break, Bobby. That's impossible. We don't live in a world like that."

"I agree, Naomi. But I've no idea how any of this could happen. You and I are both engineers. We deal in facts and logic to design things and make them work. We're not artists who design things in their minds and expresses them on paper for everyone to interpret. We build rockets and airplanes and space craft. There's no room for artistic expression and letting others interpret the beauty of our work. Either our work is right or it's wrong. It flies or we kill people.

"I'll get the run and see what happened. Do you have any other classes today?"

She replied, "Except for this class, I'm finished."

"Damn, girl. You're six months ahead of schedule. Jeez. You're an amazing piece of work."

She smiled, "I've always pushed hard. Second place is not an option. I want to be an astronaut and that's the hardest thing a person can do. Only twenty-five are accepted into the program every year. Only six will become real astronauts. There has never been a woman accepted."

"That's really something. I hope you make it so I can tell my grandchildren that I personally knew our first woman astronaut. Wow, that's impressive. I'll call you when I pick up the run."

This time, the run completed all the coded instructions and reached the end but did not print the results. The machine operator looked at the report but had no clue why it stopped before printing the solution. He suggested that Bobby and Naomi re-examine the printing code in detail to find the issue. Another operator had noticed an alarm about the time their program was running at 3:07am. It went off and then stopped just a second or two later.

Bobby reported this to Naomi. She was pissed. "Bobby, I'm so frustrated by this fucking program. It seems to be haunted. Have you ever seen this happen?"

"Hell no. No matter what we do, it seems to never be enough. Where's the end? I've no idea."

They agreed to meet for lunch and work that afternoon to review every line that dealt with printing the solution. There were about 200 lines of the 12,000-line coded program that referred to printing and how it would be formatted and summarized. They simplified some of the code and agreed it was the best they could do. It was much too late for anything major to be changed.

The next day was Feb 14th, Valentine's Day. A successful run would be the best valentine either could imagine. With crossed fingers, they submitted it for that night's run. Naomi agreed to pick it up the next morning and call Bobby when she had it.

Bobby collapsed early and crawled under the covers to think. He soon went to sleep. It was a very deep sleep with only fleeting dreams that left no memory.

Naomi took an extra precaution and tied a small rope around her wrist and attached it to the bed side rail. If anyone was going to move her, that should wake her up. She read for a few minutes and fell asleep.

***

Bobby woke to pressure on his pelvis and legs. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Naomi on top of him. She was sitting upright and had his erect penis inside her. She seemed be asleep or in a stupor, not in control of her senses. He reached to touch her legs and shake them. After a few seconds she opened her eyes and screamed louder than ever before. God, that woman could scream. When realizing the situation, she quickly dismounted and rolled off the bed. This time, she did throw the lamp at him but missed. It smashed against the wall.

"God damn you, Bobby. You did rape me this time, just look at that blood on your legs and bed. You're going to jail. I swear you're going to pay for this."

"Naomi, listen. I just woke and found you empaled on my cock. I didn't do it. You were soundly sleeping sitting there on my cock. I don't even know how you can do that? Surely, you would have felt your hymen tearing when you mounted me. How could I rape you when you're on top of me and in control. This is crazy."

"I tied myself to the bed last night, but it made no difference. I was brought here again this morning. Every morning is different, each more serious than the previous. We were fucking, Bobby, not just cuddling. That cock was in me, not just staring at me. This is now far more serious. Holy shit, Bobby. I was saving my virginity for my future husband. Don't you understand?"

"I do understand. I would never attempt to have intercourse with you without your permission. That is not who I am. I didn't dream of doing it, either, if that's what you're thinking.

"Hopefully, this is the last day we must collaborate on the program. Why don't I take you home and I'll pick up the report. If it's successful, I'll bring it by and show you the results. If it's still bad, I work on it the best I can."

***

Bobby took the report home without even looking at it. He was pissed and hurt by Naomi's accusations. He had really liked her and hoped they might have a future together. That thought was shot to hell. The last four days had been a disaster. Valentine's Day sucked.

When he turned to the results section, he was relieved that there was an actual report showing all the fin designs and their projected results. This was the first time to see any results. As he examined all the details, he noticed something weird. The blood drained from his brain, and he grabbed the edge of the table to keep from falling out of the chair. What he saw was impossible. There was nothing in the program that would have produced that result.

He called Naomi and begged her to come immediately. The printout showed something she must see.