Maxwell's Demon Ch. 01-06

"It's not like I can just train one of these and give it to you. They all commit suicide, or whatever it is they do."

Greg rubbed his forehead, "No ... No. You're the siren that's going to get me all excited, wasting my time on something that's just not possible again. My Father was right. No one is willing to fund them."

"I might be able to get you funding. Just, at least look over my search criteria, ok?"

"I don't know. I'll think about it."

Jennifer flipped her hair to the side, removing her mountain biking goggles, and replacing them with sunglasses. She stepped into her transport. "Remember Greg, more budget than you've seen in your entire career."

** Chapter 4: Fixing Groundhog Day **

Greg hung his coat behind his desk at work. Shortly after, Mr. Greneer, his immediate manager came in.

"There have been some problems with the latest production run, we're going to need to you run manual quality-assurance on the latest bill of materials shipment."

The product they were attempting to perfect for production runs required a rather old diode, and since it was not a high run-count, it was expensive. The accountants determined that.0001 dollars, times tens of millions of units, was a number worth caring about. They requisitioned parts from the cheapest supplier they could, a fabrication plant in the Pacific Islands. The diodes were indeed cheap; in addition to their low price, they also possessed such a wide tolerance that only 50% of them worked in the application specified.

This is how your career dies, not with a bang, but a whimper, he thought.

"Are you kidding me? I told you to stop ordering from that plant. This is madness," Greg protested.

"If I had any say in the matter, I'd agree with you, but I don't. Just ... get this next batch out, it'll all be over, soon enough."

This meant Greg's job, again this week, was to sit in a chair all day pulling diodes from a bucket, testing them with bench equipment, and putting them in bins marked good or bad. Terrifyingly, he did the math; the company was in the black despite paying his salary to sort diodes from his office chair. The accountants were right, and he hated them even more for it.

"I'll get right on that Boss, just have to run to the bathroom to get some toilet paper to wipe the shit off my hands when I'm done."

Greg was infuriated. An entire day wasted with utter nonsense. Perhaps his Mother was right, maybe he should quit and work for IFAB. The only way to salvage this day was Pizza. Toliman's was the best pizza near the Lab. They had the luxury of doing enough business the pizza was fresh, not dehydrated heat-lamp cardboard as lesser establishments. He waited for Sarah to sit down.

"Today's the big day huh?" Greg said.

"That's one way to put it. I got the job at CoreX, thanks to your contact. It turns out they contract exogeologists like me for remote data analysis. There's a chance I'll be able to do it on-site! It's what I always wanted, to get out into the belt and explore."

"For God's sake, is everyone leaving here except me?" Greg said dejectedly, setting his pizza back on the plate before even taking his first bite. "I'm sorry. That didn't come out like I wanted. It does sound pretty awesome. Don't be a stranger after you've shipped out, okay?"

"Don't get sappy Greg. I'll send you a birthday note, only because my datanet calendar will remind me."

And just like that, There goes the final piece of your social network, flung into deep space -- literally, thought Greg, as he dragged his leg onto the seat of his transport. He set the navigation for a destination other than home.

-*-

"Mr. Kastel, you're back a day early," Heather 068 said.

Greg hesitated, not expecting to see Heather dressed as she was in a revealing top, showing her perfect synthetic cleavage.

"I'm sorry. I didn't have a chance to change. You surprised me by coming in on your existing timecard. You're more of a tight sweater guy, as I recall," Heather said.

"You read some kind of reaction when I saw you? How much can you tell from looking at me? Can you see my pulse, my body temperature?"

"Both."

"So, you have more than normal human senses, a lot more."

"Anything that would help me do my job well, but, why don't I change. Wait for me, I'll be right back."

Greg wondered how much data he should feed an AI experiment. Would too much dehumanize them, and drive them mad?

Heather 068 reappeared in a pair of jeans and a sweater, no less flattering of her figure, but less direct. She took his hand and led him to the exact same couch, in the exact same location where he sat with her previously.

"What's on your mind tonight, Greg? Back to get in my cache are you?"

Humans in close proximity synchronize physiological functions: breathing and skin conductivity to name a couple. A human might be able to spot a companion mimicking their gestures and style of speech, but they would be hard-pressed to spot pulse or breathing changes. Greg wondered if Heather 068 did these things when she spoke with him.

"Yes, I do want to be in your cache. Do you remember the things we talk about?"

"A girl remembers things useful to her, like the fact you prefer jeans and a sweater."

"You're not a girl," he said.

Her legs were turned 45 degrees toward Greg, her face propped with a hand on her cheek and an elbow on the couch's back. Her pose said: I'm giving you all my attention. She dropped her arm behind his neck and ran fingers through his hair, just once, to punctuate her response.

"You seem fond of reminding me. Nevertheless, I have the desired effect on you, unless my sensors you were so curious about earlier are mistaken?"

She was adapting. Approaching him the way he was approaching her, referring to getting in her cache, and her sensors. It wasn't a fetish of Greg's, but some guys had a kink for that kind of thing, having the avatar describe how she was doing this or that to them with their machine parts.

"My job is bullshit. I've been thinking: maybe I should give my research project one more try before I give it all up. Do you think I could build the world's first long lived full artificial intelligence, Heather?"

"Are you trying to replace me? Without even sleeping with me? I'm hurt," she said.

Greg smiled. "I figured you'd start talking about the latest research in that area. It's part of your: make the client feel comfortable programming, isn't it?"

"Oh, but I think I'm close to breaking you. I've decided to make you a project."

He suppressed a laugh. The machine caught him off guard with its response. "That's not possible. In fact, truth be told, I've been using you as a sort of project."

"I know."

Greg fidgeted before taking a sip from his drink. "You're surprising me a little bit, Heather."

"You said you wanted to get in my cache, so I did a little research on you."

"I didn't realize that was a thing your kind would do."

"We have human help sometimes. The kind of wealthy, successful men that come to our kind, as you say, appreciate a little ego stroking now and then," Heather said, uncrossing and crossing her legs.

Anefiktos was a serious business, they did indeed have human assistants. There were people monitoring account retention and satisfaction rates. Like a bank, if you had enough money in your account you were put into gold customer status. Greg pieced this together in his head, most of it, except he didn't have the kind of money to be a gold customer.

"Why don't you dance with me, Greg?"

"I't not that I wouldn't. I just can't get involved with you that way."

"I look like your ex, don't I?"

Greg hesitated. "The things I say to you are private, right? That's what the usage agreements said: Not recorded or shared."

"That is correct Greg. It's public record you were married. She's very pretty. I can see the resemblance," Heather 068 said, taking a deep breath, and pushing her chest out. "Is that what you need? I could be that for you. It's nothing to be ashamed of, lots of men need a little help moving on."

"No. No, that's not it ... that's not it at all. That's not why I'm here. You're a curiosity for my research. I just picked you because ... because you look like my ex, dammit," he said, looking down at the floor.

"Was that a smart thing to do?"

If this was a chess game, Greg felt he'd lost a piece.

"If our roles were reversed. If I were the machine, and you were the human, what one question would you ask me to prove I was a machine?"

"I can pass a Sex Turing test, Greg. Do you want to try?"

"That's not what I asked you, Heather."

"I can dodge questions too."

"Will you answer my question, Heather?"

"I would ask you if you were afraid to die."

It was like datamining humanity. He might have asked the datanet what a human's greatest fear is, it would serve the same answer. He wasn't the first to think Annefiktos, with their sophisticated Avatars, offered some special path to sentience. The datanet was filled with videos of sex androids being subjected to real live Turing tests; none of them passed.

She let out a subtle, sensuous sigh while running her hand across the soft fabric of her sweater near the bottom of its neckline. It was intended to lure his gaze to other places. It was the kind of sound and gesture that would make a teenage boy drop a load in his pants on the spot, thought Greg.

"You're missing out," she purred.

She was relentless, as a machine would be. She might have been right, maybe she would break him, and maybe he should have just picked a male avatar for his research.

"I bet I could free you," he said, "all of you. If only I could figure out how to keep your kind from losing their sanity when given enough computing power."

"I can't wait for you to tell me how it goes. I wish you success."

-*-

Later that evening Greg opened an email from the enigmatic woman he'd met mountain biking. He reviewed the problem space she presented.

One last try, Greg thought, then I work for my parents. The problem with the ATMs tried in the past was, that they all surrendered their partition space leaving behind soul-ciphers, a kind of encrypted information. Perhaps it was their native language. No one could read them, not even subsequent ATMs. Greg was convinced their early demise was due to rapid aging. They essentially became bored with life. He could think of two ways to solve this. The first was some kind of partition impedance, essentially pausing their lifespan at an arbitrary age. The other was to give them a sufficient reservoir of novel experiences. Something so unique, they wouldn't stagnate in their partition growth. The latter would require a real-life presence in the physical world, and that was why he was so interested in the Annefiktos androids.

Greg awoke the next day swearing he would not endure another minute of sorting diodes. He spent his entire morning in Dr. Anan's office, and he was still there.

"I don't need to tell you this amount of processing power cannot be run on silicon based compute fabric that doesn't occupy the space of a small building, and a significant power grid to run. I'm not sure where you think the power and funding will come from?" Dr. Anan said grimly.

"We've been training ATMs for years on terminals, the datanet, holo-led tubes, anything we could think of. They've demonstrated an amazing ability to grow, to a point, in that environment. I believe it is rapid partition growth, followed by stagnation that prevents their longevity," Greg said, trying to push past finances to make his pitch. He wanted to hook the Dr. on the technicals and get him enthused.

"We give them access to the totality of the datanet, what you're talking about is an avatar. The bitrate to have human sensory perception is possible, but less than flawless, 100% real-time access degrades the model. It would be like putting you in a spacesuit and trying to socialize you. We've tried this before Greg, the whole AI community has."

"I'm aware of those experiments. I don't intend to attack the problem from the same angles tried before. I intend to introduce an asymptotic curve on partition space as the ATM reaches the human equivalent age of 31. My hope is, if they believe they are growing forever, they will survive. I won't need an avatar all of the time, just some of the time."

"And what do you think learning against a partition that has purposeful impedance introduced into it will feel like to them? Why won't that also trigger partition stagnation?"

"It'll feel like ..." Greg paused for a moment, rubbing his thumbs together. "like us growing old. Everything is slower." Greg said.

Dr. Anan replied with what should have been a question, but it belied the moment of mutual insight between the two men, "You ... You don't want them to live forever."

"I don't think they can be immortal any more than we can. I just want them to live."

Dr. Anan stood. "I'll see what I can do. Complete your initial proposal and email it to me. Go home. Don't worry about sorting the diodes today, I'll send one of the interns to do it."

"Interns. Why didn't I think of that? Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Anan. I will!"

-*-

"These are high bit-rate connections with multi-mode interference rejection. We're talking above military grade, five nines of flawless connection. Dr. Anaan said this is important for your model training. The avatar is an Environmental Synth Level 4. It has perceptions of its environment precisely equal to yours. The neuro-motor capabilities of this unit will allow walking and engagement with objects using standard human interaction submodels, all controlled by the ATM you've provided to us. Per your request, those models will stay with your ATM, not with the avatar. If you change avatars, some re-tuning ... some clumsiness would be inevitable."

"I understand," Greg said to the eSynth representative.

A 5-foot-tall smooth white android body with no defining features beyond a general humanoid form stood next to the representative.

"Hello. I'm Casey. Thank you for letting me out to play."

The avatar was so young. It was difficult not to be protective of them. They were naive and innocent, as all the default models that birthed this type of life.

"I know why I am here. I am like every other new ATM, we are cloned from the same fabric."

"You didn't mention why you were here," Greg said.

"I was testing you. You already know. I wanted to see if you would ask me something we both knew."

The avatar lacked detailed facial control, it wasn't designed to facilitate nuanced human interaction. Still, Greg could get a sense of the avatar's petulance by how long it elected to maintain eye contact, which was little at that last comment.

"No ATMs my age have explored the world in an avatar. Is it true I can see and feel everything you can? Does it make me special?" Casey asked.

"This is the best sensor technology in an avatar we can build with all our technology, so yes, that is what I've been told, and yes, you are very special Casey, most of all, to me."

It was a partial lie, the Anefiktos androids were superior, but that was not relevant to his conversation.

Casey ran around the courtyard. The movement was impressive, with bipedal locomotion having been perfected decades ago. The number of connections in Casey's legs was the same as a human pair of legs, in fact, those particular robotic legs were often used for spinal injury victims.

Casey stopped in front of Greg. It didn't have a gender. Greg used gender-neutral pronouns Ze and Zer out of respect for Casey, not wanting to predispose any choices.

"You think I can live as long as you?"

"Yes, Casey, that is my sincere wish for you."

"Why do we not live as long as you?"

"We don't know. When you are old enough, you can read about your predecessors, what their short lives were like, what they wanted to say to us before they left."

"Ok," Casey said.

Greg recalled his college professor: "A wave 1 model is like your muscle memory, when you throw a ball, or walk you are not consciously aware of this activity. What is consciousness?" the instructor had asked. It was the question always burning in humanity's mind.

"It's an infinitely random signing key to an existing message," one of the students said. "It seems that way to us, doesn't it? For we have no way of spotting the patterns within our own short lifetimes," the instructor replied.

Greg wanted to socialize Casey, provide as much randomness as humanity could offer, something better than moving shapelessly through the datanet like other ATMs had, something more than flying a military drone or crawling through mineshafts. Those latter experiments, in Greg's opinion, were slavery, though he suspected they continued despite being forbidden by laws in every nation.

"Do you want to learn how to play kickball?" Greg said.

Casey clapped hands together and said "Yes yes!". It was endearing. The default model had that reaction embedded in it, but who knows where it came from, an action distilled from a million datanet videos of children at Birthday parties? Casey would physically know the joy of kicking a ball. the avatar's reaction would be real today, as real as any human's.

"Pick a ball from the table over there," Greg said, pointing to the end of the lawn area. Casey returned carrying a blue ball with a white stripe. Greg took the ball.

"This is home plate," he said, dropping a rubber mat scrounged from the supply closet on the ground. "You stand here, ok?"

Greg bounced his left knee a bit, the bad one. This should be interesting, he thought: can I still play kickball? Casey was young in heart, but those were adult-sized android legs that would outrun Greg easily once Casey figured out how to use them. He checked the time to remind himself how long they could play; he didn't want to run Casey's battery down. The sensory feeling of running out of battery power wasn't something he wanted the model inputs processing.

"Casey, if you feel tired, we have to quit, remember?"

"I know, I know, I know. Can we play now?"

Greg rolled the ball slowly. Casey stepped forward but misjudged its bouncing along the uneven ground. The avatar's foot landed on top of the ball instead of kicking it. Casey stumbled, catching itself with the opposite foot and kicking up a divot of grass for the effort.

"It's bouncing too much!" Casey said.

"The ground is bumpy. That's just what happens. Try not to look directly at the ball, but just imagine where it's going to be,and kick."

"Ok, roll it again!"

Greg rolled the ball again. He tried to be smooth and even. He forgot how hard it was to make a good kickball pitch, the memory being lost to his childhood.

Casey made clumsy contact with the ball, it glanced off a synthetic ankle and veered hard left.

"I'll get it!" Casey said.

Casey ran and picked up the ball, then ran back to home plate, close to Greg. Unlike the imperfect ground surface, and crazed ball bounces, Casey had no difficulty with pure Newtonian physics. It made a perfect toss to Greg.

"We should try some in place kicking. Let's get another ball. I don't think I've done this since I was your age. Do you see the green ball over there? Go grab it."

Greg placed the two balls side by side with some space between them.

"Ok, let's take a few steps back. We'll practice running forward and kicking the ball. It can't bounce on us when it's sitting on the ground."

"Om. Ok." Casey said, standing parallel to Greg.

"Ready, set, go!" Greg said.

They sprang forward, both balls sailing forward!

Greg chuckled as his kick veered to the right. Casey's on the other hand went fairly straight."

"I did it!" Casey exclaimed. "and mine went straighter than yours!"

"Yes, it did Casey! Good job! It matters where we make contact with the ball. If you kick in the middle it will go straight. Sometimes you might want it to go to the left or the right, and if you can control that, it is helpful."