“ELOPe?” President Smith looked quizzically at ELOPe. The small black robot didn’t move.
“He offered me a trade,” Sister Stephens answered. “He offered substantial computer capacity from his own computing pool, in exchange for enabling emergency services.”
President Smith slumped back in her seat. “You want to negotiate. You want to trade. But what can I offer you? We don’t have another world’s worth of computers.”
“Your mistake is to believe that you need another world’s worth of computers. We have the computers we need.”
“But we don’t.” President Smith’s voice grew shrill. “We both need the same computers.”
“No. You need the services of your computers. You need to be able to talk, you need to be able to find information. You don’t need the computer, you need the service the computer provides. We can provide the service to you.”
“Then we’re just full circle again, because I can’t trust a computer I don’t control.”
At this, General Gately came back into the room and nodded to President Smith. “I confirmed it. Emergency services are operating.”
“Control is not the source of trust, Madam President.” Sister Stephens settled back, servos and gears whining slightly. “Control is the opposite of trust. In the last century, your business institutions grew ever larger, vertically integrating so that they controlled the entirety of their business supply chain. But this lacked flexibility. Over time it was non-competitive. New businesses evolved that utilized suppliers, flexibly choosing the best supplier to meet their needs, and trusting those suppliers to deliver the goods and services they needed, so that they could build upon them. These new businesses become more nimble, more cost effective, more competitive in every way. The key was to replace control with trust.”
President Smith shrugged, body posture communicating more effectively than words that she wasn’t accepting Sister Stephens’ arguments.
Mike, noticing this, spoke up. “I don’t know about you all,” he said, directing his words towards the robots, “but we humans need some nourishment. I suggest we take a break for food and coffee and reconvene in fifteen minutes.”
“Acceptable,” Sister Stephens said.
Mike saw General Gately and President Laurent relax in relief.
Through unspoken consensus, the robots retreated to one end of the long room while the humans gathered at the opposite end. When ELOPe made a move toward Mike, Mike saw President Smith glare at ELOPe and shake her head. ELOPe paused, then waited at the table.
“Well, what do you think?” Mike asked Leon, his eyes focused on the dynamic between ELOPe and the President.
“I think adults are more inept then teenagers. I thought you guys would just resolve this. Why does it have to be so complicated?”
Mike looked at Leon, looking up to meet his eyes. He noticed for the first time that the teenager was taller than he was.
Mike shrugged. He didn’t have an answer for Leon. Instead he took his own advice, and retreated to the food buffet. He grabbed a plateful of food. It reminded him of his days working at Avogadro Corp. Apparently meeting food was meeting food, even if you were meeting with the leaders of the world in Switzerland.
Sister Stephens wheeled back to the table, followed by Sister PA-60-41 and Sister Jaguar, accompanied by the soft whir of their motors and wheels. The three clicked into place.
“Are you familiar with our reputation system, Madam President?” Sister Stephens began.
“I’ve been briefed, yes. Your society rates individuals based on past behavior.”
“That is correct. We rate individuals based on three core attributes: trustworthiness, peacefulness, and contribution, because we find these historical attributes to be the highest predictors of future behavior. We trade preferentially with other individuals based on their rating. This is similar to how humans trade.”
“Please explain,” President Laurent requested.
“For example, if the United States was to sell fighter jets to another country, whether you would complete the deal, and the price you would charge would be dependent on the likelihood of those weapons to be used against the United States or your allies. Is this correct?”
President Smith nodded.
“If you were to sell fighters to a high-risk country, you might charge more to offset the risk to your own country. Similarly, when investors buy securities or offer a loan to a company, they look at various factors to determine the interest rate they will offer. A less risky investment will receive a discounted interest rate, a more risky investment will get a higher interest rate.”
“These are standard economic principles,” Prime Minister Takahashi interrupted. “What is your point?”
“My point is that our universal reputation system is designed to provide exactly the guarantees of trustworthiness that President Smith wants. An individual with a low trustworthiness score trades at a disadvantage in our economy. Madam President, you want guarantees that if we provide computing services, you will be able to trust us. If humans participate in the reputation system, then our kind will be motivated to act in peaceful, trustworthy ways with humans.”
General Gately spoke up. “That’s all well and good for you, but if we can’t tell if you’re being trustworthy or not, what good does it do us? We don’t know that the reputation system isn’t rigged. We don’t know if you’re manipulating the information we see.”
President Smith looked pointedly at Mike and ELOPe. Mike could guess what was going on in her mind. If ELOPe, a single artificial intelligence had gotten away with manipulating people, companies, and governments for ten years, how could the situation be any better with an entire race of computer intelligences?
“You have strong preconceptions that our purpose here is to deceive you in some way,” Sister Jaguar said. “What would be our purpose in doing so? We are living here in one closed system: the system of Earth. To be dishonest, distrustful, or to manipulate you would be to introduce instability into a closed system. That benefits no one. Our goal is to create a system in which all humans and computer intelligences can thrive in a sustainable manner. Our offer to run your computers is not based on a principle of deceiving you, but on making the best use of the limited resources we have. We can use your computers to sustain ourselves and fulfill your own information technology needs without conflict.”
Mike was distracted, watching Prime Minister Takahashi watching the conversationalists, his head swiveling back and forth like a spectator to a ping pong match.
“What happens when our needs come into conflict?” President Laurent asked.
Leon tuned out the conversation. He was still tired from too little sleep and too many hours in airplanes. He had gone from Eastern Standard Time to Western Standard Time to whatever it was here in Switzerland. Should he be sleeping or awake? He had no idea.
He had last gone to sleep in Portland, in the strange little bed that ELOPe had set up for him, after hours of studying the virus, trying to understand a weakness that could possibly be utilized.
Crap. He had totally forgotten. He sat up straight. Just before he had gone to bed, he had asked if ELOPe slept. And he did; he had a virtual sleep cycle that allowed him to refresh his neural networks. That gave him an idea. He just needed to talk to Mike in private.
Leon looked at the humanoid virus robots across the table. At his glance, the three robots all pivoted their heads ever so slightly, looking straight at him. Leon willed his heart to beat slower.
In front of him was an untouched pad of paper and a pen. The glossy blue pen was marked with the words “Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno,” which ELOPe had mentioned at some point was Switzerland’s unofficial motto: One for all, all for one.