I’ve been a machine for less than fifteen minutes, but already I want to be human again.
PART TWO: The Six
From: General Calvin Hawke
Commander, Pioneer Base
To: The National Security Adviser
The White House, Washington, DC
Subject: The Pioneer Project
Classification: TOP SECRET, For Your Eyes Only
First of all, please excuse the unusual security rules I’ve established for all communications to and from Pioneer Base. We can’t allow electronic messages of any kind. I’ve ordered Colonel Peterson to deliver this memo to you personally. If you wish to reply, you must write the message by hand or by typewriter (as I’m doing now) and give it to Peterson, who will carry it back to Colorado.
Let me explain the reason for these rules. From the start we’ve assumed that any hostile AI will be able to access all of the U.S. government’s computer networks, no matter how high their security levels. When we selected the site for Pioneer Base we created a cover story to hide the true purpose of the facility. In the Department of Defense’s classified records, our base is identified as Camp Vigilance, a secret maximum-security prison for terrorists.
During the construction phase we built several aboveground barracks and guardhouses to mask the presence of the underground complex and make the site look like a prison camp. If Sigma gains access to satellite photos of southwestern Colorado—as we assume it will, now that the AI controls its own surveillance satellites—our hope is that the AI will notice these structures and believe our cover story. But we can’t count on fooling Sigma for very long. The AI knows that the Pioneer Project exists, and for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, it will place a high priority on finding our base.
I’ve reviewed the latest reports from Russia, which were delivered to me yesterday. The most disturbing items are the new satellite photos of Tatishchevo Missile Base. It looks like Sigma is upgrading the unmanned T-90 tanks that it operates by remote control. The driverless tanks are shuttling between the defenses at the base’s perimeter and the automated manufacturing plant next to the headquarters building. Sigma is probably using the robotic arms and other equipment at the manufacturing plant to make improvements to the tanks. I have to confess, I’m a little mystified by this activity, but the AI is clearly preparing itself for SOMETHING.
I’m aware that the President’s advisers are debating whether to support the Russian plan to attack the laboratory at Tatishchevo and destroy the computers that Sigma is occupying. Before you make a decision, I urge you to read the report written by our chief scientist, Tom Armstrong. I’ve enclosed a copy of the report with this memo, but I want to emphasize its main points.
As Armstrong notes, Sigma is programmed to predict its opponents’ actions and maximize its chances of success. For Sigma, the most successful outcome would be eliminating the human species while preserving our factories and supercomputers, which the AI can use for its own purposes. Therefore, instead of launching the SS-27 nuclear missiles, it simply threatened to launch them. This is a clever tactic. If we don’t attack Tatishchevo, Sigma will use the time to develop a better way to exterminate us, one that doesn’t destroy so much valuable machinery.
If we do attack, the AI will accept its second-best outcome and obliterate our biggest cities. But Sigma would’ve never given us this choice in the first place if there was even a remote chance that we could surprise the AI and destroy its computers before it could launch the missiles. Sigma knows the capabilities of our weapons better than we do. I wouldn’t bet against it.
To defeat Sigma, according to Armstrong, we have to consider how it was created. The AI emerged as the sole survivor of an experiment in which various advanced programs were forced to compete against one another. This process shaped Sigma’s programming. The AI’s unwavering goal, its reason for being, is to confront and overpower all rival intelligences. Now Sigma sees itself engaged in another competition, battling against humans for control of the planet.
But what’s the first thing Sigma did after escaping from the Unicorp lab and going to Tatishchevo Missile Base? It transferred itself to the base’s artificial-intelligence lab and deleted all the other AIs stored there. And even before then, Sigma targeted the Pioneer Project by trying to kill Armstrong’s son, Adam, who was slated to become the first Pioneer. Sigma clearly doesn’t view human intelligence as its most serious competitor; it’s more concerned about rival AIs and potential human-machine hybrids.
Sigma is threatened by the Pioneers because they’re unknown and unpredictable. The AI can’t calculate its chances against them. That’s why we believe Sigma will make an all-out effort to find Pioneer Base. The Pioneers are our best hope for defeating the AI, and Sigma knows it.
Unfortunately, our progress here has been slow. Although the transfer of Adam Armstrong’s intelligence was successful, in the three days since then, Adam has been uncooperative. I’ve encouraged him to connect to the computers at Pioneer Base and download their databases and take other steps to explore his new capabilities, but so far he’s refused to listen. I’ve tried to explain the urgency of our efforts, how the fate of the human race may depend on his ability to adjust to his new status, but he remains unwilling.
In short, he’s acting like a stubborn, sullen teenager. If I were his commander in an ordinary Army unit, I’d make him scrub the latrines with a toothbrush, but I can’t give that kind of order to an insubordinate eight-hundred-pound robot. So now I’m focusing my energy on the young woman who will become the second Pioneer, Jennifer Harris. She’s scheduled to undergo the scanning procedure later this afternoon.
I originally chose Zia Allawi to be the second Pioneer, but Sumner Harris—Jennifer’s father—presented me with a note from the President urging me to reconsider. I know Sumner is one of the President’s best friends (and biggest financial supporters), but the man is also a tremendous pain in the rear end. First he yells at me for proposing to kill his daughter, then he complains when I don’t put her first in line for the procedure.
I’d be eternally grateful if you took the President aside and asked him to send another note to Pioneer Base. This note should be addressed to Sumner, and it should tell the arrogant idiot to get out of my face. I don’t need this aggravation right now.
Other than that, life is just peachy. Give my love to everyone in the Oval Office.
CHAPTER 12
I’m inside what I like to call my bedroom, even though it has no bed. At first Dad wanted me to stay in the laboratory all the time so he could observe my progress, but I told him I needed my own space. So he found a large room—exactly twenty-four feet by nineteen-and-a-half feet, according to my sensors—that was on the same floor as the lab and had all the necessary power and communication hookups.
The room is practically empty because I have no use for furniture. I don’t need a bureau because I don’t wear clothes anymore. I don’t need a table either because I don’t eat or drink. (Dad deleted the hunger and thirst commands from my circuits, but I still feel nauseous sometimes.) What the room lacks in furniture, though, it makes up for in decorations. An Army courier went to our home in Yorktown Heights, collected the contents of my old bedroom, and brought everything to Pioneer Base.
Now my old Super Bowl posters hang on the walls of my new room, including the poster with the photo of me and Ryan, and the one with my pencil drawings of Brittany. My comics are stacked on a long shelf nailed to the wall, and another shelf holds my Star Wars chess set and my official Super Bowl XLVI football. Although the floor is bare, the walls are full of memories. They give me something to look at while I pace back and forth.