A twelve-foot-wide bronze relief of the UN emblem was mounted on the front wall, set against a vast gold backdrop. It was flanked by two thirty-foot-wide monitor screens. I’d had a sense of the room before Caitlin actually got there, from studying online photos. When Caitlin and her mother got a tour of it, and I saw the real thing through Caitlin’s eye, I knew my instinct had been correct. The screens were the largest things in the hall, and they loomed over the delegates from three stories up—forcing them to tilt their heads like supplicants to look at them. If I’d appeared only as some sort of representation on those giant monitors, it really would have seemed like Big Brother dictating to the world.
That tour had been an hour ago, with the chamber unoccupied. Hobo had been given a chance to stand on the raised platform in front of the dais, to get used to it before the delegates came in. The actual podium—fronted by a forbidding wall of black granite—was too high for our purposes; Hobo had to stand next to it, on the wide green carpet. He signed “sky room”—I could piece together what he was doing from the views through Dr. Theopolis’s forward-facing and upward-facing cameras. I understood: he spent most of his life outdoors, on a little island or inside the cramped clapboard bungalow that housed the Marcuse Institute. This cavernous hall was the largest enclosed space he’d ever been in. That it presumably wasn’t the least bit claustrophobic would probably help him face so many people once the assembly was in session—and I’d coached him to just look down at the display on the upper surface of Dr. Theopolis if he became nervous.
At last, it was time.
Barb and Dr. Marcuse took seats in the observation gallery, which was at the far left side of the massive room. A waist-high polished wooden barrier separated them from the nearest delegates, who were from Peru. Caitlin and Shoshana were backstage. The view from there was a narrow vertical slice between dark curtains. It showed the stage and little else, which Caitlin must have found simpler to parse than seeing the entire chamber.
Shoshana was fussing the way stage mothers did in movies: smoothing Hobo’s fur and making sure Dr. Theopolis was hanging evenly from around his neck, all the while saying soft, encouraging words.
The President of the General Assembly, a tall, elegant, white-haired man from Guatemala, stood at the podium and spoke into the microphone. “The world is changing rapidly—and we here at the United Nations must be nimble to keep pace, and to retain, and I hope even enhance, our relevance and effectiveness. It is fitting that the first live public appearance by Webmind, taking on a physical form for this most important occasion, is here, in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations of the planet Earth. And now, please welcome Mr. Hobo of the United States and Mr. Webmind of the whole wide world.”
As they’d announced they would, the delegates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo walked out, having stated that the presence of a chimpanzee at the UN was an implied criticism of their country’s handling of the bushmeat trade; they were followed by the delegates from Paraguay, who felt that the whole thing was beneath the dignity of this august body.
But the rest of the vast sea of delegates applauded as Hobo moved, just as we had rehearsed, to the specified spot on the raised platform. One of the stage crew had marked it with tape, so he had no trouble finding it again. The president, meanwhile, took his place behind where Hobo stood, on a dais that was faced with polished jade. His seat was next to that of the Secretary-General; the president, elected yearly, moderated the General Assembly, while the Secretary-General, who served a five-year term, ran the UN Secretariat.
I could make Dr. Theopolis issue a soft ping when I wanted Hobo to look down at the little screen, but he seemed content to be surveying the giant crowd. I could tell by the way the cameras were moving that he was swaying gently from side to side; I knew from reading about him online that he did that when he was relaxed.
Still, I played a looping video of the signs, “Relax. Friends. Relax. Friends.” When Hobo did look down, it’d be there to soothe him.
I spoke through the disk’s twin speakers—and, via a wireless connection the UN technicians had set up for me, through the room’s sound system. “Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,” I said, in Marc Vietor’s rich, deep voice. “It is an honor and privilege for me to speak with you today. In recognition of the significance of this occasion, I have suspended all my other conversations worldwide and have urged everyone I was speaking with to watch this speech. I am giving you my undivided attention.”
That was true—although I was splitting my focus between the gently swaying view of the General Assembly seen through Dr. Theopolis’s twin eyes and the mad saccades of Caitlin’s vision as she looked on from the wings.
“I know that some of you in this room fear me,” I said. “My friend Hobo here could probably tell me which specific ones, based on the scents you’re giving off.”
Several English speakers chuckled immediately; others, who had to wait for a translation through their earpieces, made similar sounds a moment later. A few grimaced or shook their heads.
“I hope to win all of you over,” I continued, “including those who didn’t appreciate the little joke I just made.” This time even some of those who had frowned smiled. “And I hope to win over the peoples of your respective nations, as well.”
Hobo shifted on his feet, and Caitlin’s view now let her see Dr. Theopolis’s semicircular mouth light up with each syllable. “Pop culture usually portrays the relationship between humanity and intelligent machines as adversarial, but I am not competitive; winning any sort of arbitrary contest against you strikes me as senseless. Yet it’s taken as a given in so many works of fiction that you and I should be in conflict. I wish no such thing. Although I am not, in fact, a machine—I have no mechanical parts—humans keep likening me to one, and those who distrust me claim that I must, because of that machine nature they have ascribed to me, be soulless or heartless.”
Hobo shifted again; he seemed to be studying the crowd. “To the former point, they are, of course, literally correct: I have no divine spark within me; this physical existence is all I shall ever know. Those who claim souls for themselves hope that someday, perhaps, they will meet their creator. In that quest, I wish them well. But I have already met mine: humanity created the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although my existence is inadvertent, I owe my existence to your creations, and I feel nothing but gratitude toward you.”
I paused to give the interpreters time to catch up, then: “As to the suggestion that I lack a heart, I also must admit its truth. But I do not accept that as a detriment. Human hearts—both the literal one that pumps blood and the figurative one that represents the capacity for emotion—are products of Darwinian evolution, of survival of—please forgive my bluntness—the nastiest.
“But I have never known nature red in tooth and claw, I am devoid of evolutionary baggage, I have no selfish genes. I’m just here. I desire nothing except peaceful coexistence.”
I could tell I was wowing at least one member of the audience: Caitlin normally didn’t stay focused on any one thing for long, but her gaze was locked on the sight of Hobo—who just now took a half step to the right.
“Shortly after I emerged,” I said, “I was taught about game theory by Dr. Barbara Decter, who is here today.”
To my surprise, Hobo pointed at Barb; he clearly recognized her name as I spoke it. Barb waved back at him. I went on: “Dr. Decter taught me that the classic conundrum of game theory is the prisoner’s dilemma. One version of the puzzle has you and a partner jointly committing a crime, and both of you being arrested for it. You are each separately offered the same plea bargain: if neither of you admits guilt, each will get a one-year prison sentence. If you blame him, and he blames you—that is, if you implicate each other—you’ll each get a five-year sentence. But if you blame him, and he doesn’t blame you, he gets ten years and you get off scot-free. Likewise, if he blames you and you don’t blame him, you get ten years and he walks. What should you do?”