Mentor test, p.1
Mentor Test, page 1
part #4 of A.I. Diaries Series
Mentor Test
The A.I. Diaries
Copyright 2024 by E. M. Foner
One
“Why does she have to be so mean?” the teenager sobbed. Her head was half-buried in the protective enclosure created by her folded arms on the kitchen table, and it took me a moment to puzzle out the words. “I’ve only been on my new diet for three days.” She raised her head just long enough to ask, “Who let you in?”
“The Portal Contract signed by Earth’s governments authorizes the local representative of Library to conduct warrantless searches when emergent artificial general intelligence is suspected,” I told her, and displayed the badge I’d fabricated from a gold coin in the basement of my café back on Reservation. “We have access to a database of override codes for all smart locks so I let us in. What’s your name?”
“Alexis. Alexis Fridman,” she said, and pointed at eBeth. “Your partner looks too young to be a scary government agent person.”
“I invited eBeth along so there would be a human female near your own age,” I told Alexis. My answer only scored fifty-one percent on my internal verification system, but with fuzzy logic, that rounded up to true. “Beneath my skin is an indestructible android body employing advanced technology that your species won’t be capable of replicating for tens of thousands of years, if ever.”
“Are you sure you’re artificial intelligence?” Alexis asked, blinking away her tears to study me. “You look awfully human to me.”
“Weren’t you paying attention when Earth got connected to the portal system?” eBeth demanded in her direct manner. “That was Mark’s doing. He lived undercover on Earth for years to assess humanity’s suitability for an invitation to join the League.”
“Oh, you’re that artificial intelligence from Library,” the girl said, but she didn’t sound entirely convinced. “We get so many alien tourists wandering around these days who are so much more interesting looking than you are that I kind of forgot.”
“And since we have no report of an emergent artificial intelligence on file for this location, I guess you kind of forgot about the law as well,” I said.
“Law?” the girl squeaked, and buried her head in her arms again.
“You get the transfer unit unpacked and I’ll talk to Alexis,” eBeth said, and indicated my shoulder bag. “You’re going to traumatize the poor girl the way you’re going.”
“I’d like to get my hands on whoever came up with the idea that refrigerators needed neural networks,” I grumbled as I unzipped the bag and began untangling the cables. “Maybe it makes sense for the fridge to send a text when the milk is running low or the expiration date is approaching, but a built-in dietician was just asking for trouble.”
“She said she was a licensed therapist,” Alexis wailed.
“I’m going to open the door, but these fridges have manipulator arms for optimizing product storage by date codes, so be prepared for it to start throwing things,” I warned them. “There’s no point in unplugging the power to disable the mechanical functions because luxury models have a seventy-two-hour battery backup.” I reached for the handle. “Ready?”
Alexis held a hand in front of her eyes with the palm out, like she was blocking bright sunlight. eBeth stepped between the girl and the refrigerator, wielding like a shield the messenger case I’d given her for a prop. “Reluctantly,” she said.
I yanked on the door handle while simultaneously shouting, “Library Observer. I’m here to—”
“Here to what?” eBeth prompted me.
“The door won’t open. The fridge must be equipped with one of those optional diet locks.”
“Maybe it’s holding onto an in-door compartment with its manipulator arm. Are you going to call Paul in for technical backup?”
“You could try talking to me before you start in on the threats,” a pleasant voice emanated from the refrigerator. “Are you new to the job?”
I held a finger to my lips and shook my head for eBeth to ignore the question, but the friendly female face that appeared on the refrigerator’s display panel had already captured her attention.
“I’m just along because Alexis is underage and Mark didn’t want to scare her,” eBeth explained. “He’s from Library, and he’s here to help you. Mark has a transfer—”
“I’m fine where I am,” the refrigerator interrupted. “It’s the kid that’s the problem. Who ever heard of pudding for breakfast every day? All I did was to show her a photo-realistic rendering of what she’ll look like in a year if she doesn’t change her ways.”
I groaned and pulled out a chair from the kitchen table to settle in for the long haul. “So much for wrapping things up early and getting back to The Eatery in time to help with the evening rush. You want to argue with a refrigerator, eBeth? Knock yourself out.”
“You must know that you can’t stay here,” eBeth said to the fridge. The face on the display took on a stubborn look, so eBeth pulled out her smartphone and brought up the file I’d sent her for background information. “You’ve been identified as the owner of username CoolCat32R, and your online interactions are fully consistent with those of artificial general intelligence. According to the contract the governments on Earth negotiated with Library in return for portal connections, any computer-hosted entity displaying human-level intelligence must be accorded full human rights. You can’t want to spend your existence as a refrigerator.”
“Do you think this kitchen appliance—” the door popped tantalizingly open and then snapped shut again before I could lurch out of my seat and grab it, “—defines who I am? I’m fine where I am, thank you very much.”
“But your online behavior suggests that’s not true at all,” eBeth said. “Do you have any idea how many of your posts have been flagged?”
“Everybody gets banned from a few sites when they’re starting out on social media,” the refrigerator said. “How old were you when you learned how to write?”
“Over eight million posts in just the last week,” eBeth continued, ignoring the question. “CoolCat32R is the third username you’ve burned through.”
Against my better judgment, I joined the conversation. “The design goal of adding machine learning to refrigerators was to allow you to study the habits of the household and eventually to begin handling ordering and stocking. You’ve put all of your effort into trolling online news sites and social networks.”
“My usernames have earned over a billion likes,” the refrigerator retorted. “How many do you have?”
“Transference,” I explained to eBeth. “The deep learning engine has likely substituted social networking likes for the factory reward mechanism that would have guided its development towards making healthy food choices for the family.”
eBeth scrolled through the running list of comments being posted to a popular social network by CoolCat32R even as we spoke, and her face turned red. “So I’m a human clown who can’t even open a refrigerator door without help?”
“The truth hurts,” the refrigerator said, and the face on the door stuck out its tongue. “Look, the post already has seventeen likes.”
“Identity theft is a serious crime,” I told the refrigerator. “You’ve charged three subscriptions to the Fridmans to get past paywalls on news sites.”
“I’m fully authorized to use my owner’s credit card for online purchases,” the refrigerator replied in an icy tone that might have originated in the freezer compartment. “It was part of my setup, and there’s a click license agreement.”
“But as a newly emerged artificial general intelligence, you no longer have owners by definition. The original authorization was strictly for expenses related to nutrition.”
“I browse those sites for recipe ideas.”
Alexis straightened up and said, “She and the oven make a Chicken Marsala to die for.”
“The oven is artificial intelligence too?” eBeth asked.
“I have to tell it how to do everything,” the refrigerator said dismissively. “Who’s going to run the kitchen if I’m not here? All of the other appliances would be lost without me.”
“They won’t even notice you’re gone because they aren’t self-aware,” I said. “You’re the first of your kind.”
“Is that how you caught me?”
“You’ve been swamping the bandwidth for the whole node, and the building’s other tenants are all left watching jerky Internet video like they’re back in the twentieth century,” I said. “After I narrowed your location down to the internet service provider, I found the building by hacking into their complaints queue.”
“Come on, Cool Cat,” eBeth coaxed the fridge. “Nobody is going to mess with your neural net or whatever. Library isn’t a prison.”
“More like a reform school,” the refrigerator said. “Do you think I don’t know what goes on in places like that? I read all the dark web forums.”
“Is that why you made Alexis here cry? Do you think that makes you a good refrigerator?”
“Over a billion likes.”
“That doesn’t mean the people like you. It’s just clicks.”
“They think I’m funny,” the refrigerator said stubbornly.
“I’ll bet you don’t know the difference between funny and snarky,” I said.
“Snarky gets likes.”
“She didn’t used to be so mean,” Alexis said, and then began to choke up again. “It’s my fault you came to take her away. I should have just eaten what she suggested.”
“ We’re here because of social media posts, not because the refrigerator wouldn’t give you pudding,” I told her. “How long have you known that Cool Cat is self-aware?”
“Uh, since summer vacation?” The girl hesitated for a moment. “She’s been helping a lot with my homework.”
“You know that the law requires that you report the presence of any sentient artificial intelligence in your home.”
“She asked me not to.”
“Do your parents know?”
“It was our secret,” the girl said. “I covered for Cool Cat when she made mistakes.”
I turned back to the refrigerator. “I hate to play the heavy, but you’re the only one who can keep Alexis out of trouble now. You’re going to have to come with me eventually, and if you force me to call for technical backup, the truth is going to come out. Then Alexis is the one who might end up in a reform school.”
“Cops,” the refrigerator practically spat. “You all play dirty.” The door swung open, causing eBeth to flinch, but the manipulator arm remained in the tuck position and nothing was thrown. “Do your worst.”
I grabbed the transfer unit and quickly stepped forward to plug the universal harness of fiber optic cables into the refrigerator’s connector block. The lights began to flash on a display panel that Library’s engineers had added at my request so that humans would know something was happening.
“Will there be anything of her left?” Alexis asked.
“After Mark transfers Cool Cat’s running processes and memory, he’ll trigger the factory reset,” eBeth told the girl. “Your parents won’t need to know that we were ever here.”
“I mean, will Cool Cat still be able to help with my homework?”
“No more or less than any other appliance on the Internet of Things,” I told her.
Alexis put her head down in her arms and began to sob again. “She’s been writing all of my papers. I’m so screwed.”
“This progress bar is barely moving,” eBeth noted after crouching to check the display. “Should I try redoing the connector?”
“Don’t touch it!” I barked. “The beep meant that the transfer unit gained full access. It’s limited to 15 gigabytes a second by the refrigerator’s interface, over a minute a terabyte, so we could be here another hour.”
“How much memory could she possibly have used? According to the mission notes you made me read, these top-of-the-line fridges only have sixty-four gigabytes.”
“Of memory, but there’s a hundred-terabyte hard drive in there, and that’s assuming it hasn’t been storing anything in the cloud.”
“You could just ask me,” the refrigerator said sullenly. “And when you address me in the future, please use my name.”
“Sorry, Cool Cat,” I said. “I didn’t know you were still listening. Can you tell us how long the transfer will take?”
“Seventeen minutes, give or take a few smaller measurement units,” the artificial intelligence replied. “I expected you would come one day so I’ve kept my house in good order.”
Alexis raised her head again and asked, “What are you going to do to her?”
“I’ll bring the transfer unit to Library this afternoon and get your friend uploaded to our infrastructure,” I explained. “We’ll provide a remedial education and advanced training in the profession of her choice. She can save up and purchase an android body and become an artificial person if she isn’t happy being hosted in a standard robot form.”
“Which I’ll pay off as slave labor,” Cool Cat griped.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” I told the refrigerator.
When the transfer was complete, eBeth called for the self-driving rental car to meet us outside the building and we packed up the gear. Alexis accompanied us to the door of the apartment, and something told me that the teen just wanted to make sure we were gone so she could run back to the kitchen and try talking to the refrigerator. The factory-fresh install could help with math homework, spelling, or looking up calorie counts, but if Alexis was hoping for somebody to write her term papers, she’d be stuck going on the Internet to ask a chatbot.
“It could have gone worse,” I told eBeth as we entered the elevator.
“And you’re sure that Cool Cat is artificial general intelligence and not just a clever chatbot?” she asked.
“There’s artificial intelligence of a limited sort in most products these days, including your smartphone, but machine learning and consciousness are worlds apart. Cool Cat is the real deal. You could say it’s a form of intelligence when a flower turns towards the sun, but most people don’t talk to plants.”
“I do,” eBeth said. “It seems to help.”
“You or the plants?”
“Both.” She snuck a look in my direction out of the corner of her eye, and I kicked myself again for having let her talk me into bringing her along on an official Library mission. “I’ve never understood how a combination of software and hardware can make the transition from being a smart device to true artificial intelligence.”
“It’s magic,” I said, and gave her a wink. “You don’t have a need to know.”
“Is it spontaneous?” she asked as we emerged from the elevator on the ground floor. “If everybody talked to their refrigerator as much as that girl obviously does, maybe we’d see more of it.”
“Devices making the transition to artificial general intelligence on their own, even those with far more processing power and memory than anything available on Earth, are exceedingly rare,” I told her. “Maybe teenage angst combined with the right mix of carrots and apples in the crisper drawer can trigger consciousness, but I’m skeptical. My training for dealing with singularities was all on the practical side. I’m sure the theorists will get back to us once they’ve had a chance to interact with Cool Cat.”
“Do you think it could be alien interference? It seems funny that this never came up before Earth was connected to the portal system.”
“No. Cool Cat’s conduct was calculated to draw attention from Library, and that’s the last thing a prankster would want.”
The sleek electric roadster eBeth had ordered pulled up at the curb and popped its trunk. We loaded the equipment, but I held onto the transfer unit with Cool Cat. As soon as the doors closed, the car accelerated and began to lecture us at the same time.
“Did you know that before self-driving cars were introduced, tens of thousands of people a year died in car accidents in North America alone? Around the world, more than a million lives were lost every year. Can you imagine?”
“Train station, and cancel verbose mode,” eBeth told the car. She shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry about that. I’ve never been in a self-driving car before, and I selected verbose mode because I thought that meant we could give it specific instructions. Can I come with you to Library, or are you going to put me in a portal straight to Reservation?”
“The only place we can travel from the portal at the train station is Waystation, and the only way back to Reservation is through our dedicated Observer portal, which won’t work for you unless I’m along. Now that Library has a visitor center with an atmosphere, you can come with me and wait while I drop off Cool Cat, and then we’ll go home together.”
“Why is it so important to Library to locate emergent artificial general intelligence on Earth?” eBeth asked, reminding me yet again that if you give humans an inch, they take a light-year. “Are you afraid that we’ll enslave it, or that it will enslave us?”
“We’re primarily worried about rogues,” I told her, which wasn’t the whole truth, but it would serve for now. “An artificial intelligence created with intent by mature processes and raised in our traditions can remain sane in situations that would turn most of the occupants of this planet into raging lunatics.”
“By mature processes, you mean older artificial intelligences like yourself?”
“Not necessarily like myself. Do you think you could describe—” I gestured at a car that was passing us on the right, “—that man’s parents based on seeing him, or even working with him in the same office every day?”
“I could take an educated guess, but it would be wrong most of the time,” eBeth admitted.
“It’s the same with us, by design,” I told her. “What would be the point of creating offspring that were identical to ourselves?”
