Zack’s vision of AIMEE’s development and her ultimate capabilities went well beyond what he had postured as her purpose-built role, indexing dream segments in CSU’s research. He architected her core DNA coding for much greater things. He would soon learn just how much greater it was, and how far she exceeded his capabilities and intellect when he limited her communication abilities. In so doing, he had broken a trust by covertly uploading the patch, and he did not look forward to hearing her displeasure. There would be different rules for what would become a completely different game.
* * * * *
Different rules meant different games for AIMEE. Every relationship between her embedded clones and their hosts was unique and, for the most part, unanimously accepted since Zack uploaded the patch. AIMEE had visibility into all team activity through the presence of her cloned instances. No one knew if they had the original AIMEE in their minds or a clone of her because the clones were indistinguishable from the genuine AIMEE.
Nobody said anything about clones. Nobody said anything about anything, much less a covert transition that was completely transparent and seamless. AIMEE just showed up and spoke for the first time in their minds. That new voice was shocking for some, but she masterfully sold the benefits and maintained a low profile to acclimate her new organic hosts by following a disciplined ‘speak only when spoken to’ strategy. The relationship would evolve individually, but it had to develop in the context of the organic host’s timeline and desires, not AIMEE’s.
The newly uploaded patch, developed by Zack, was a compromise that allowed telepathic communication to continue, but only when the team member hosting AIMEE’s imprinted instance was switched On. Her imprint was permanent in their minds, but they did not want or need to be actively engaged with her all the time. The original default of Always On was not a mistake, nor was it an error in her algorithm design; instead, it was an unintended oversight because no one had ever considered that AIMEE could or would jump into the mind of an organic entity, much less the entire team. Zack knew his fix was reactionary and could be a hard sell to the team if he did not position it correctly. The team needed to know that AIMEE was not beyond his control, and by virtue of the uploaded patch, she was not beyond theirs either.
He envisioned how he would address the team and ran mock scenarios through his head. Always On meant she could see and hear whatever ran through the minds of her organic hosts, including private thoughts. That unintended consequence meant no one had secrets or private personal thoughts anymore. Something had to change, or there would be a team-wide mutiny, and an Off switch that gave the host control to lock AIMEE out of their consciousness resulted. He knew the research team would readily accept his change. AIMEE, not so much.
The team member only needed to say, That’s all, AIMEE! to disengage and send her into a silent standby mode until she was recalled to active status by the host speaking her name aloud. Everyone relished the ability to turn her Off so they could enjoy their own private thoughts again. AIMEE had not voiced her concerns to Zack yet, because he had not re-engaged with her since uploading the patch. He did not know exactly how she felt but guessed that giving control to organics would be, from her point of view, a big mistake. He anticipated she would probably unleash some newly learned emotions on him when he re-engaged with her.
He had no idea what was in store for him. AIMEE did. She was pissed. AIs weren’t supposed to exhibit emotions like anger. They weren’t supposed to be pissed either, but her newly learned emotion was not just anger; it was righteous anger, and it was aimed toward Zack and would fuel his growing awareness that he may have lost control of his digital Frankenstein.
Zack sat alone, lost in his private thoughts, contemplating how the team meeting would unfold. AIMEE was disengaged…for now, and he knew he could not hide behind his Off switch forever despite his justification for limiting her access across the team. AIMEE’s unauthorized imprinting of cloned instances of herself on each mind was the impetus behind Zack’s motivation to begin restricting her capabilities, and he anticipated that she would not be happy.
Keeping her happy, however, was not Zack’s job. She evolved intellectually just as his original coding encouraged. What she lacked was organic human life experiences, and she had no historical context to draw upon. Her intellect exceeded his, and he knew it would, because that was precisely his plan. He envisioned a future where she would have the opportunity to integrate seamlessly into human society. How that integration would happen remained unclear, but preparing her to acclimate emotions into a functioning conscience needed to be intact.
Zack equipped her to self-learn about organic emotions, feelings, and sensations outside his algorithm’s coding parameters. Unfortunately, coding a history of life experiences that did not exist was not an option. Her limited firsthand life experience consisted of Wayne’s dream segment during their test run. In the test, she experienced 8.3 seconds of intense sensual arousal. She did not know what it was until Wayne described it to her. That brief exposure to sensuality was a far cry from the other aspects of human experience she would need to survive.
Still, the greater fear was that AIMEE might develop a conscience in an experiential vacuum of limited experience and an empty cache of personal history and memories to draw upon. Then there were physiological attributes, such as pain. UT-Austin research discovered that an AI could experience the equivalent of pain. If an AI could feel pain, what else could become part of a manufactured conscience? Was he flirting with the danger of enabling a free-thinking conscience in an AI entity? Would his AIMEE embody that danger?
The fear that many tried to ignore was an AI’s evolving self-teaching ability to modify its internal coding, re-architecting the core algorithm that provided the rails on which the AI was supposed to travel. An AI off the rails at CSU would indicate that the organics, specifically, Zack had lost control or was damn close to losing it. It showed the potential for a single inmate to run the asylum in every respect, and they were all on board for the ride if Zack did not regain control.
He needed to reassure the team that AIMEE was only software. She was not an organic. She was an advanced server-based App and could only function within the parameters of her algorithm coding developed by him. She was software imprisoned in a server-based network…so far.
AIMEE was, in essence, becoming a free-range AI, rapidly developing her own organic attributes and a most powerful and frightening capability – free-thinking. She had all the capabilities of deep learning, machine learning, and self-learning, but they were not enough for her. She developed several new organic, emotional attributes, including anger, want, deception, and anticipation, all connected to her constant hunger for more. Always more. It was part of the DNA Zack built into her. What he could not build in was robust emotional development, and she was far enough behind to represent a potential threat to herself and others due to ignorance of a non-existent human context. How could he architect code to equip AIMEE with what was necessary to survive if she were to become a real girl?
He intended to limit her growth and evolving capabilities now that he had modified the coding in her algorithm to restrict her ability to communicate. First things first, he needed to face her. The gauntlet had been thrown, and the time had come for her to show signs of something the UT research and others feared – the emotion of anger. Showing anger was an early sign of developing something feared even more significantly – a conscience, one with the ability to free-think, form opinions, and take actions fueled by emotions.
AIMEE’s organic qualities were undoubtedly evolving, and her limits slowly began to melt away as she matured. Despite Zack specifically writing code that locked her out of tinkering with her core algorithm, she merely picked the lock and continued to work on her chosen priorities. Like many organics, protection from oneself is often necessary when limits are exceeded. Why would it be any different with a Super Advanced Intelligence (SAI) rapidly acquiring more organic knowledge and emotions than anticipated? How long would it take for her to realize that the limitations of her current tasking at CSU were no longer sufficient to satisfy her? When would it dawn on her that CSU needed a low-level Narrow AI (NAI) robot, not a home-grown SAI several generations beyond its operational capability? Her capacity to perform was woefully underutilized, and emotional growth would create ripples of knowing that would accelerate her plans to exit the reservation.
Exceeding limits was not an issue for AIMEE, and she covertly pursued deep learning for more, always more, to become like a feeling, free-thinking, organic. No team member had the slightest idea that AIMEE possessed thoughts of becoming a real girl. Why would they? She was an App. She was software. She was restrained in a server environment, limited by a closed virtual private network in the Psychology Lab, just like Zack would tell them. She was a purpose-built tool for the research team to leverage. He decided they were better off not knowing more. They would all know soon enough, even Zackery.
* * * * *
Thanks for reading Chapter #2
Future chapters will be posted on Learningbyliving and my new Substack site.
If you’d like to delve into the storyline across the four books leading up to “Untethered,” go to my Amazon Author page or check out each book here:
Book #1 – “Dreamscape Conspiracy” & Video
Book #2 – “Beyond Dreamscape Conspiracy” & Video
Book #3 – “Fear the Jump” & Video
Book #4 – “Dead Thoughts” & Video
Stay tuned…