The Information Age /Scene 1
From Orion's Arm
Special Correspondent Report, 1/3/2070, Ys. Martin Garney reports.
On the top floor of his mountain-like office block in the artificial island of Lyonesse, Jan Miridon is on first name terms with each of the dozens of entrepreneurs and diplomats who have come to meet with him for yet another round of talks. Worth several trillion New Euros, the 51-year-old former music and content producer is at home with the world's richest businessmen. His corporation, Design Engineering Concepts, is one of the most powerful yet amorphous concerns in the Western World, and yet today its leader is dressed in a pitch black bridal dress, complete with veil. Few of the other attendees at this gathering are dressed so flamboyantly (although I notice that one is dressed as Superman).
The bizarrely dressed entrepreneur said goodbye to each of the delegates and jumped into the glass elevator, his female bodyguard gesturing to indicate that I should join them. In the lift on the way down, Miridon started to give me the interview I had been waiting for all day, with his aides and hangers on all round him looking studiedly bored.
"Thank you for giving Special Correspondent and myself this chance to talk to you, Mr. Miridon."
"Please, call me Jan. That's `yan', not jan, of course. I still say my name like a Dutchman, although I would prefer to be called a Lyonese these days."
"Yes, your little country is looking very impressive, with these tall, green buildings covered all over with wall-plantings."
"The designers call it a vertical garden- just a little bit more biomass to offset carbon production in the rest of the world."
"Of course this piece of reclaimed land has a number of other roles to play in the fight against global warming and rising sea-levels, doesn't it?"
"That's right. This isn't really reclaimed land, as the seabed round here hasn't been above water for millions of years. Our robotic excavators have been dragging ancient silt and ooze from the continental shelf here for ten years, slowly building this island up from nothing. By taking material from the bottom of the sea and piling it up above sea-level, we have managed to make the ocean level drop in real terms."
"Can you tell me how much?"
"Ha aha aha- I was afraid you'd ask me that. Only about 0.003 centimetres to date. The ocean is beating us at the moment, as it's rising by more than a centimetre a year." "Not so much, then."
"No. But if this system works- and I think we have shown that it does- we will lease the technology to people who want to build these islands on continental shelves all over the World. I've got one project off the coast of Africa, for instance. We are looking at piping fresh water under the Atlantic all the way from the Amazon."
"Using these new ecopolymer pipes, I believe."
"That's right. Polymer made from sunshine and CO2, in a manner of speaking. Of course, it's not cheap- not yet anyway, but it's good for the environment, or so I'm told. Pretty soon there won't be enough CO2 in the air to go round."
"You'll have to start making some, I expect."
"That would be all too easy I'm afraid."
Now that he's opening up I decide to go for the meaty stuff. "I expect our readers will want to know a bit about your hectic love life".
"I'm not all that sure they would…"
"Oh, yes, of course. How about it then? Any scandals? Have you been dating any hypermodels lately?"
"Well, I could tell you, but then Fido here'd have to kill you." Fido was a small, wiry woman who accompanied Miridon everywhere. She looked like she could do some damage, in one way or another. She did not react in any way.
"How about this tale I've heard, about you snorting Neuro-D off Tia Jones' stomach, while Vic Speddways was having sex with her."
"Well you know, that can't be true, because I'VE never taken neuro-enhancers in my life. Never needed them; I'm just naturally bright,that's all."
"Well, perhaps it was the other way round then."
"I hardly think so. Vic is a lovely fella, but in order for neuron-enhancers to work, you've got to have a brain to start with. Vic lost his a long time ago. Only kidding, Vic!" "How about your attire?"
"Does it show from there?"
"No, I mean the black bride dress."
"Well, it is House of Dior, you know. But seriously, I'm all for sartorial freedom. Our society is generally liberal in many ways, but there is still a taboo about black men wearing women's clothing. I just want to say, that even though I'm not gay or a woman, I can still look good in a dress."
"That's a very interesting attitude."
"I know. That's why I have it."
"Okay, well a lot of our readers will want to know about your deal with Ray Folic, the AI guy. What's happening there?"
"Ah, yes. Ray's a great fella, but he's been badly treated by the governments of the world. After he made his Human Equivalent model, the G10 nations all slapped a ban on the program; he isn't allowed to even run the program without half a dozen safety inspectors and a dozen politicians standing by. I know that the US and the EU have made their own Human Equivalent programs, and are running them as we speak. So are half a dozen other states and corps round the world. But the only person who really knows how to develop and improve on these things has his hands tied. And he's more or less broke, which is scandalous. There, you said you wanted scandal." "And so you have offered him facilities here in Lyonesse, eh?"
"That's right. Lyonesse is a Freedom Island; we don't have any government here, and we won't tell him and his team what not to do. Of course, my corp does own the island, but as long as people pay their way, people can do whatever they want."
"I thought you said Folic was broke?"
"He is still rich in ideas, and I think we can work together. Of course you know how much of my business relies on robotics. Large scale projects these days have to use robots, or they go under. Even ecofriendly projects like the ones favoured by Design Engineering Concepts; if you can run your robots off solar power and other renewables you are half way to beating the game.
But as you know - everyone does-robots are stupid. We can give them a few simple orders, and a few instinctive behaviours, all right; but they can't think for themselves. They just haven't got the depth of character that a human has, even when they have similar sized brains."
"I know; you just have to tell robots what to do all the time," I agree.
"A lot of the time robots are paralysed by indecision; a bit like a committee. And I've been on quite a few of those, I can tell you. You can discuss a few basic issues, and get a few things done, but you haven't got enough common ground. Or enough common sense to really come to a onsensus. Ray Folic has found a way of making an artificial intelligence with enough depth of character to start developing its own way of looking at the world, to come to an internal consensus, and to start making decisions for itself."
"But haven't you said in the past that a truly free, human equivalent AI would be the most dangerous thing in the world?"
"No. I didn't say that at all. I have said that a truly free, Human Equivalent AI with the ability to self-modify could be the most dangerous thing in the world. That is one of the reasons I want to work with Ray; he has this idea that self modification, self-evolution is the way forward for his human-equivalent programs. I want to gently persuade him that isn't quite what we want. What we need - what the world of robotics needs – is a bright, human equivalent (or better!) robot mind, which is hardwired to be friendly towards people. Humans. Us, me and you, and the rest of the world.
And we all want to be friends with the robots in the end, don't we?"
