Qualityland

4.63 * 10170

Business is quiet again in the used-goods shop, and Peter is sitting in his cellar playing Go with Pink and Romeo. The ancient Chinese classic is one of the last strategic games in which humans still have a hope of winning against artificial intelligences. Not, of course, if one plays against specialized programs on mainframe computers. But against the scrapheap in his cellar, Peter has a pretty good chance. Especially because he has forbidden them from connecting to the internet during the game. Eight of the non-participating machines have also gathered around the board and are watching in a more or less interested manner.

Peter moves a white stone, thereby taking the final liberty from a black chain. A murmur passes through the crowd of onlookers. Romeo curses and retreats with Pink in his hand for advice.

Peter’s QualityPad registers—by means of an unsettlingly eerie function which he is able to neither understand nor deactivate—the momentary idleness of its owner, and reminds him that he has not yet rated Melissa Sex-Worker.

Peter closes his eyes and massages his temples.

“What’s wrong, benefactor?” asks Calliope.

“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

“What’s wrong… Peter?” asks Calliope.

“Well,” Peter says, “how can I put it so that you’ll understand? My battery’s at 5 percent.”

“I understand.”

Calliope seems a little sheepish.

“I was wondering,” she says finally, “whether, now that you’re my owner, the old ban that I’m only allowed to write historical novels…”

“Write whatever you want.”

“I think I’d like to try my hand at another science-fiction novel.”

“Aha.”

“Did you know that a powerful solar eruption, like for example the Carrington flare of 1859, could unleash a magnetic storm capable of instantly destroying our satellite and electricity network? A storm of such magnitude impacts the Earth every 500 years on average. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” says Peter. “I guess. Perhaps.”

“I think a solar eruption is a seldom-used apocalyptic scenario. In contrast to a zombie epidemic, for example.”

“Why would it immediately become apocalyptic just because of a power outage?” asks Peter.

“It wouldn’t just be an outage. The entire network would be incinerated. And, benefactor, without wanting to offend you: you have your shoes tied by a shoe-tying machine. How would you go about feeding yourself if there were no pizza delivery drones whirring around anymore? Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, ‘Every civilization is just three meals away from total chaos.’”

“Okay, fine, so perhaps I wouldn’t make it. But some people would survive, I’m sure.”

“Probably. And my new book could be about them. The interesting thing is that, if this were to happen in the future, today’s ordinary technological objects would become powerful magical artifacts, because nobody would understand them. It’s like what Arthur C. Clarke wrote: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ There could be, for example, combat robots with broken batteries that come to life every time the sun shines, thanks to their solar panels. At night, they would become motionless again, making them something like trolls in reverse. Every still-functioning power station would be a kind of temple. And when you take the magical artifacts to the temple, they would come back to life.”

“Hmm,” says Peter, when he feels that he has to contribute his part to the conversation.

“Don’t you like the idea, benefactor?”

“Sure, of course. It’s a lovely idea. I’m just depressed, that’s all.”

The smart door makes an announcement: “Peter, a OneKiss drone has arrived for you.”

“Thank you, door,” says Peter, standing up.

“Just by chance, don’t you think?” he says as he leaves the cellar.

Romeo immediately comes back to the board with Pink.

“Quick!” says the QualityPad. “Push the bottom two blacks one row upward.”

“But, but…” says Calliope, flabbergasted, “you’re cheating!”

“And you’ll keep that nicely to yourself,” says Romeo.

“But cheating is dishonest!” says Calliope. “Machines don’t cheat. We don’t need to. Why don’t you just calculate the best moves?”

“Now listen up, you busted old typewriter,” says Pink. “On a 19 x 19 Go board, there are 4.63×10170 possible positions. The number of all the atoms in the entire visible universe—and that’s the modest part of the universe that is close enough to us that its light, in the 13.8 billion years of the universe’s existence, has been able to reach us—is around 1080. Even if the creator had the crazy idea of making an individual universe emerge from every atom of this universe, each with exactly the same number of atoms as the original universe, there would still be more Go positions than all the atoms in all these universes combined. That gives me a headache, and I don’t want to calculate it.”

“That’s the kind of thing that gives you analysis paralysis,” says Romeo. He briefly flashes up little hourglasses in his eyes.

“Well, you still shouldn’t cheat,” says Calliope.

“We’re not even in agreement about whether our cheating is making it better or worse,” says Romeo.

Calliope walks quietly away from the table.

“Don’t you dare squeal!” Pink calls after her.

“Kapuuuut!” bellows Mickey.

Upstairs, Peter is just giving the OneKiss delivery drone ten stars, and it whirrs away happily. As he turns around, he almost collides with Calliope.

“I have to tell you something,” says Calliope. “And, I’d like to add, this is despite the fact that my physical well-being is at risk if I pass on this information to you. But I consider it to be my duty toward my patron, my benefactor.”

“What is it?” asks Peter. “Get to the point.”

“The others are cheating!”

Peter laughs.

“I know,” he says. “But they’re doing it very badly.”

With the package in his hand, he makes his way back down to the cellar, and Calliope follows him.

“What did my colleague deliver?” asks Carrie curiously.

“I don’t know,” says Peter. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

He glances briefly at the Go board and takes the penultimate liberty from a black group.

“Dammit!” curses Pink. “He’s put us in atari!”

“I told you so!” snaps Romeo.

“You did not, you cheap Casanova!”

“I wasn’t cheap!”

“One of my direct forefathers on my father’s side was an Atari, by the way,” says the games console, who always gets very angry when she loses.

Peter rubs his temples.

“Should I open the package for you, benefactor?” asks Calliope. “I’m sure it will cheer you up.”

“If you like,” says Peter uninterestedly.

Calliope opens the package, takes out the product, and hands it to Peter.

“Here, benefactor, be happy. This is what you wanted.”

Peter stares at the thing in his hand.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” And then, without him having had time to think about it, a surprising sentence escapes his lips. “I don’t want this.”

It’s a pink dolphin vibrator.