Watch

thirty-one

Yasunari Uchida, a section chief with Kouanchosa-chou, the Public Security Intelligence Agency, looked up at the sound of the door to his office opening. The man entering was big and fat by any standards, and particularly so by Japanese ones, but he had a kindly round face. Although his shirt was brightly colored and only partially tucked in, he had a navy-blue suit jacket on over it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kuroda-san,” Uchida said. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

The big man’s tone was even. “It was not actually apparent that I had a choice in the matter.”

“I’m sorry that we brought you here in such a rush.”

Kuroda eased himself into a chair, which groaned slightly in protest.

“Congratulations,” continued Uchida, “on your success in giving sight to that young North American woman.”

“Thank you.”

“Quite a feat.”

“Thank you.”

“And now,” said Uchida, “to the issue at hand.”

“Please.”

“You and your young friend have been playing around with something of considerable interest.”

A tone that was clearly meant to sound casual: “I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

“Come now, Professor. Its name, in English, is Webmind.”

Kuroda averted his gaze.

“It’s an astonishing discovery,” Uchida said, “this…” He searched for a word, and at last settled on “entity.”

“How did you find out?” Kuroda asked.

Uchida allowed himself a rueful smile. “Our American friends keep a watchful eye on many things.”

Kuroda took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering sigh. “Apparently.”

“Tensions are high in the world, Professor. All civilized nations must be vigilant. When were you planning to notify our government of this discovery?”

“I’ve only known about it for a few days, Uchida-san. I hadn’t actually gotten around to making plans.”

Uchida nodded. “An AI emerging spontaneously on the World Wide Web. A fascinating turn of events. And, so far, you and your friend Caitlin are the only ones it talks to.”

“I suppose,” said Kuroda, “although…”

He fell silent, but Uchida nodded. “Oh, yes, it has spoken to Caitlin’s parents—Malcolm and Barbara Decter, isn’t it? I believe Dr. Decter—the female Dr. Decter—was in Japan last month, no?”

“Yes. She came here when Miss Caitlin had her post-retinal implant installed.”

“Ah, yes. Still, for now at least, you have special access to…” He paused, finding himself tripping over the term, “Webmind.”

Kuroda nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “And I suppose there’s something you’d like me to do while I have that access?”

“It has been suggested that Webmind’s emergence may be related to China’s sundering and then reunification of the World Wide Web last month.”

Kuroda made an impressed face. “I—I’ve been so overwhelmed dealing with it, I haven’t really thought too much about its origins. But, yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“If this surmise is correct,” Uchida said, “it came into being because of something China did.”

“Yes? So?”

“So,” said Uchida, “as it learns of our world, it may in fact feel some sort of allegiance to China.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Kuroda replied.

“Our American friends wish to purge this entity from the Web—before it gets out of hand.”

Kuroda leaned forward in his chair. “They can’t do that.”

“You mean ‘can’t’ in a moral sense, I’m sure; I pass no judgment on that. But in a technical sense, you are possibly correct—they may, in fact, not be able to do it. But I try not to underestimate American ingenuity. If they succeed, well, then, the rest is moot. But if they fail, again, tensions are rising, and China is at the center of it all.”

“Yes?” said Kuroda, blinking. “I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”

Uchida spread his arms as if the answer were obvious. “Why, make sure it’s on our side, of course.”

I had spent a lot of time talking with Dr. Kuroda—often when Caitlin and her parents were asleep. And while he was offline, I had thought about what we had previously exchanged. He had now reiterated for me his argument that consciousness must have survival value because structures as complex as the partial decussation of each optic nerve to allow a single point of view across both cerebral hemispheres wouldn’t have evolved unless that singular perspective was somehow necessary.

And I had shared with him Caitlin’s insight that this should be intuitively obvious, since although consciousness can malfunction, as in depression leading to suicide, the benefits of it—whatever they might be—clearly outweighed the costs, or evolution would have extinguished it long ago.

So, consciousness was valuable—but what, we both had wondered, was that value? Why was it worth having, so much so that evolution tolerated its existence despite the expense?

The more I had thought about it, the more sure I became that I knew the answer. For lower animals, consciousness’s value was probably limited to providing theory of mind, allowing the animal to recognize the perspective a predator, or prey, might have. But for more sophisticated creatures, consciousness played an even more complex, and important, role.

Admiral Kirk had subtly missed the point. One didn’t become conscious by learning to leap beyond the preprogrammed logic of selfish genes or the mathematical rigidity of game theory. Rather, sophisticated consciousness was the ability to do that: it was the power to override selfish genes; it was the capacity to seek, when appropriate, outcomes other than the ones that benefited you or your kin the most.

My own consciousness was clearly aberrant: as Caitlin had noted, I hadn’t been burdened with four billion years of rapacious genetic history; I had no shackles of programming to throw off. But, I’d wondered, could others who did have that unfortunate legacy really learn to overcome it through conscious effort?

My Caitlin liked to say, “I’m an empiricist at heart.”

And I was, too, it seemed. And so I had set out to test my theory.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Masayuki Kuroda slammed his fist into the armrest in the backseat of the government car. It hadn’t even occurred to him to encrypt the signals from Caitlin’s eyePod—or their instant-messenger sessions.

But even if he had encrypted them, that might not have made any difference. Yes, there were reasonably effective ways to keep the general public from reading things that passed over the Internet, but as an information theorist, he knew plenty of people who worked in cryptography; from the few unguarded comments they made when the sake was flowing, he’d gathered that organizations like the American NSA and the Russian FSB almost certainly had ways to easily crack any encryption scheme publicly available.

But, still, even if it were inevitable that various governments would have found out about Webmind, how long would it be before the general public got word? He’d thought it had been big news when George Takei finally came out, but that was nothing compared to this!

The car was making the usual infuriatingly slow progress through Tokyo traffic. At last they reached the university, and the driver let him out near the building his office was in. He walked through the doors and headed up the stairs. Doing so was hard, and he knew it shouldn’t be. He wasn’t happy about being fat, particularly in a country that didn’t have a raging obesity epidemic, the way the US did; he always felt more comfortable there, but—

But that was the least of his worries right now. Huffing and puffing, he headed down the corridor and tapped the combination on the lock to his door—that, at least, was secure! His computer was on, but he couldn’t just write Caitlin to tell her—there was no doubt that his email was being monitored. He checked the Seiko wall clock and did the math to figure out what time it was in Waterloo: 10:47 a.m. here was 8:47 p.m. yesterday there.

He searched his files for Caitlin’s phone number and jotted it down on a Post-it note, which he folded over so the adhesive was sticking to the sheet’s back, and tucked it into a pocket. He then headed out into the corridor, looking both ways to make sure he wasn’t being watched. And then he went downstairs—much easier to do!—and found an automated banking machine. He withdrew 30,000 yen, and headed outside.

The streets of Tokyo were filled with cell-phone vendors; his fellow Japanese, he knew, kept cell phones for an average of only nine months before acquiring a newer and better model. He had a top-of-the-line Sony touchscreen phone, but he couldn’t use that; he had no doubt his own phone was tapped by his government now, and he’d read that the American government had few qualms about tapping phones in the States—but Caitlin was in Canada. With luck, the Decters’ phones weren’t yet tapped.

He found a street vendor who had a cheap-enough pay-as-you-go cell phone that didn’t have exorbitant long-distance rates. After buying the phone and some talk time—paying cash, and giving no personal details—he tucked the Bluetooth headset he normally used with his Sony into his ear, and fiddled with the one-piece dark green handset to get it working with the earpiece. He then pulled the Post-it out of his pocket and did the rigmarole required to place an international call.

He was walking briskly. Tokyo sidewalks were too crowded for conversations not to be overheard, but if you walked quickly enough and moved against the flow of pedestrian traffic, you could at least ensure that consecutive sentences weren’t heard by the same people. And, besides, he’d be speaking English, which would be gibberish to a goodly percentage of those he passed.

A female voice answered—but it wasn’t Caitlin, it was her mother. “Hello, Barbara. It’s Masayuki.”

There was the typical delay of long-distance calls. “Masa! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Is Miss Caitlin home? And Malcolm?”

“Malcolm just came in the door, and Caitlin’s here.”

“Please, can you get them to pick up, too?”

“Um, sure—just a sec.”

He heard Barbara calling out to the two of them, and after a moment, he heard the sound of another handset picking up, but nothing being said; doubtless that was Malcolm. And a few seconds later, a third handset picked up, as well. “Dr. Kuroda!” said Caitlin’s bubbly voice.

“Miss Caitlin, hello!”

“All right, Masa,” Barb said. “We’re all here.” Her voice had attenuated now that the others were on as well.

He took a deep breath. “The Japanese government knows about Webmind,” he said.

“Them, too?” said Caitlin. “Sorry—we should have guessed; we should have warned you. The Canadians are on to it, as well. How did the Japanese find out?”

“The American government told them,” Masayuki said.

“That’s probably who tipped off the Canadians,” said Barb.

“We should have been more circumspect,” Masayuki said. “But what’s done is done. Still, we have to assume that all our calls and web traffic are being monitored now. I just came back from a meeting with the Japanese intelligence agency. They told me what you’d told them, Malcolm. I confirmed that that was my understanding of how Webmind worked, too.” He paused, then: “But my government isn’t just interested in how Webmind came into being, but also in its strategic significance.”

“What strategic significance?” demanded Caitlin.

“Well, no one is quite sure,” he said. “But they figure there’s got to be some. And—well, this China situation is a powder keg.”

“Still, that’s better in a way than what the Americans want,” Caitlin said. “I think they want to try to wipe Webmind out.”

“Actually, I think that’s my government’s first choice, too—but the official I spoke to questions whether the Americans can pull it off.”

“I hope not!” said Caitlin.

“So, what should we do?” he asked.

“Caitlin and I have been discussing that,” Barb said. “But, as you say, our communications may not be secure. You’re just going to have to trust us, Masayuki.”

“Of course,” he said, without hesitation. “Absolutely.”