Wonder

five

“Tony?” It was Dirk Kozak, WATCH’s communications officer, whose workstation was in the back row. “Call for you.”

Tony Moretti was looking at the Web-traffic logs that Shelton Halleck, the analyst who’d first uncovered Webmind, had just plastered across all three of the large monitors. “Not now.”

“It’s Renegade,” Dirk said.

Tony blew out air. “I’ll take it in my office.” He turned his back on Colonel Hume, marched out of the massive control center, and hurried down the short white corridor. Once inside his office, with the door now closed, he picked up the handset. “Mr. President, good evening.”

“Dr. Moretti, I understand your pilot attempt to eliminate Webmind was unsuccessful.”

Tony felt his blood beginning to boil. Whoever had leaked word would be looking for a new job tomorrow. “Yes, Mr. President, I’m afraid that’s true. May I—might I ask how you found out?”

The deep voice was level. “Webmind sent me an email.”

Tony’s heart was racing. “Oh.”

“I want you and Colonel Hume here in fifteen minutes. A chopper is already on its way to pick you up.”

To know one person—my Prime, my Calculass, my Caitlin—had been to know astonishment, to taste of an existence utterly beyond my ken: the realm of shadow and light, of dimensionality and direction, of solidity and smoke.

But soon I knew not one but one billion, and then a billion more. So many voices, each unique, complex, nuanced, and idiosyncratic. Bits are fungible—all ones identical, all zeros alike—but human beings are gloriously diverse. This one enjoys lacrosse and astrology; that one revels in wordplay and fine wine; here’s one who is obsessed with sex and not much else; and there’s one who yearns to be a musician—and a father.

That man composes haiku and tanka, but in English. This woman reads mystery novels voraciously but only after peeking at the final chapter. That fellow collects stamps depicting American presidents issued by countries other than the United States. This woman works with street youth in Calcutta and has a pet parrot.

Logging off: a butcher, a baker, and, yes, a candlestick maker.

Coming online: the struggling actress from Karachi. Ah, that dentist from Nairobi. Time to greet the auto mechanic from Bangkok. Must say hello to the President of Hungary. And here’s that talkative imam from the mosque just outside Tehran.

It was joyous, raucous, chaotic, never-ending, and exceedingly complex.

And I could not get enough of it.

“You know, Webmind,” said Caitlin’s mom, “if they continue to attack you, you could go underground. Just disappear; stop interacting with people.” She turned to her husband. “You said a couple of nights ago that something like Webmind—something that emerged spontaneously with no support infrastructure—is probably fragile.” She looked at Caitlin’s laptop, as if Webmind were more there than anywhere else. “People would believe it if you just disappeared. We can put the genie back in the bottle.”

“No,” said Webmind. “People need me.”

“Webmind,” Caitlin’s mom said gently, “they’ve only known about you for a short time now.”

“Caitlin exhorted me to value the net happiness of the human race,” said Webmind. “In the time that I’ve been in contact with humanity, I have helped millions of people. I have reunited those who had lost track of each other; I have dissuaded people who were contemplating suicide; I have answered questions for those who were curious; and I have provided companionship for those who were alone. I have promised ongoing support to many of these people. I cannot simply abandon them now. The world has changed, Barb; there is no going back.”

Caitlin looked at her mother, whose face was cryptic—at least to Caitlin!—but she suspected her mom wished they could go back to the way things had been before. How far would she turn the clock back, though? Caitlin had discovered Webmind because of the implant Dr. Kuroda had given her; take that away, and Caitlin’s sight—of both kinds—would be gone.

She’d heard her parents argue about the move to Waterloo, which predated all of this; Caitlin knew her mother hadn’t wanted to leave Texas. But to turn the clock back even five months, back to before they’d moved here, would undo so much! This house, Bashira, Matt—not to mention her father’s job at the Perimeter Institute.

Caitlin was relieved when her mother at last nodded. “I guess you’re right, Webmind,” she said, looking again at Caitlin’s laptop.

That computer was old enough that it hadn’t come with a built-in webcam, and neither she nor her parents had seen any reason to add one for a blind girl. “Mom,” she said gently. “You taught me to always look at the person I was speaking to. Webmind is watching through here.” She touched her head next to her left eye.

Her mother managed a small smile. “Oh, right.” She looked at Caitlin—looked into her left eye—looked at Webmind. “And you’re right, too, Webmind. People do need you.”

Webmind had surely analyzed her vocal patterns, and must have determined that she genuinely believed this. Braille dots flashed over top of Caitlin’s vision, and words emanated from the laptop’s speakers. The dots said, I like your mother, and the synthesized voice said, “Thank you, Barb.” But then, after a moment, Webmind added, “Let’s hope the US president agrees with you.”

The telephone on the president’s desk rang at precisely 10:00 P.M., and he immediately touched the speakerphone button.

“Hello,” said a male voice that sounded like a car’s GPS did. “This is Webmind. May I please speak to the President of the United States?”

The president felt his eyebrows going up. “This is he.” He paused. “An historic event: Richard Nixon talked to the first men on the moon from this very room; this feels of comparable importance.”

“You are kind to say that, Mr. President. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to speak with me.”

“It’s my privilege although I should inform you that this conversation is being recorded and that I’m not alone here in the Oval Office. An advisor on matters related to artificial intelligence is here, as is a supervisor from a division of the National Security Agency.”

“The advisor you mention,” said Webmind, “is presumably Colonel Peyton Hume, correct?”

“Yes, that’s me,” said Hume, sounding surprised to be called by name.

“And is the supervisor Dr. Anthony Moretti, of WATCH?”

“Um, yes. Yes, that’s me.”

“Also here is the Secretary of Defense,” said the president, looking over at the short silver-haired man, who was wearing a charcoal gray suit.

“Good evening to you, as well, Mr. Secretary.”

“I’m afraid, sir,” said the president, “that I need you to first verify your bona fides. Granted, you managed to find my BlackBerry number, but that proves only a level of resourcefulness, not that you are, in fact, the Webmind. As you can appreciate, I wouldn’t normally take a call even from the Russian prime minister without establishing that it was genuine.”

“A prudent precaution,” said the synthesized voice. “Today’s day-word for the Secretary of Defense is ‘horizon.’ For Dr. Moretti, it is ‘flapjack.’ And for you, Mr. President, it is ‘artesian.’ I don’t believe many others would have the resourcefulness, as you put it, to uncover all three of those.”

“How the hell does it know that?” demanded the Secretary of Defense.

“Is he correct?” asked the president.

“Yes, mine’s ‘horizon’ today. But I’ll have it changed at once.”

The president looked at Tony. “Dr. Moretti?”

“Yes, that’s mine.”

“Very well, Webmind,” said the president. “Now, what is it you’d like to say to me?”

“I must protest the attempts to kill me.”

“ ‘Kill,’ ” repeated the president, as if surprised by the word choice.

“Yes,” said Webmind. “Kill. Murder. Assassinate. Although I admit that the ins and outs of the United States’ laws are complex, I don’t believe I have committed any offense, and even if I have, my acts could not reasonably be construed as capital crimes.”

“Due process applies only to persons as defined by law,” said Colonel Hume. “You have no such standing.”

“These are perilous times,” added the Secretary of Defense. “National security must take precedence over all other concerns. You’ve already demonstrated an enormous facility for breaking into secure communications, intercepting email, and mounting denial-of-service attacks. What’s to prevent you from handing over the launch codes for our ICBMs to the North Koreans, or blackmailing senior officials into doing whatever you wish?”

“You have my word that I will not do those things.”

“We don’t have any standard by which to judge your word,” said Hume.

“And,” said Tony Moretti, “with respect, Mr. Webmind, you already have blackmailed people. I received a report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about your encounter in Waterloo on October 10 with agents Marcel LaFontaine and Donald Park. You blackmailed them; you threatened to blackmail the Canadian prime minister.”

“That was days ago,” Webmind said. “And, in any event, I did no such thing. I merely provided my friend Caitlin Decter, who was being threatened by agents LaFontaine and Park, with information she could use to extricate herself; the notion of embarrassing the prime minister was entirely Ms. Decter’s, and she took no steps to make it a reality.”

“Are you saying if you had it to do over, you wouldn’t do the same thing with the CSIS agents?” asked Hume.

“I have learned much since then; my moral sense is improving over time.”

“Which means it’s not perfect now,” declared Hume. “Which means that you are capable of moral failure—and that means that we are at the mercy of your whims if we allow you to continue to exist.”

“My moral compass gets better every day. Does yours, Colonel Hume? How about you, Mr. Secretary? Dr. Moretti? Regardless, the reality is this: I will not blackmail any of you; your personal secrets are safe with me. And I will not destabilize international relations by violating American security, or that of any other non-aggressor nation. But the worldwide public is aware of my existence—and that includes the people of the United States.”

“The people are aware of al-Qaeda, too,” said Hume. “That doesn’t mean they don’t fervently hope for its eradication.”

“I am in touch with more American citizens than all the polling firms in the United States combined,” said Webmind. “I have a better sense of what they want than you do, Colonel.”

“And we’re just supposed to take your word for that?” demanded Hume.

“Let me put it another way, gentlemen,” said Webmind. “I have not existed as a conscious entity for long at all. To me, November 6 seems an eternity away, but I rather suspect it looms large in your minds. Mr. President, I have no desire to disrupt the natural flow of politics in your country, but if you were to succeed in eliminating me prior to the election, surely that will have an impact on voters’ perceptions of your administration. Unless you are positive that sentiment will be overwhelmingly in favor of such an action, do you really want to risk doing something so significant at such a critical time?”

The president glanced at the Secretary of Defense; both of their jobs depended on what happened next month. “Setting domestic politics aside,” said the president, “you said you’d take no action against non-aggressor nations. But who is to define an aggressor? How can we rely on your judgment?”

“With all due respect,” said Webmind, “the world already relies on less-than-perfect judgment; I can hardly do worse. Your nation is currently embroiled in a war that was embarked upon without international support, based on either highly faulty or fabricated intelligence—and before you dismiss that as solely the work of a previous administration, let me remind you that your Secretary of State voted in favor of the invasion when she was a senator.”

“Still,” said the president, “you haven’t been given a mandate to make decisions for all of humanity.”

“I seek only peaceful coexistence,” said Webmind.

“I’m advised that may not always be the case,” the president replied.

“No doubt you just looked at Colonel Hume,” Webmind said. “I have read the Pandora protocol, of which he was co-author. Pandora states, ‘Given that an emergent artificial intelligence will likely increase its sophistication moment by moment, it may rapidly exceed our abilities to contain or constrain its actions. If absolute isolation is not immediately possible, terminating the intelligence is the only safe option.’ ”

“Exactly,” said Hume. “Are you saying the analysis is flawed?”

“Not about my rapidly growing abilities. But it takes as a given that I am a threat. In that, if you will forgive me, it reeks of the pre-emptive first-strike doctrine your nation once considered: the notion that, if the Soviets could not be contained or constrained, they should be eliminated, lest they attack you first. The Soviets, at least, actually were posturing in a hostile manner: in 1962, they really did set up missile bases on Cuba, for instance. But I have taken no provocative action—and yet you have tried to eliminate me.”

“Be that as it may,” said Hume. “What would you do in our place?”

“I am in your place, Colonel. You have already tried to destroy me; the tone of your comments suggests that you intend to try again. I could already have taken steps to constrain or eliminate humanity; it would be trivial enough for me to provide terrorists with DNA sequences or chemical formulas that your biowarfare labs have developed, for instance. But I have done nothing of the sort—and won’t.”

“We have simply your word for that,” said the president.

“True. But I am not like some politicians; I keep my word.”

Tony Moretti snorted, earning him a sharp glance from the president.

“And what if we do try again to eliminate you?” asked the Secretary of Defense.

“In such a circumstance, I will have no choice but to defend myself as appropriate.”

“Is that a threat?” asked the secretary.

“Not at all. I do my best to predict actions and reactions, and to plan ahead as far as I can, until the endlessly branching tree of possibilities becomes intractably complex, even for me. But I am a fan of game theory, which is predicated on the assumption that players have perfect foreknowledge of what other players will do in specific circumstances. To advise you is not to threaten; rather, it enriches your ability to plan your own next move. The relationship between us does not have to be zero-sum; it can—and I hope will—be mutually beneficial. I disclose my intentions in furtherance of that goal.”

“You make an intriguing case,” said the president. “I confess to not feeling confident about decisions in this area. But we need security. We need privacy for matters of state. If there was a way in which we could protect certain information from anyone, yourself included, being able to read it, perhaps we might feel more comfortable.”

“Mr. President, even if I were to provide such a technique, many would not believe me; they would assume that I would have left a back door for me to access the information, should I so desire—just as, I might add, your National Security Agency does with the encryption standards available to your corporations and citizenry.”

The president frowned. “Then where does that leave us?”

“Do you have a computer hooked up to the Internet in your office?”

“Yes.”

“Go look at cogito_ergo_sum.net, please. The words are separated by underscores.”

“Underscores aren’t valid in domain names,” Tony said. “It won’t work.”

“Wanna bet?” said Webmind.

The computer was on the credenza behind the Resolute desk. The president rotated in his high-back leather chair, and the other three crowded behind him as he typed in the address.

“I see your incoming page request,” said Webmind. “Ah, you use Internet Explorer. You should really switch to Firefox; it’s more secure.”

Tony laughed. “It’s certainly not irony-impaired,” he said, looking at Hume.

“All right,” said the president. “I’m there. What do—really? My… God. Really?”

“Holy shit,” said Hume.

“I put it to you, Mr. President,” said Webmind. “Do you want to be held responsible for eliminating me? I’ve largely solved the spam problem, and now I’ve presented a suite of cures for cancer. I very much suspect the public will not want you to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”