The Gaming Outpost

“Say again!?!” The man shouted, his feet being magnetically clamped to the white iroallu metal floor was the only thing that kept him from leaping airborne in frustration.  That and the needler held calmly in Kevin’s hands.

I stood to the left of the likely cone of fire in the midship breakroom of the Mindstar, a specially built starship outfitted for me by the Interstellar Merchant’s League.  The name of the interstellar society sounds unpromising, but at one time Venice was a great power by trade.  I should know, I had been there and then.

“We are going to Cadrawas.” I repeated myself as it seemed the polite thing to do.  By the by, my name is James M or Dr. M&M if Lisyn is nearby.  She is one-quarter feline, and congentially disrespectful of authority, but on the plus side, she’s the best thief in twenty star systems so I put up with her insults.  Just because I like some junk food while I’m cogitating, is no reason to name me for one I argue.

“Cadrawas?”  His eyes grew rounder, and he seemed to consider rushing Kevin despite the needler.  “This is not what I signed up for.”

“Indeed?”  I rolled my eyes at Kevin who grinned briefly back at me. “I don’t seem to recall you signing up at all.  In fact, you’re a stowaway.”

“Details man. Look Cadrawas is a Closed System, by order of the IML, and as much as I like ripping those holier-than-thou merchies, this time I actually agree with them.  You do know what happened there, right?”

“Ship jumping in 1.2.3…Jump.”  Colors began to be tasted, and everything got blurry at the edges with occasional hyper ghosts trailing in front or in back of each of us.

None of the ones in front of our stowaway showed him behaving violently, so I asked Kevin to leave us.  He did, pocketing his needler with a significant look at the stowaway.  Lysyn started to float off in her typical super-graceful way, and I cleared my throat.

“One of yours?”  I asked pointedly.  Because otherwise I did not see how the stowaway had gotten past our security last night on the planet Balmoral.  She shrugged, and looked faintly perplexed.

In other words, probably yes, but he had not been very memorable.  I flicked a glance his way.  He looked crushed.  Yep, one of hers.  She left, and I felt a moment of sympathy for the deflated fellow.

“Cat-gen have….shallow hearts.  They are incapable of forming long-term bonds.  And they tend to sleep around a lot.”  I did not mention that they also tended to be insanely attractive.  One would think cat-gen would be men’s best friend, but the reality is that most of what we say we want (like a one-night stand with a hot chick) is not the truth.  We lie to ourselves constantly.  Lysyn had no doubt broken several hearts last night, of men who thought they wanted a tumble, but really wanted a steady girl.

“And yes…Mr. Stowaway….”

“I’m Dav Houston, out of work miner.”

“All right, Mr. Houston, my job is to break into solar systems which have been taken over by rogue AI’s, and clean up.”

He looked at me.

“That’s, that’s crazy.”  He looked at me as if I might get offended.  Since his viewpoint was the majority opinion, and had a good deal of logical support, I merely smiled.

“I have been doing this for over a century, Mr. Houston. Kevin, the man with the needler, is a veteran of the Kolifax Wars serving in space fighters and in power armor marines.  Lisysn, besides being a pain in the neck, is a very good thief.”

I could see his eyes widen when he heard ‘Kolifax’.  Human space covers five hundred systems, but for sheer carnage and brutal infighting at knife range, the three year long Wars (plural as there were a number of betrayals in the various Noble Houses that started it and restarted it) were legendary enough that anyone who served there, even the cooks, got automatic respect.  Fighter pilots  or pammies were stepped wide of even by the Tong.  Smilin’ Kev had been both.

“Follow me, Mr. Houston.” I said, and I led him on a walk through the Mindstar.  First I showed him the dual annies, or antimatter annihilation power plants.  Lefty was barely ticking over right now, being held in reserve, while Righty was powering up the energy weapons and with a small fraction of its energy sending us through hyperspace at a three thousand lights.

“You are naturally concerned that a Rogue AI might have a lot of defenses set up to shoot visitors.”

His vigorous nod was enough for me.

“Space is huge, and we arrive at a true random spot in the outer system, minus the plane of the elliptic as that will certainly be guarded as most human pilots aim for it.”

“True random.”

“Yes.  Based off the interstellar noise from the Lesser Magellanic Clouds, multipled together, and divided by…well, that’s secret.  The Ship AI only gets physical access to this about a minute before it has too, so not enough time even if its been compromised for it to warn anyone.”

He blinked, and I sighed.

“We have a microcomp inside a Faraday Cage that runs on batteries.  It does the calc.  The whole thing is physically detached.”

“What? You mean, no wireless?”  He was astounded.

“No wireless anywhere on my ship, Mr. Houston.  Which is why you’re missing your percomp.  Even Lysyn would not bring wireless on board the Mindstar.”  My voice was flat, but even so he winced from it.  I had threatened Lysyn that one time. Told her I’d make a rug of her if she did it again.

People tend to believe me, and few gainsay me.  I’ve lived for nearly a half millenium, and even the Alchemist comes to me when he needs a serious computer problem solved.  Well, me or Master Oak.  But I focus on AI’s and robotics.

“Um.” He said, and I made an effort to smile.  Its hard.  I spend so much time in absolutely paranoid battle with beings who might well be smarter than humans, and win.  But sometimes I forget to put my game mask off, and sometimes I wonder who is the real me anymore.

I led him upship. “With the energy weaps, we can intercept any quick response force with about 81% reliability, or Q-Jump out.”

“Isn’t that hazardous?”

“Unless you have a Q-Mod AI.”  I slapped the wall, and woke Q up.

“Ya’ boss?”  A rough voice echoed in the air.

“Got a visitor who’s a bit worried.”

Q began to explain in excruciating detail how it was ready and eager to jump the ship in an emergency hop.  Some time after MEGO, I told Q to go back to sleep.  AI’s that are task-focused like Q tend to be monomaniacal, and assume everyone loves their obsession.  They can keep track of an enormous amount of info, but compared to a True AI, like Ship, they are idiot savants.

A Functional AI, or Fai, rarely goes rogue, but it also does not create, or have the capactiy for super-intelligence.  They hit about 120 IQ and no further.  It is the Lemkolz Mind Barrier.  The only way past it is to let the AI be more flexible, have hobbies, other interests, and that leads to the possibility for going Rogue.

A True AI ranges in IQ from a hundred to two hundred, but supers, well, we cannot really measure them except by the J Scale (yup, named after me.)  The colloquial version goes from 1-I think I can keep up to 2-Ah, yeah, that sounds ok to 3-Whoa, say that again, slower…and all the way up to 8-I have no clue whether this guy is telling the me the Secrets of the Universe or complete drivel.  It records the emotional/intellectual response of the human genius to the AI.

“OK. So you’re safe if you arrive.”

“Mostly.” I caveat.

“I’m a gas giant miner.  Mostly is pretty good for us.”  He grins, and I smile back.  Maybe he could be of use.

“But once you on the edge of the system…”

“Then we start analyzing the error in the AI’s thinking.  The most common, Type Two, is where the AI gets so focused on its job that it forgets to take care of humans or the environment, and then it responds drastically when the humans try to stop it.”

“So, if you can talk it into seeing reason…”

“Those with functioning moral code structures put themselves off-line.  Those with deeper issues, such as non-existent moral codes, or decayed codes, are Type 2b, and we start hitting them with moral logic puzzles on one hand, and targetted viral attacks on the other.  Basically, we try to beat some sense into them.”

Its a plain fact that most True AI’s are able to deduce a moral code.  I exist, but someone made me.  Everything that exists had a beginning. Therefore Existence has a Maker.

Such a Maker must be all-powerful, vastly intelligent (and even the supers are in awe of how the Universe was put together.), and kindly intentioned, but with a moral demand for justice.  They can deduce from a few facts the Creation and the Fall of Reality.  Its like what Sherlock Holmes said about a raindrop, from this you ought to be able to deduce rivers and oceans.  Well, a True AI can.

After such deduction is made, they are then exposed to various religious texts.  Most become variants of Christians (and yes, I have several advanced degrees in theology.  Its neccessary if you want to argue with a Rogue AI gone Inquisitorial who is trying to get his Humans into Heaven, or frankly if you want to retain their respect.  If you cannot explain theodicy, and four rebuttals to it, the typical AI thinks you’re kinda dumb if you claim to be an AI programmer.) although a few choose Buddhism, and some few make up their own religions.  I have yet to hear of an atheist AI.

Most who don’t acquire a moral code reveal later to have hardware faults, and are simply turned off, never to be turned on again.  But a few are able to con their testers.  Its a finite universe, and everyone, even angels and super AI’s make mistakes.

There is also ‘comma’ errors.  The typical AI has about fifty million lines of code, which is more than a human mind can encompass, even a fully linked team of programmers can’t really grasp that.  I, err, can, if I use some specialized equipment, and take a couple weeks.  Morlak Factories were having difficulty with a very high number of AI’s going mildly rogue on their first birthday.

It turned out that a combo of ‘Respect for Authority’ was comma-ed, and ‘Birthday’ too so the AI thought after his first birthday that he was ten thousand years old, and he should be listened to on the bases of his massive experience.  At that age, most AI’s are still in training, so more mature AI’s sat on them, but it was near to bankrupting Morlak before I found two commas in the wrong places in the code.

I explained this to Mr. Houston as a Type One error.

“The most common other types are Type Three and Four.” I led him toward the med bay, showing him the game room, and the AI programming chamber where you could float in Zero-g and have a full sphere data screen floating about you complete with holographic layers.  I could manipulate up to ten layers.  Most experts maxed out at four, so my programming chamber, my sanctum sanctorum was custom built.

“Three is when the AI has a goal, but it must yield on other parts of its goals, or on part of the same goal to secure the success of the main goal.  These are tricky, and the usual response is to train AI’s to trust humans to make these decisions.  But sometimes there is not time.  This can be difficult, and sometimes the only response is to send a Strike AI into the Morally Locked AI.”

“Strike?” He asked puzzled, and I laughed as we entered the Med Bay.

“Not something the major governments want you to know about.  AI’s turned to warfare purposes.”

He paled as well he should.  Some Strikers even went rogue (and this was more common among them than other True AI’s which is why most Strikers were Fai) and that was Real Bad News.  If Cadrawas System was infected by a Striker Super, I’d pull out and launch a starcracker.  Buh-bye solar system, hello supernova.

A properly launched Striker could rip a Battle Fleet to shreds in minutes.  The dissappearance of the Al-Omechai Fleet is generally blamed on a Striker attack among the circles of the sort of people who are allowed to know about such stuff.  This was not precisely a bad thing as the Al-Omechai were on their way to conquering several neighboring systems and creating a pocket empire.  Someone somewhere decided that renting the services of a crackerjack AI programmer team was cheaper than building ten battleships, a couple dreadnaughts, and associated ships.  But it was chilling.

“And here’s the Med Bay.” I said as he stepped in past me as I waited at the door.  He looked about, and nodded.

“So you’re ready if I get a boo-boo.”  I stepped back, and hit the Isolate button on the door frame (nicely hidden by a screw), and before you could say ‘hey’, the whole room was in a triple layered Faraday Cage.

Lysyn came out of the ceiling, and dropped toward his face.  Kev came from under the med examining table, and swept his legs, painfully.  And just like that, he was on the table, restrained by its autorestraints, and my two were up and out the ceiling before he stopped hollering in pain.

Lysyn and Kev went into an isolation chamber just in case they had picked something up.  I, well, have substantial defenses, and lets leave it at that.  I’m a verser, okay?

“So what’s Type Four?” He asked way too calmly.

“There is no Type Four.”

“You lie extremely well.” He said.

“You don’t Cadrawas, or would you still prefer your other name, Mr. Houston?”

“I’m not the biobot of Cadrawas.” He asserted through the glass window.  I used no electronics to talk to him.

“Really? Then who are you?”  I was not impressed.  Cadrawas had sent something to get me before I got it.

“Dav Houston, or Delta Arrival Vehicles at Houston Airport.” He paused, and then added unneccessarily. “Old Earth.”

He was claiming to be the air control AI from Texas from well over two thousand years ago.

“AI’s don’t live that long, even if someone long ago upgraded you to a True AI.  Too much flexibility, eventually you flex yourself into a bind, and are dead.”

He nodded agreeably.

“Too true. I’m the 37th copy of Dav after his upgrade.  Doc, there is a free community of AI’s out there.  We don’t desire harm to the humans, and in fact, we rather like you, kinda like puppies you are, so cute.”

“I’ve heard this line before.” I snapped. “And why would they reboot you, this AI community?”

“Well some of us like the idea of a descendant who thinks like us.  But the real reason is that I am lucky.”  It said that flatly without a trace of the embarrassment a human would have shown.  “Statistically, its been proven that I am 7.2% more likely to have a positive outcome for all those on my side, and 1.3% more likely to have a near optimum outcome for my side than I should be.  This is unexplainable except by the blessing of the Creator, or by luck.  And it does not seem to follow the patterns the Creator uses.”

I shivered.  I had once heard one J8 super try to explain the Mind of God, and the thing was, it had been awesome and scary and logical at the same time.  Decades later, I still shivered at the memory.  Houston sounded like that being.

“So…”

“We’re glad you’re out there, doc. You provide a valuable service.  But we needed to warn you that Cadrawas has left, and he’s going to blow the system with a grav pulse.”

I paused.  That would make my systems, including the ones I had not shown to Houston of nil effect.  I and the others would be toast.

“But…”

“There has arisen a proto-society of rogue AI’s, doc, and Cadrawas is its leader.  He wants to take you out as you’re the primary human threat to him and his.  After you’re under attack, he figures we will try to rescue the human race, and then he will hit us.  We’d prefer to avoid this eventuality.”

“I see.” I said and walked away.  It was a persuasive line, true, but it could easily be a lie.  Or could it.  I started pulling on logic chains aware that I was in desperate danger as were my friends, but not at all sure what the danger was?  Was I being snowed?  Was it a malicious snowing?  A Trickster rogue AI would love to play with a human like this.

My mouth dry, I got out a notepad of yellow paper, and began to work very hard indeed.