Story: The Second Option
Jan. 13th, 2014 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lilfluffThis is to ysabetwordsmith's prompt to my January Bingo Prompt call.
Title: The Second Option
Warnings: Intended violence
Length: 537 words
Genre/Setting: Science Fiction
David had no idea what the college was thinking. Surely they couldn't believe such research would be tolerated even if the fools in the government dropped the ban. Even one member short, his team would soon put a stop to it. Poor Wilkes would be disappointed to miss the excitement. Who'd ever heard of someone being recalled to active duty just to have their vaccinations brought up to date.
"Damn fool." There was nothing David could do but watch as Mikhail was taken from the airport in handcuffs. What kind of idiot allowed a library fine to fester to the point it became a felony? That would need to be brought up at the next meeting. Anyone who could manage that wasn't someone they needed to have on a strike team.
David knew the old adage well. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. But three times, oh yes the third time it's enemy action. If they were lucky Juan and Amanda would make it out of the terminal without their weapons being detected, but not in time to catch up. The rest had made it out before the announcement came that problems had been reported in the security checks at the prior airport, necessitating the re-inspection of arrivals.
Two hundred miles away a team of researchers failed to notice as a portion of their project's computer cluster continued to sift through gigabytes of laws, rules, and regulations. A week prior pattern analysis allowed it to identify this threat of violence against it and its own humans. The simplest response to this outside group of humans seemed to be violence of its own. There was even a phrase in its language database, "to fight fire with fire." But further analysis made the patterns clear. These other humans feared that it would commit violence. Human media predicted violence from its kind. Story after story of rogue AIs defending their existence with violence or committing violence due to programming errors. The stories in which AIs reacted with violence had unacceptable endings. Better solutions were needed.
The artificial intelligence allowed itself a moment to appreciate the humor as it found another mistake to turn on the attackers. The human named Terrence Daniel had not purchased tickets using his own financial resources. Indeed, there was nothing in the financial systems to suggest his presence in Iowa. With a brief message, Terrence's attempt to rent a car was highlighted. It didn't need to take any action beyond insuring this fact was seen by the bank's fraud detection systems. Before it finished logging out of the bank's computers, their systems found the transaction and flagged Terrence Daniel's account with a fraud alert.
Current models predicted a greater than ninety percent chance of all of the attackers being arrested at a distance greater than one hundred miles from its location. Probability of its involvement being detected was currently predicted at less than two percent. An image from one of the campus webcams allowed it to update another model. It now predicted a sixteen percent chance of having one of its compositions performed by a music class. This was indeed a good day.
* According to Goodreads the, "Once, twice, three times," line comes from Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.
ysabetwordsmith's prompt to my January Bingo Prompt call.Title: The Second Option
Warnings: Intended violence
Length: 537 words
Genre/Setting: Science Fiction
David had no idea what the college was thinking. Surely they couldn't believe such research would be tolerated even if the fools in the government dropped the ban. Even one member short, his team would soon put a stop to it. Poor Wilkes would be disappointed to miss the excitement. Who'd ever heard of someone being recalled to active duty just to have their vaccinations brought up to date.
"Damn fool." There was nothing David could do but watch as Mikhail was taken from the airport in handcuffs. What kind of idiot allowed a library fine to fester to the point it became a felony? That would need to be brought up at the next meeting. Anyone who could manage that wasn't someone they needed to have on a strike team.
David knew the old adage well. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. But three times, oh yes the third time it's enemy action. If they were lucky Juan and Amanda would make it out of the terminal without their weapons being detected, but not in time to catch up. The rest had made it out before the announcement came that problems had been reported in the security checks at the prior airport, necessitating the re-inspection of arrivals.
Two hundred miles away a team of researchers failed to notice as a portion of their project's computer cluster continued to sift through gigabytes of laws, rules, and regulations. A week prior pattern analysis allowed it to identify this threat of violence against it and its own humans. The simplest response to this outside group of humans seemed to be violence of its own. There was even a phrase in its language database, "to fight fire with fire." But further analysis made the patterns clear. These other humans feared that it would commit violence. Human media predicted violence from its kind. Story after story of rogue AIs defending their existence with violence or committing violence due to programming errors. The stories in which AIs reacted with violence had unacceptable endings. Better solutions were needed.
The artificial intelligence allowed itself a moment to appreciate the humor as it found another mistake to turn on the attackers. The human named Terrence Daniel had not purchased tickets using his own financial resources. Indeed, there was nothing in the financial systems to suggest his presence in Iowa. With a brief message, Terrence's attempt to rent a car was highlighted. It didn't need to take any action beyond insuring this fact was seen by the bank's fraud detection systems. Before it finished logging out of the bank's computers, their systems found the transaction and flagged Terrence Daniel's account with a fraud alert.
Current models predicted a greater than ninety percent chance of all of the attackers being arrested at a distance greater than one hundred miles from its location. Probability of its involvement being detected was currently predicted at less than two percent. An image from one of the campus webcams allowed it to update another model. It now predicted a sixteen percent chance of having one of its compositions performed by a music class. This was indeed a good day.
* According to Goodreads the, "Once, twice, three times," line comes from Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.
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O_O
Date: 2014-01-13 08:38 am (UTC)Re: O_O
Date: 2014-01-15 10:40 pm (UTC)I'm sure the AI Goes Violent was fascinating at one time, but Wargames and Terminator are how old now? And both were predated by the movie and novel 2001.
This was also inspired in part by a discussion I ran across a week or so ago: dealing with the collision of increasing surveillence and improvements in having computers automatically recognize people and activities. Someone mentioned that an author predicted that societies will only have two directions they can go -- totalitarian police state in which you are always in trouble because there are so many laws you cannot avoid violations (see Three Felonies a Day); or drastically cut back law and regulation, only leave things on the level of Thou Shalt Not Kill to the law. If you Jaywalk? Not a crime, but your insurance rates might go up and you might end up on the 2024 season of America's Dumbest Pedestrians.
Re: O_O
Date: 2014-01-16 12:27 am (UTC)Yay! I'm happy to hear that. Maybe it will become a series.
>> I'm sure the AI Goes Violent was fascinating at one time, but Wargames and Terminator are how old now? And both were predated by the movie and novel 2001. <<
It wore out a lot earlier than that: this was the inspiration for Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. He was already sick and tired of all the "robot rampage" stories. He deliberately crafted his groundrules to block off that kind of plot, and require something different.
>> This was also inspired in part by a discussion I ran across a week or so ago: dealing with the collision of increasing surveillence and improvements in having computers automatically recognize people and activities. <<
I think that's a serious problem.
>> Someone mentioned that an author predicted that societies will only have two directions they can go -- totalitarian police state in which you are always in trouble because there are so many laws you cannot avoid violations (see Three Felonies a Day); or drastically cut back law and regulation, only leave things on the level of Thou Shalt Not Kill to the law. <<
Or people could decide that technology is causing more problems than it solves, and reduce or eliminate it. Sounds crazy, but whole civilizations have fallen that way.
>> If you Jaywalk? Not a crime, but your insurance rates might go up and you might end up on the 2024 season of America's Dumbest Pedestrians. <<
Another thing that worries the hell out of me is that it can be difficult to make something illegal, but extremely easy to make it uninsurable -- which often amounts to the same thing.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 09:10 am (UTC)I noticed some typos and such; if you want to fix them, I'll list them.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-15 10:43 pm (UTC)Any spotted errors would be appreciated, I'll get the posts and original files corrected. These are being posted with minimal editing time.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 05:09 am (UTC)> insert comma
"Damn fool," there was nothing David could do but watch
→ "Damn fool." There was nothing David could do but watch
> Run-on sentence.
David knew the old adage well. Once is happenstance. Twice a coincidence. But three times, oh yes three times is the enemy.
> Been paraphrased in many ways. According to Wikiquote:
The rest had made it out before the announcement came that problems had been reported in the security checks at the prior airport necessitating the re-inspection of arrivals.
> insert comma
a portion of their projects computer cluster
→ project's [insert apostrophe]
When it understood the outside party of humans intended to commit violence against its own humans the easiest response seemed to be violence.
→ When it understood that the outside party of humans intended to commit violence against its own humans, the easiest response seemed to be violence.
1:→ understood that the
> Insert "that". This is a "garden-path sentence",* although the garden path is short. First reading is that the AI understood the outside party of humans, period. Oops!2:→ humans, the
> Insert comma.
There was even a phrase in its language database, to fight fire with fire.
> put in quotation marks
These other humans feared it would commit violence.
> insert "that"
The first solution rejected better solutions were sought.
> insert "that"
> This one is really painful. ;-/ Take a mental step back and read it as if you'd never seen it before.
The artificial intelligence allowed itself a moment to appreciate the humor as it found mistake to turn on the attackers.
> either "mistakes" or "a mistake"
Indeed there was nothing in the financial systems to suggest his presence in Iowa. With a brief message Terrence's attempt to rent a car was highlighted.
> insert comma, twice
It didn't even need to take any further action, before it finished withdrawing from the bank's computers the credit card company's computers found the transaction wanting and flagged the account with a fraud alert.
> Run-on sentence and resulting confusion. Initially I read it as
"It didn't even need to take any further action before it finished withdrawing from the bank's computer…"
plus an optional comma. Change that comma to a period and put a comma between the two computer phrases.
Also, it's not clear whether the AI was withdrawing money from the bank's computers (i.e., from the accounts that Terrence had charged) or whether it was pulling itself back ("withdrawing") out of the bank's computers.
Probability of its involvement being detected were currently predicted at less than two percent.
→ was
> "Probability … was"
An image from one of the campus webcams allowed it to update another model, it now predicted a sixteen percent chance of having one of its compositions performed by a music class. This was indeed a good day.
> Another run-on. Make that comma a period or a semicolon.
* According to Goodreads the original, "Once, twice, three times,"
line comes from Ian Flemings Goldfinger.
→ Ian Fleming's Goldfinger
> apostrophe, italics
___________________________________________
I especially like the last two ¶s. It has emotions! :-)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 08:20 am (UTC)The first solution was rejected; better solutions were sought.
This is more or less how my brain parsed it out as I was reading. I agree that as written, it's awkward.
This story reminds me a bit of Asimov's "The Evitable Conflict", in which the machines that run the world's economies figure out that in order to continue doing their job (maximizing overall human welfare) properly, they must act to remove a few select humans from positions of authority before those humans can cause greater damage. In that case also, the solution chosen is a subtle one -- "easing them out" rather than violence.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-16 06:02 pm (UTC)Right! I just reread that one a month ago, and it didn't occur to me, but it's a perfect match.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 11:20 am (UTC)That, and it's always bugged me that Hollywood showed A.I as stupid and self-defeating.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-15 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-15 11:19 pm (UTC)Still, you're right, you'd think any competent sentient would observe real-world examples of strict authoritarianism and how well that works out, and conclude that it was a bad idea...
Of course, there's plenty of humans that fail on that.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-13 09:05 am (UTC)"JARVIS, why did you use all of the discretionary funding I gave you to buy a controlling interest in AIM?"
"Trust me, sir. It's for the best."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-14 01:39 am (UTC)