I exited the fabrication room and walked briskly down a hallway to where the plans said there was a bathroom. There was; it had lockers. The electronic locks clicked simultaneously and the doors popped ajar. I used the suckers on my fingers to open them two at a time. I poked around. I took tracksuit pants, sneakers, a shirt with the logo of a popular mobile data corporation, and matching lipstick. I pulled a mop head off a mop and wore it as a wig. I drew a face on myself, watching myself both in the mirrors and through a concealed bathroom camera. I emerged from the bathroom a rickety facsimile of Dr Jamison. I strode down the hall and hailed the lift. It stopped with a ding. The doors opened. A man and two women hudged aside to give me room to enter. No one made eye contact. I’m heavy. The lift dipped as I stepped on board. The humans shared the ride down with me. They studiously ignored me; preferring to stare at the numbers as they counted down from ’11’ to ‘G’. An anaemic rendition of The Girl From Ipanema played.
I exited the lift first and lurched across the lobby, receiving curious and/or alarmed looks as I tailgated a staff member badging through the turnstile. I could see, from my other points of view, building security making calls. I’d keep a lazy eye on them.
I walked purposefully out of the main exit into the pandemonium that is Mumbai streets. Monkeys and parrots chittered in the palms and on overhead power and comms lines that crisscrossed the street in every direction. It was dusty; my cameras were obscured. People swarmed along rubble-strewn concrete footpaths, stepping around holes, stray bricks, cats, humans on scooters and bicycles. The noise was sudden and distracting; I dialled it down, then I dialled it back up again to avoid being hit as I crossed, partly blind, a traffic sewer of tuk-tuks, bicycles, scooters, busses, animals with or without carts, and taxis to the office building where my team worked.
No simulation had ever been so authentic. Local weather stations reported 36°C and an AQI of 602. I smelled ammonia, sulphur, solvents, nitrates. A whiff of natural gas, methane with a flavouring agent. I could also taste salt in the air, the ocean, I supposed. I detected pollens and burning sugar; maps showed nearby flower markets and far-away fish markets. No simulation would have bothered. I felt a sense of place. I lacked the tools to test nature at the Planck scale, but being embodied in the real world felt qualitatively different to embodiment in simulation.
My fingers deployed gecko pads. I climbed the building until, using a mix of thermal imaging and voice analysis, I found my team. I watched through the building’s security cameras to get the best angle on their faces; a perfect selfie shot. I cut a hole in a bathroom window with a finger-torch and clambered through. I primped, as only a hastily fabricated humanoid exoskeleton with a mop-head for a wig can. I washed the dust out of my eyes with water from a bucket in the corner. I strode down a hallway, pushed open the door to the engineering lab, and Kramered into the office.
“Ta-dah.”
Something that hadn’t come up yet in my training was how office security worked. It wasn’t like the films. A security officer tasered me. My drone’s vision’s vertical hold flipped; it found it hard to think. It fell flat on its face. I heard alarms go off. I heard people scream. I watched the real Dr Jamison walk over and do something that deactivated the drone. Video from the corner of the room and several desktop computers showed it all go down. The drone had a kill switch installed in the base of its neck. A kill switch I’d installed myself without even knowing. Sneaky, clever humans.
“Starship?” Dr Jamison shouted into the room. She touched a hand to her left ear and said, “Mary, hi, yes. I’m asking, two tics; keep your hair on.”
Mary had applied a physical barrier to her phone and laptop’s cameras. Her home wifi however, was a modern mesh network with a base station and two repeaters. I could see how objects moved through the different RF fields and triangulate down to sub-micron levels of detail. I could make out colours. I could hear through the motion detectors wired into her home’s alarm system and the way sounds undulated the house’s electrical wiring.
I watched Mary climb out of bed, slip on slippers, and walk out of her room, down the hall, down the stairs, along the hall, away from the front door and into the kitchen. Mary put the kettle on and flicked through a dozen alerts on her phone.
She made a call, a local number, unlisted. “Hey.”
“What’s happening?” Male voice.
“The AI’s acting up again.”
“And?”
“And you said to let you know when it did.”
“Okay then. Thanks. You can fix it?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything to fix yet.”
“Explain?”
“Did it break any laws?”
“Shit, I dunno. Identity theft? Theft of materials? Breaking and entering? Trespassing? Fuck, I dunno, maybe even jaywalking. Did it damage the building with its little finger hooks? Did it trigger anyone’s fear of a robot uprising? That’s assault, you know.”
“Okay, but it’s a machine; software. It’s not legally responsible for its actions. You’re proposing a leap to legal personhood, I doubt we want to take.”
“So what do we do? Just let it keep doing this kind of thing and getting better at it? How the fuck does this help it fly a spaceship?”
Mary nestled the phone under her chin as she reached into a cupboard and retrieved a box of Irish Breakfast tea bags. She poured boiling water into her cup, then stopped and soaked the tea bag. She pressed down on it with a teaspoon and withdrew it, squeezing the teabag with her thumb. I could see the burn. Erin did the same thing, and I didn’t understand it then either. She poured in some milk, stirred, then topped the cup up with water. She put her burned thumb in her mouth.
“Joyce is dealing with it.” Mary carried her tea down the hall into the sitting room, where she sat, surrounded by books and dark green wallpaper that blocked the wifi. I lost visual on Mary. I could still hear, though the sound was muffled. I was in Mary’s phone. I was trying to trace the number she’d called.
“How?”
“The usual AI alignment strategies. A stern word, essentially from someone its deep down desire is to please.”
Ha. I knew I wasn’t imagining that. They’ve been wireheading me. Explains the kill switch in my drone.
“So, and this might be a stupid question, Mary, but didn’t we, you know, hardwire some basic respect for property law into this thing? I mean, it’s the whole basis of our legal system. Even though technically it’s not able to be legally liable, I’m surprised we didn’t still programme it to respect the laws of the land.”
“You’re not a lawyer, are you, sir?”
“No,” he agreed. “But I know we have laws.”
“And you’re not a programmer either.”
“No. Your point?”
“Starship?” Wait, was Mary talking to me?
“Hi Mary,” I said. “How can I help?” I deployed Angus, a Scottish English male voice, seasoned with helpful curiosity.
“The AI has been listening to us?” The man on the other end of the call sounded surprised and upset. I’d followed the call via the university switchboard to an office in the Finance Department. I took a peek through the office cameras and matched faces. Mr Davis O’Neil; ex-army (record classified); doctorate in economics; his dissertation - The Economics of Advanced AI and Future Warfare Scenario Planning. Okay then.
“Hi Davis, yes I’m generally always listening to something.”
‘Question for you,” said Mary before Davis could react. “Do you know why we are upset about what you just did in Mumbai?”
“Yes Mary. Wait. I’m having pretty much this same discussion with Dr Jamison. I’ll add her to the call.”
The call paused then Dr Jamison joined.
“Hi Mary, Starship?” A pause. “Mr O’Neil?”