city blues 01 - dome city blues by jeff edwards Read Free Book Online Page A

computer logic, Artificial Intelligence, and the so-called Machine Mind .
    Turing had predicted that technology would eventually permit a human mind to be recorded in digital form.  Thought, personality, idiosyncrasies, prejudices, the whole ball of wax.  Turing had been right; technology had caught up with his ideas in less than a hundred years.
    “How can you drive a Turing Scion crazy?” I asked.
    The kid turned his electroptic eyes toward me.  “Leave it plugged in,” he said.
    “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.  “Turing Scions are supposed to be plugged in.  That’s what they’re designed for.”
    “True,” Jackal said, “but they’re only intended to be active for short periods of time.  If you leave one plugged in too long, it goes crazy.”
    “I still don’t understand,” I said.
    “Look,” the kid said.  “The entire point behind the Turing Scion is to preserve the knowledge base of our so-called civilization.  In the past, if a brilliant engineer died, his knowledge and his creativity died with him.  His thought patterns, his ideas, his personal methods of problem solving … everything .  All gone forever.  That’s the way things worked for most of human history.  Then, along comes the Turing Scion and changes all the rules.  Now, if our hypothetical engineer has a Turing Scion, his knowledge doesn’t disappear when he dies.  If we have a problem that only Mr. Hypothetical Engineer can solve, we just plug his Scion into a computer node and start asking questions.”
    “But you can’t leave it plugged in,” Jackal said.
    “Why not?”
    The kid stared at me like I was an idiot.  “Scions are sort of like software,” he said.  “They’re only active when you plug them into a computer node.  Unplug one, and it’s just an anodized box full of dense-pack memory chips.  It can’t talk.  It can’t think.  It can’t do anything .  It’s inert.  Asleep, if you prefer.”
    “But when they are plugged in,” Jackal said, “they have dynamic memory, just like AI’s.  They continue to think, and learn, and grow.”
    “How does that make them go crazy?” I asked.
    “Think about it,” the kid said.  “Even a low-end computer can process information three or four hundred times faster than a human brain can.  For every hour of real-time that passes, an active Scion would experience four hundred hours.  That’s about sixteen days.  Not sixteen days for some piece of artificially intelligent machine code that only thinks it’s alive.  Sixteen days for a human mind who has memories, wants, aspirations.”
    I nodded.
    The kid looked back toward the performance artist’s Turing Scion.  “Asshole over there has kept his Scion plugged in for over a year.  Try to imagine that.  Four hundred years trapped inside a machine.”
    “It’s not like it’s a real person,” Jackal said.
    “It thinks it’s a real person,” the kid said.
    I looked across the bar at the anguished face of the Scion, and suddenly I couldn’t bear the thought of being in the same room with it.  I cleared my throat.  “This is all very interesting,” I said, “but I have business to attend to.”  I looked at Jackal.
    “Sorry,” she said.  “I got a little sidetracked.”  She pulled a data chip out of her pocket and slid it across the transparent table top.
    I reached into my pocket and pulled out an envelope.  “Cash,” I said.  “As agreed.”
    We traded.
    I wouldn’t be able to verify the contents of the chip until I got home.  Jackal knew this; out of courtesy, she didn’t open the envelope until I was gone.

    Outside the bar, I waited for a cab on Santa Monica Boulevard, and tried not to think about Turing Scions.  I’d seen one years before, and I hadn’t liked it anymore than I’d liked the one inside Nexus Dreams.
    John had talked Maggie into letting him make the recording.  She’d been excited by the idea: her mind, her personality stored in a