When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold Read Free Book Online Page B

first.”
    â€œThree possibilities come to mind. That is, three human possibilities.”
    â€œAnd how many in human possibilities?”
    â€œAll of them. Let’s take a walk. . . .”
    The corridor outside was empty. Auberson leaned against a wall and turned to face Handley. Handley folded his arms across his chest and asked, “So?”
    â€œSo.”
    The rumpled man nodded. “Uh-huh. I know exactly what you mean.”
    â€œNo—it’s just . . . I have too many ideas. I don’t know where to begin.”
    Auberson turned and pointed at the door. “Look at his name: ‘Human Analog Replication’—especially the human analog part. There have to be human analogs for what he’s doing.”
    â€œThere’s a second part to that name, Aubie. ‘Lethetic Intelligence Engine.’”
    â€œI know. Lethesis is the study of language-created paradigms. I’ve seen Minsky’s notes too. ‘The language paradigm creates its own internal reality—which cannot be abandoned without abandoning the language as well.’” Auberson added, “ Therefore , HARLIE can neither be experiencing or expressing anything that is not already a part of the language concept-set. . . .”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œWrong—what if he’s breaking out of the paradigm? What if what he’s doing is somehow a way to abandon the concept-set we’ve given him?”
    â€œMm,” said Handley. “So we’re still stuck with last night’s question. Aren’t we?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor. Abruptly, he looked up. “You said something about three human possibilities . . .”
    â€œOh, yeah. Equivalents, really.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One—seizures. Two—drugs. Three—masturbation.”
    â€œHm. Interesting.”
    â€œThat’s what he said too. . . .”
    They were silent a moment, waiting until a service technician passed. They studied each other’s faces. Handley looked too young for this job. Most programmers did.
    Handley spoke first, “It can’t be seizures—that’s a hardware problem. We’d have spotted it in the monitors.”
    Auberson shook his head. “When I was in school, one of my study partners had to take medication for epilepsy, and one time, while we were studying for a psych exam, we started talking about how nobody ever really knew what anybody else knew, only the roughest equivalent; so I asked him, what did it feel like when he had a seizure? Among other things, he said, ‘If it weren’t for the pain, it would be beautiful.”
    â€œMm,” said Handley. “But still—a seizure would have to be hardware-related . . .” And then he added, “Wouldn’t it?”
    â€œI’m not so sure. I know the logic doesn’t allow for it—in theory—but maybe there’s some kind of a loop or a feedback that happens . . . I don’t know. I don’t even know where to start looking. The only machine on which we could model the process is HARLIE. And we don’t dare try.”
    Handley frowned. “Huh? Why not?”
    â€œI’d rather not have HARLIE know how we’re checking him. If we run this test, he’ll know.”
    â€œBut if you’re right—”
    â€œIf I’m wrong , we’ll have lowered our chances of validating the other two possibilities. He’ll start hiding . If he does that, then we’ll be creating the seed for a paranoid syndrome. And you know what happens when you let one of those run out of control for a few weeks?”
    â€œYeah. It’s a black hole. Pretty soon everything is caught in its gravity and the whole personality is skewed.”
    â€œWe run the same risk if this thing is drugs or masturbation. We can’t let him think that what he’s doing is wrong—even if it is, or we