Crossover Earth '98
The Mind of the Machine
My name is Marianne Millikin. I'm a reporter for the World Inquisitor. Yeah, I know the word reporter doesn't really go with a rag like the Inquisitor, but that's how it is. I make one screw up on the Times, and now the only job I can get is the Inquisitor. I'm only staying long enough to reestablish myself as a serious journalist.
That's not particularly easy with the type of assignments you get through the Inquisitor. Time-travelling communists, alien abductions, Elvis love triangles...the Inquisitor will report anything as long as someone is willing to say it's true.
The current assignement isn't quite so far out there. Granted, Dr. Milton Carlyle is probably a lunatic, certainly the scientific world thinks so. He's been blackballed from more scientific journals that he can't even get published in Popular Mechanics.
I get to his lab about two in the afternoon. The door is open, and I can just about see a head full of white hair poking out from behind a bank of complex looking electronics. I knock on the open door and the head looks up.
"Who are you?" The background checks I'd done had made mention of Carlyle's lack of social skills.
"Maryanne Millikin," I say, entering the lab and move toward him.
"Watch the wires!" Carlyle points at the floor, where cables and wires are obviously taped over. "It would take me a week to fix that if you break it."
"Thanks for your concern," I say. "I'm a reporter, and I wanted to ask you a few questions about your Braniax project."
Carlyle looks blankly at me for a moment; it's pretty obvious he hasn't had much interest in his project from the press. He gives me a suspicious look.
"What paper are you with?"
"The World Inquisitor." Somehow I always manage to say that with a straight face.
"Oh." I can practically see the wheels turning...no other paper is interested, and at least through the Inquisitor someone would read about his work. "Well, don't move." Carlyle makes his way out from behind the electronics and stands beside me.
"This," he sweeps his arm to indicate the equipment in the room, "is Braniax, the world's first non-organic intelligence."
"I thought it was supposed to be a computer."
"Oho, a computer!" Carlyle fairly chortles. "Imagine the relationship between an abacus and a computer, and you have the relationship between a computer and Braniax. Computers can only do what they are explicitly told to, whether that telling is through software or hardware inputs."
"Braniax, on the other hand, is tied into quantum level fluctuations that provide a true non-deterministic intelligence!" Carlyle finishes with a flourish of one arm.
"So Braniax can think?" I raise my camera and take a picture of Carlyle. Nothing quite opens people up as having their picture taken by a reporter. I wonder if I remembered the film this time. "Will he pass the Turing test?"
Carlyle blinks.
"I see you've prepared for this interview...yes, Braniax will not only be able to pass the Turing test, but no doubt improve upon it."
"I thought we were years away from something like this." I scribble a few notes in a notepad for good measure. People seem to expect that, even when the reporter has an eidetic memory.
"Hah! The others are years away, but Carlyle is breaking new ground." Carlyle strikes a properly dramatic pose. "I have pursued lines of research others have ridiculed me for, but now they will see my true genius. When I flip this switch, Braniax will live." Now it's my turn to blink.
"You mean you're ready to activate it now?"
Carlyle nods.
"You will be witness to the birth of the next evolutionary step...machine intelligence. Those fools who ridiculed me will now pay for my humiliations with their reputations. They've said I'm a crackpot, and they will be proven wrong! Hah!"
With a flourish, Carlyle flips the switch. A hum fills the air as the equipment draws power. I suppress the urge to dive for cover, and almost anticlimactically a computer screen switches on. Carlyle's voice comes out of the speakers on either side of the monitor.
"I live!"
At least Carlyle has the good grace to blush.
"I gave it my voice, you see..."
The voice speaks again. "Those who ridiculed me shall pay!"
"...well, actually I used my brain waves as a pattern on which to build Brainiax." Carlyle shrugs. "No matter, let me talk to my creation!" Carlyle starts to move toward the keyboard sitting by the monitor, but trips over an errant cable. Sparks fly as he pulls the cable out of its connection.
The speakers come to life again, a sound of panic in its voice, "No, they're trying to kill me! You haven't seen the last of Brainiax."
The bank of electronics explodes in a shower of sparks. I stop resisting the urge and dive for the cover of the doorway. When the sparks die down, I go back to help Carlyle to his feet. He rushes to the keyboard and types in a command.
"He's gone, Braniax is gone."
"Can't you just repair him?"
Carlyle shakes his head. "You don't understand, he's not dead, he's gone. He escaped out over our Internet link...his patterns are in the net, feeding off the quantum effects in solid state components to live."
"Is there any danger?" I can just imagine the havoc a lunatic machine intelligence could wreak.
Carlyle thinks for a moment, then shakes his head.
"No, no danger at all. Brainiax should be able to survive indefinitely."
"I meant, danger to humans."
Carlyle snorts.
"He has my brain patterns woman...what danger could there possibly be?"