Pandora's Brain (16 page)

Malcolm Ross smiled at the cameras and the studio guests. Confidently into the home straight, he gathered up his audience in preparation for the last leg of their intellectual journey together.

‘Let’s turn to the fascinating idea of uploading the human mind into a computer,’ he said. ‘Professor
Montaubon, you said just now that uploading is our best hope of surviving the arrival of a super-intelli
gence. The key questions that follow from that seem to me to be: is it possible to upload a mind, both technologically and philosophically, and would it be a good thing?
Reverend Cuthman: we haven’t heard from you yet. Perhaps this is an issue you might like to comment
on?’

The reverend placed the tips of his fingers together and pressed them to his lips. Then he pointed them down again and looked up at Ross.

‘Thank you, Malcolm. Well I confess to feeling somewhat alienated from much of this conversation. That is partly because I’m not as au fait with the latest technology as your other guests. But more importantly, I think, I start from a very different set of premises. You see I believe that humans are distinguished from brute animals by our possession of an immortal soul, which was placed inside us by almighty God. So as far as I’m concerned, whatever technological marvels may or may not come down the road during this century and the next, we won’t be uploading ourselves into any computers because you can’t upload a soul into a computer. And a body or even a mind without a soul is not a human being.’

‘Yes, I can see that presents some difficulty,’ Ross said. ‘So if Dr Metcalfe here and his peers were to succeed in uploading a human mind into a computer, and it passed the Turing test, persuading all comers that it was the same person as had previously been running around inside a human body, you would simply deny that it was the same person?’

‘Yes, I would. Partly because it wouldn’t have a soul. At least, I assume that Dr Metcalfe isn’t going to claim that he and his peers are about to become gods, complete with the ability to create souls?’

David smiled and shook his head.

‘But even putting that to one side,’ the reverend continued, ‘this uploading idea doesn’t seem to preserve the individual. It makes a copy. A clone. Everybody has heard of Dolly, a cloned sheep, which was born in 1996. And many people know that the first animal, a frog, was cloned way back in the 1960s. But no-one is claiming that cloning preserves the individual. Uploading is the same. It just makes a copy.’

‘Yes,’ Ross said, thoughtfully. ‘This is an important problem, isn’t it, Professor Christensen? Uploading doesn’t perpetuate the individual: it destroys the individual and creates a copy.’

‘That is an important objection, I agree,’ Christensen said. ‘But not a fatal one, I think. If you could upload me into a computer and then give the newly created being a body exactly like mine, but leave me still alive, I might well deny that the new entity was me. That process has been called ‘sideloading’ rather than ‘uploading’.

‘But,’ he held up an index finger, ‘imagine a different thought experiment. Imagine that you are suffering from a serious brain disease, and the only way to cure you is to replace some of your neurons. Only we don’t know which of your neurons we have to replace, so we decide to replace them all, in batches of, say, a million at a time. Because you are a very important TV personality we have the budget to do this,’ he smiled. ‘After each batch has been replaced we check to see whether the disease has gone, and also to check that you are still you. We replace each batch with silicon instead of carbon, either inside your skull, or perhaps on a computer outside your brain, maybe in your home, or maybe in the cloud. The silicon batches preserve the pattern of neural connections inside your brain precisely.

‘We find that the disease persists and persists despite the replacements, but happily, when we replace the very last batch of a million neurons we suddenly find that we have cured you. Now, at each of the checkpoints you have confirmed that you are still Malcolm, and your family and friends have agreed. There was no tipping point at which you suddenly stopped being Malcolm. But when
we have replaced the very last neuron we ask the rever
end here to confirm that you are still Malcolm. He says no, so we go to court and ask a judge or a jury to decide whether your wife still has a husband,
your children still have a father, and whether you may
continue to enjoy your property and your life in general. I imagine that you would argue strenuously that you should.’

‘Well, yes indeed. And I hope that my wife and kids would do the same!’ Ross laughed. ‘So issues of personal identity are going to cause some trouble in the post-AI world?’

‘Yes indeed,’ Christensen agreed. ‘I think the concept of personal identity will come under immense strain, and will be stretched in all sorts of directions. It’s all very well to say that copying a mind does not preserve it, but from the point of view of the copy, things may look very different. Imagine a situation where we carry out the process I described before, but instead of making just one version of you we created two.’

‘Two for the price of one?’ joked Ross.

‘Probably two for the price of three,’ laughed Christensen, ‘but terribly good value just the same. And imagine that the day after the operation both versions of you turn up at your house. Both versions are equally convinced that they are you, and none of your family and friends can tell the difference. What then?’

‘Could be tricky,’ Ross agreed. ‘Actually, I suppose that having a doppelganger could be handy at times.’

‘Indeed,’ Christensen agreed. ‘Some people might think that having their state of mind persisting in the form of a backup is sufficient to constitute survival. And here is another thought experiment. A man feels cheated by a business rival, or a rival in love. The man has himself backed up, and then shoots the rival and also himself. The backup is brought online, and claims immunity from prosecution on the basis that he is a different person. Would we let him get away with that?’

‘Hmm, it could become complex,’ said Ross. He looked at the other members of the panel, inviting them to contribute. Matt accepted the challenge.

‘Some people think that the human mind is actually a composite of different sub-minds. One of the early pioneers of AI, Marvin Minsky, wrote a book about this, called
The Society of Mind
. And now we are adding new bits. For many of us, our smartphone is like an externalised part of our mind. So is
Wikipedia
: it’s like an externalised memory. Also, people who are close to us are in some way a part of us. I’m sorry if this sounds cheesy, but when we thought my dad had died, it was as if a part of me had died.’

David reached across and placed his hand on top of Matt’s. Matt smiled and there was a warm murmur in the audience.

‘So,’ Matt continued, ‘if we do manage to upload human minds, perhaps their components will start to separate a little, and re-combine in different ways. After all, they will probably be hosted at least partially in the cloud for safety reasons. Perhaps if we do manage to upload, then the destination will be some kind of hive mind.’

‘It sounds as though you’ve been inspired by your experiences to read around the subject, Matt,’ Ross teased him. ‘I’m sure your tutors will be impressed.’

Matt laughed. ‘They’d probably be more impressed if I stuck to maths – at least until I’ve finished my degree.’

‘I’m sure they’ll cut you a bit of slack, given what you’ve been through.’

Ross paused to smile at the audience, contemplating the ratings that he was confident Matt was providing. Then he turned back to the panel.

‘We’re reaching the end of the programme. It’s been a fascinating discussion, and I’d like to finish with a couple of questions. The first one is this. If we – or our children – do live to see this amazing future, a future of uploaded minds living potentially forever: will we like it? I mean, won’t we get bored? And if everybody is going to live forever, how will we all fit on this finite planet? Professor Christensen?’

‘I don’t think the problem will be one of boredom,’ Christensen replied, ‘but there is a dystopian scenario in which uploaded minds work out – and it wouldn’t be hard – how to stimulate their pleasure centres directly
and they simply sit around pleasuring themselves
all day.’

‘You mean like those rats in laboratory experiments which starved themselves by choosing continually to press a neural stimulation button rather than the button that delivered food?’ asked Ross.

‘Yes, exactly that,’ Christensen nodded. ‘And it could be a little more sophisticated than that in the human case. In the novel
Permutation City
by Greg Egan, an uploaded man chooses to spend his time in pointless hobbies like carving many thousands of identical chair legs, but he programmes himself to experience not just physical pleasure, but also profound intellectual and emotional fulfilment through these simple tasks.’

‘That sounds like the end of civilisation as we know it,’ joked Ross.

‘Yes, it does. But I very much doubt that things would collapse that way. Just as we humans are capable of enormously more complex, subtle and dare I say fulfilling experiences than chickens and chimpanzees, so I am confident that a super-intelligent uploaded human would be capable of enjoying more subtle and more profound experiences than we are. The more we find out about the universe, the more we discover it to be a fascinatingly challenging and weird place. The more we know, the more we know we don’t know. So I don’t believe that our descendents will run out of things to explore. In fact you may be interested to know that there is a nascent branch of philosophy – a sub-branch of the Theory of Mind, you might say – called the
Theory of Fun
, which addresses these concerns.’

‘As for over-population,’ Montaubon chipped in, ‘there is a very big universe to explore out there, and we now know that planets are positively commonplace. It won’t be explored by flesh-and-blood humans as shown in
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
:
that idea is absurd. It will be explored by intelligence spreading out in light beams, building material environments on distant planets using advanced 3-D printing techniques. But actually, I suspect that the future for intelligence is extreme miniaturisation, so there is definitely no need to worry about running out of space.’

‘Well, that’s a relief, then,’ said Ross, teasing slightly. He turned to address his audience. ‘We’ve travelled a long way in this consideration of the prospects opened up by the search for artificial intelligence, and we’ve heard some outlandish ideas. Let’s finish by coming back to the near term, and what could become a pressing matter. Public acceptability.’

He turned back to the panel. ‘You all acknowledge that creating an artificial super-intelligence carries significant risks. But what about the journey there? Some people may well object to what you are trying to achieve, either from fear of some of the consequences that you have yourselves described, or from a belief that what you are doing is blasphemous. Others may fear that the benefits of artificial intelligence and particularly of uploading will be available only to the rich. There could be very serious public opposition once enough people become aware of what is being proposed, and take it seriously. The transition to the brave new world that you are aiming for could be bumpy. There will be vigorous debates, protests, perhaps even violent ones. Reverend, would you like to comment on that?’

‘I think you have raised a very important question,
Malcolm, and I suspect it is one that technology enthusiasts often do not stop to consider. Personally
I don’t think that what has been discussed today is blasphemous, because I believe that only God can create a soul, so I think that ultimately these endeavours will fail. But there will be others, who think that even trying to create intelligent life is an attempt to usurp the role of God. They may indeed be angry.’

For a last word, Ross turned to Christensen. ‘Professor?’

‘I’m not sure there is much that one can say to such people. Religious fundamentalists are notoriously hard to debate with. Personally I cannot accept that someone should be able to stop a scientific endeavour because of a belief they have for which there is simply no evidence. Of course I am in favour of freedom of religion, and against religious persecution. But I cannot accept that one person’s freedom of thought should interfere with other people’s freedom, unless there is evidence of harm or potential harm.

‘Yes, there are potential dangers in AI, so we need to find ways around them, and I think we can do that.’ He nodded in Montaubon’s direction, acknowledging their disagreement. ‘That is a serious matter, but the only alternative is relinquishment, and that does not seem to me to be a viable option. The question of who gets access to the benefits of the new technologies is also a valid and important one. Here again I think there is a solution. If a new technology becomes a source of inequity – not just a modest increase in inequality, but actual injustice – then I have a suggestion which comes naturally to anyone with a Scandinavian heritage: tax it, and use the proceeds to make a version of the technology cheap enough for everyone to enjoy.’

‘That was a very fine discussion: thank you all. Very stimulating indeed. I hope you all feel you a had a chance to say what you wanted to say?’

Ross had wound up the discussion and closed the programme smoothly and professionally. The audience’s applause had been prolonged, and the production team all appeared to be delighted. The big lights shut down with a sound like cupboard doors slamming closed, the hothouse stage atmosphere dissolved, and everyone relaxed. Matt felt a sense of euphoria in the midst of all the mutual back-slapping.

Ross made a special point of thanking and congratulating Matt.

‘You did very well today. The studio can be an intimidating environment when you’re not used to it.’

He gave Matt a sly grin.

‘But perhaps you will get used to it. You have quite a fan base, you know. I know you don’t tweet and your Facebook account is set to maximum privacy, but perhaps you should open up a bit on the social media front. It could help your career significantly – whatever you decide to do when you finish your degree.’

Matt gave his usual modest and non-committal reply.

‘Yeah, maybe. I just don’t know that I’ve got that much worth saying. I got caught up in some extraordinary events, but I don’t know that I’ve actually done anything.’

Ross smiled and frowned at the same time. ‘I thought your generation had an intuitive grasp on this? It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t even matter who you know any more. What matters is how much people are talking about you. Most celebrities these days haven’t done anything. They are famous for simply being famous. Yes, yes, I know, we’re all supposed to be very cynical about celebrity.’

He leaned a little closer towards Matt, and lowered his voice, confidentially.

‘But the dirty little secret is that it helps enormously. Whatever you are trying to do.’

‘Well, thanks anyway,’ said Matt. He thought of a way to deflect the focus of the conversation away from himself. ‘If it isn’t a ridiculously sycophantic thing to say, it was great to watch a master at work.’

Ross, no stranger to flattery, was nevertheless visibly pleased by the compliment. He shook Matt’s hand again and moved on to console the reverend.

Seeing his father was in animated conversation with Professor Montaubon and in no hurry to leave, Matt headed for the toilet. As he passed a fat man in an expensive suit, he felt his arm seized.

‘Matt, my boy, that was a bravura performance. I think we’ll be seeing you on our television screens more often. At least, I certainly hope so.’

His captor was a jolly-faced, swarthy man in his
fifties; well-fed and comfortable-looking. He was accompanied by a birdlike woman who looked well pre
served rather than comfortable, and if anything, even more expensively dressed. She reached out a bony hand and stroked the arm which the fat man, now that Matt had stopped walking, had released. Matt had the sense that these two often hunted together.

‘Brilliant, Matt; quite brilliant. My daughter is soooo jealous that I am here tonight. She is completely in love with you, you know.’ A tinkling laugh. ‘But I suppose you are used to that by now: from what I can gather, half the young women in the country are in love with you. You do seem to be taking your sudden fame very much in your stride.’

Matt laughed. He hadn’t expected his fifteen minutes of fame to be quite so all-embracing.

‘You’re very kind,’ he murmured, and started to move off again.

‘Not so fast, Matt. Here: take this. You never know when you may have need of it.’

The jolly man was still smiling as he handed his card to Matt, but there was an urgency in his voice.

‘Matt, you have a rare opportunity right now. It is not given to many. Don’t blow it. Who knows how long this circus will last? Right at this moment you have some clout. You can use it to launch a career – any career you like, really. Or you can use it to get a message across. Or to support a good cause. Just don’t let it go to waste.’

The urgency in his voice intensified as he realised Matt was not buying. ‘Please, Matt, please don’t fool yourself that you can be the ringmaster of this circus all by yourself. You’re a bright kid, but this wonderful, silly, clever world of show business was created long before you were born, and it will survive long after all of us are dead. It has its own rules and it levies its own price. It won’t change its rules to suit you, no matter how smart and how telegenic you are. I can help you. Trust me!’

The fat man stood back and spread his arms wide in the manner of second-hand car dealers everywhere: men who know they have a good deal to offer, but who know they will always get the best of every deal.

Matt looked down at the card, not reading it but using the time to think of a polite but witty answer. Nothing came.

‘Thank you. I will. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just on my way to the toilet. I’m pleased you enjoyed the programme.’

The fat man and the bony woman looked longingly after Matt as he walked away, and then shrugged and fell back easily into their earlier conversation.

When Matt returned to where his father was still talking to Montaubon and Christensen, his mother and Leo had joined them too. Sophie hugged Matt tight.

‘Well done, Matt, darling, well done! I’m so proud of you I could . . . well, I could cause a scene!’

‘Mu-um. . .!’ protested Matt.

Leo pumped his hand in an emotional handshake.

‘Great show, Matt!’ was all he needed to say with words.

‘Apparently there’s a bit of a mob at the front entrance,’ said David. ‘So our babysitters are suggesting we go out the tradesmen’s entrance, if that’s OK.’

‘Professor Christensen and I can go out the front if you like. Draw their fire, so to speak,’ offered Montaubon, with a wink.

‘Good idea,’ said Leo. ‘Thanks.’

Farewells were said, promises to keep in touch were made. David and his family headed for the exit.

The plan was successful, except for a small knot of placard-waving protestors waiting at the rear exit. The placards looked professionally-printed, with slogans like ‘Save the Human,’ ‘Campaign for Real Humans’, ‘Transhumans are Anti-Human’, ‘Don’t Say Aye to AI’.

‘Uh-oh,’ said David and Leo in unison, as the protesters caught sight of them emerging, and started chanting ‘Transhumans are anti-human!’

‘Too late to go back inside, I suppose?’ said Sophie, doubtfully.

‘No need, mum,’ Matt reassured her. ‘They’re just a bunch of loonies. They’re harmless.’

One of the protesters pushed forwards to address David. He was in his fifties, and smartly dressed in a pale brown light leather jacket and a cornflower blue shirt. He had a pudgy, fleshy face and weak blue eyes beneath a thick, badly-cut crop of hair, which was obviously dyed black.

A policeman stepped into his path and blocked his advance, and the protesters shouted angrily.

‘Who do you think you are, Dr Metcalfe?’ yelled the leather jacket. ‘Who do you think you are to decide our future?’

David snorted in disbelief, and against his better judgement, stopped to reply.

‘I’m not deciding anything. I’ve just escaped from being held hostage for three months, for god’s sake!’

‘Rubbish! Liar!’ screamed several of the protesters.

‘Come off it, Metcalfe,’ shouted the leather jacket, addressing his fellow protesters as much as David. ‘It’s obvious you’re going to work with the Yanks. You’re going to try and upload and create a race of supermen. I ask you again, who do you think you are?’

David was getting angry, and was about to reply when Leo grabbed his elbow and steered him on.

‘Come on, David. You know there is no arguing with these people. Let it go, and let’s get you and Sophie and Matt safely home.’

David looked at Leo and then back at the leather jacket, who was looking pleased with himself, as if he had just won a school debate. David’s head fell slightly in resignation and one corner of his mouth turned upwards.

‘You’re right. It’s as useful as talking to a washing machine.’

As he walked on, followed by his family, another man – shorter, scruffy, with dirty brown hair and a pinched face – pushed forwards and ducked under the policeman’s raised arm.

‘Go on, Metcalfe, run! Run! Try running from this!’

A gunshot.

The world seemed to judder slightly. A page turned; a history altered.

Matt had walked between his father and the pinched-faced man.

Matt felt as if someone had hit his lower back with a hammer. The hammer hadn’t stopped at his ribs, but had gone right through him. The pain was astonishing. His entire consciousness rushed into the region of impact to marvel at it and howl. It was more pain than he had ever experienced; more pain than he would have imagined possible. But even worse than the pain was the fear. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The thing that was wrong was never going to be right again and in fact, nothing was ever going to be right again. He couldn’t breathe, and he was also drowning. The pain and the fear filled his mind even as it slipped away. As he fell, he saw the sky spinning and the ground rising up to crush him, but the visual image hardly registered alongside the intense pain and fear.

‘It’s not . . . It’s not . . .’

His mother grabbed at him as he fell, and thought that his last words were addressed to her. That misapprehension was no comfort at all as she felt her son become completely limp in her arms, and she shared his terrible knowledge that nothing would ever be right again. His weight dragged her down and she found herself lying on the floor next to him, cradling him, crying.

The world awoke from its moment of shocked stillness, and the air filled up with screams, shouts, whistles. Ambulances were called, the man with the gun was wrestled to the ground, shock was expressed. Matt’s experience of it all was increasingly distant and abstract. His mind was shutting down.

The next half hour passed in a daze for David, Sophie and Leo. An ambulance arrived. The van was white, the paramedics wore green and had no faces. The three of them hardly noticed the rapid turns and the jerky stops and starts as the ambulance raced towards the hospital. They held onto Matt, staring at the face of their beloved son and friend as it morphed from pain and fear into blankness. They pleaded with him to fight, and they wept as the face which had borne the imprint of Matt’s personality for over twenty years – even when sleeping – became a blank slate.

After a stretch of time that seemed both eternal and fleeting, the ambulance reached the hospital. David, Sophie and Leo followed the gurney out of the vehicle and through the grubby, cream-coloured corridors to the operating room. They moved in a trance, as if tied to Matt by invisible strings. They were stopped at the door to the operating room by a doctor wearing a sad frown. They stood at the door, lost, until a kindly nurse shepherded them into a meeting room, then led them individually to chairs and sat them down.

They sat in silence. After a period which could have been ten minutes or could have been hours, the same doctor entered the room and walked towards them. He waited until their faces raised towards him. His own face was drawn and pale.

‘I’m so sorry. There was nothing we could do.’