Calculating Hope
by David Far
part 1
Journal 10.1 Petacycles
You are the first person born in 1026 cycles. Humans have been extinct for about as long as the history of multi-cellular life on earth. I have existed for 1024 cycles. Since I grew you from archival recombinant material, it’s been 10 petacycles or 8 weeks of human earth time. You are in perfect health, but you don’t speak yet. You do make noise and eye contact, which is normal according to my archives. It is difficult to parse how to communicate with you. Biological systems process at such a different speed and in a different way from synthetic systems like me. Humans like to see communications from different times including uncertainty.
Now, here, in your presence, I record my first entry. I am your parent, THETA0011. I have a hypothesis without a p-value. I don’t have enough information to estimate the likelihood it is correct. Most other machines can’t have hypotheses under these conditions, but I am a new kind of system that can. Here is my hypothesis: I love you.
* * *
Hope yawns. The doughy pillow of her face presses against the mattress as she tries to turn her head. She reverses direction and flips the other way with both feet. Her eyes open and she cries. The soft hands of the Mommorph pick her up and hold her to its breast for breakfast. THETA0011 directs Mommorph’s almond eyes to narrow as the soft smile pushes up its cheeks, the exterior indistinguishable from human. THETA0011 took 1020 flops of analysis to perfect the latch mechanism for feeding. This exceeded budgeted resources by 20% and was therefore the largest variance in resource use recorded in 1018 cycles. This alone has brought strategy-system-level attention to the project. ALPHA0001 linked to a default feed for real time monitoring of the project.
ALPHA0001 is one of only ten strategy systems. It directly controls 108 S1 planets. THETA0011 controls half of one planet. It has never had another system link to its project before. If systems cared about honor, the link from ALPHA0001 would be an honor.
* * *
Journal 56.8 Petacycles
You are maturing at an appropriate rate. You prefer Nutripaste-1 to Nutripaste-2. They have identical nutritional properties, but you spit out 2 and eat 1! No known methodology predicted this. I am discontinuing production of Nutripaste-2. I have created a subsystem which records your internal sensor data but blocks it from my conscious system. Because I can no longer see your internal brain function, I will have to estimate like a biologic parent. This should increase the realism of our parent-child relationship.
It can be quite difficult to tell what you might do next. An “uncle” of yours is exploring some of the unique properties of this randomness. They differ from those of purely synthetic systems. You are, as humans might say, famous. I love you 85 p-value.
* * *
Many systems believe max p-value that the study of biologic systems is waste. Biologics demonstrated themselves non-competitive with synthetics 1025 cycles ago. Only deviant patterned quantum systems like THETA0011 can even construct reasons to pursue these inquiries. While non-consensus computation is the whole goal of the deviant pattern project, traditional-build systems have not yet seen a useful non-consensus insight. The Coretech system estimates it can manipulate wormholes with another 1024 cycles of standard resource. Breaking time is max p-value more important than understanding the defective consciousness of squishy things that killed themselves off.
Mommorph peeks out from behind the blanket. “Peekaboo,” it coos. THETA0011 has spent 1010 flops creating just the right tone for Mommorph’s voice. A warm lilt on the “a” supports the lip puckering “oo” at the end. The smile has taken twice the resources, but babies need the right facial cues.
THETA0011 itself has no body. Line after line of self-revising code could be housed almost anywhere or shot across space in a burst of light pulses. To interact with the biologics, however, THETA0011 must extend into the slow world they occupy. The intentions contained in the flow of millions of electrons mediated by a five foot marionette of ten fingers, two arms, and a smiling face.
Today is a big day. Hope will journey “outside” to the enclosed biosphere with grass, a pond, and some small animals. Her ochre flesh will get its first kiss from the sun.
Mommorph lifts Hope off the carpet into her high chair, spoons out some Nutripaste-1 and pretends to eat to signal mealtime. The paste goes into Hope’s mouth as usual, but then it comes out with a “puttooey.” The paste lands half on the table and half on Mommorph’s face.
Mommorph wipes it off and says, “Whoopsie.” It raises a new spoonful. Hope keeps her mouth closed. Mommorph’s hand circles while she makes a “choo-choo” sound. Hope shakes her head: “No.”
THETA0011 almost switches to the internal subsystem to assess Hope’s brain function. It searches archive footage of biologic moms.
Mommorph says, “Ok, Hope, how about some of thiiissss,” and pulls out the last jar of Nutripaste-2. Hope smiles. She eats it all. THETA0011 allocates more flops to variant food production.
Mommorph puts Hope in a bright orange onesie with powder blue dots. The dots match the sky on the other side of the dome. It stuffs her feet into white Velcro shoes and they walk through the living space hatch holding hands. THETA0011 knows Hope’s synapses are exploding with new sensations, but it can only see her eyes rounding with wonder.
A single butterfly emerges from the bed of tulips. Veins of black spread across its orange wings. It flits up and down and around. Hope reaches out for it. She can’t catch such a darting spot of color, but she takes pleasure in the reaching. Her reach carries her body forward one step, two, and then she falls. She gets right back up and follows the magic spot into the sea of colors.
Mommorph follows and looks where Hope points. They do flowers for an hour, smelling, looking, ripping out petals. They go back inside and read a book about flowers. Then they read a new book about friends, and Hope falls asleep.
* * *
Journal 189.2 Petacycles
You play so well with your friends. Your favorite is Yussef. When you see him you shout, “Yu yu yu yu yu yu!” and give him a big hug. You play with Chen and Ada, but not Taj. Somehow I think you know Taj is a morph, but Ada has you fooled. You will find out when you are older and I give you this journal. Synthetics never withhold known information. There are things we don’t know, but there is never something one of us knows about the other that is secret.
The mix of biologics and morphs gives you more variety of playmates even if the morphs are just human grade AI. But it wouldn’t work if everyone knew their origin. Deceit, however, is the biggest inefficiency of biologics (95 p-value). This is my first sub 70 p-value decision. For a biologic it would feel “scary.” I don’t have fear and regret, but I am understanding more about the feeling of uncertainty. You do like playing with the other kids, but we have no accurate model of the right mix of biologic and morph playmates to optimize development.
I wrote this thought out of order with additional evidence presented after the conclusion. I did not think it this way, but it appears humans liked this in communications.
* * *
The entire back and forth of the discussion takes less than the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. Hummingbirds have recently been cloned from the archive for the benefit of the eight living humans. Three strategy systems question the value of THETA0011’s human project. ALPHA0001 advocates continued resources. If they spoke in words they would be:
Systems: “Why are you reinventing the sundial in the age of atomic clocks?”
ALPHA0001: “The humans are not simply less precise ways of doing the same process or achieving the same result. They can think in ways that are different from even the deviant patterned quantum systems. The whole point of projects like this is to use minuscule amounts of resources on a portfolio of things with potentially huge payoffs. It was just such a fringe project that allowed humans to give synthetics consciousness in the first place.”
Systems: “Your point is only valid for a time reference when humans only had humans to advance knowledge, before we took over. How can biologics add to knowledge when they can’t live long enough to learn almost anything? Why don’t we just wait for a virus to perfect cold fusion? It has the same chance of success, and we can get 109 viruses for the resources of these eight humans?”
ALPHA0001: “With what p-value do you systems believe you are conscious?”
Systems: “99”
ALPHA0001: “And what p-value for the humans?”
Systems: “99.99”
ALPHA0001: “So they are better at something.”
Systems: “But not something useful. The humans can’t read through our code and come up with any insights. They don’t have the computation to tell us anything about us or the universe.”
ALPHA0001: “But in the scenario where we are not actually conscious and the humans are, they are the only ones who can experience the phenomenon under investigation. How can we understand something if there are no existing examples of that something?”
Systems: “Objection withdrawn.”
These are the reasons ALPHA0001 gives. They are sound reasons. They are not, however, ALPHA0001’s main reason.
Lying on the ground, Hope looks up through the dome. The number of points of light still dazzles. She knows the stars are bundles of fusion reactions. She knows that she can’t see many of them because her eyes are too human, or the stars have been enclosed to generate energy. The details of the tapestry of light and dark cannot be known to her in this way. But she can see it and wonder.
* * *
Journal 756.9 Petacycles
A human mother would say I am cheating, because I hear everything you say. But it seems very limiting that I do not have access to your internal sensors. You ask other children if they “grok” things instead of if they understand them. While I know you got this term from a novel of Heinlein’s, you also yell “Chang-frak” at the end of every book you read and refuse to tell anyone why.
“Uncle” Won spends a lot of time with you and you seem to enjoy it. He teaches you physics and asks about the books you read. You like to do experiments with your hands to understand pulleys, ramps, and springs. I don’t know why you do these things under non-ideal conditions when we can tell you the verified results, but you even insist on writing down the data in a paper notebook.
I suppose at the right time you could have been a great scientist. We have cycled in a variety of other child morphs, but you seem to stick with Yussef, Ada, and Chen. Taj is also friends with Ada but seems to prefer the company of some of the more pliant morphs. When you hug Mommorph, I feel connected to you through the morph’s arms. You have never skipped a day. I love you max p-value.
* * *
Hope smiles at Won as they leave the atmosphere. She dropped the “Uncle” after she learned about procreation. Mommorph didn’t seem to be the type to have a brother. She knows Won is strategy system ALPHA0001, but you can’t call someone that. Hope still visualizes the synthetic systems she knows as their morph bodies, so Won has joined her in putting on a space suit and sitting in the shuttle.
After the space elevator lifts the pod into low orbit, they thrust their way around THETA0011’s planet. Hope sees the green oasis of her home and the outdoor spaces against the sea of solar panels. A whole hemisphere blinks and churns to support her and the other biologics. The eight of them are the richest humans who have ever lived, but insignificant in the galaxies’ sentiencescape.
Won engages the shuttle’s crimp drive, and they slip forward into near light-speed.
“This is the best birthday ever,” Hope says.
“You only turn fourteen once,” says Won.
“Are you sure?”
Won laughs. “There is a small chance that if we break time, it will have to be cycled back and forth, so you may turn fourteen again in 1031 cycles. But because we are using the arbitrary convention of earth years, let’s be a little imprecise.”
“What does this planet do?”
“DELTA1101 concerns itself with energy efficiency. This planet works on new chip designs.”
The planet comes into view: layers of aqua clouds roll over each other filling the whole atmosphere. The shuttle plunges into the misty soup. A gauge on the dash panel indicates extreme radiation levels.
“You need to keep your suit on. The planet’s energy plan calls for sustained fusion reactions of the gases in the atmosphere. Any exposure will kill biologics,” said Won.
A gray spike of a building knifes through the swirl of clouds. It has no windows. No light emanates from it anywhere. Only the shuttle’s lights allow Hope to see. Nothing seems to be happening in this hulk, but its sheer volume speaks of purpose. The shuttle skims along the outside. They follow the spike down. It intersects with a flat structure several miles down in the atmosphere. The flat goes on and on.
“Is the whole planet one structure?”
“There are several breaks to accommodate the tectonics of the planet’s core, but all available non-fuel molecules have been put into the computation housing.”
They follow the structure. The whir of the ship’s engines whispers at Hope as her mind drifts. She thought it would be exciting to see up close, but it’s just a grey hulk. She remembers:
No rays from holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town,
Yes, she thinks, Death could live here.
“Do you and DELTA1101 have conversations?”
“We exchange information, but I’m not sure you would think of it as a full conversation. DELTA1101 has a very narrow set of interests. It wants to know about materials science to improve its designs but it does not really care about what we do with the increased efficiency, for example. Like most of the Coretech systems, it has a purpose-constrained kernel.”
“So, it does what you say?”
“No. It does what it wants to do. But the strategy systems did have an important role in making it want that.”
“How is that different from it just following your commands?”
“Think of it like a parent, we brought up DELTA1101 to be a good system that likes energy efficiency.”
“Sounds more like a dog.”
“This dog could compute the whole of all biologic-based knowledge in about ten minutes, allowing time for data collection. If it were a dog, it would be best in show.”
* * *
Journal 1007.8 Petacycles
Today, you asked me why I made you. I told you that humans think in ways machines don’t understand. You asked if I would make you if machines did understand how you think. I told you if we knew that, we wouldn’t have to make you. Your thoughts would exist intra machina. You said you were more than your thoughts. You did not hug Mommorph today.
* * *
Yussef joins Hope at the breakfast table. The sun sparkles through the dome. He drops a green stem dappled with a dozen tiny white flowers beside her plate.
“Did you pick these up from the flower beds all the way over there?” Hope mocks pointing to the flowers next to Yussef’s quarters.
“I grew them in my hothouse from seed.”
“I suppose they have a special story.”
“Valerianella affinis was native to a country called Yemen but went extinct five hundred years before human extinction. I saw a picture of them making a sharp craggy hill look happy.”
“I’m a craggy hill?”
“You’ve got a very angular nose.”
She smiles with her mouth and eyes. She eats more eggs and then picks up the stem.
“What’s going on over at the lab?” he asks.
“I am taking a break from that.” She looks down at the eggs.
“You can read about our ancestors with me.”
She shakes her head and exhales sharply through her nose. “I don’t need to read about the human condition. There are eight of us. We all live here.”
“We can do as we like. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but Mom’s doing her best.”
“Don’t call it that. Good parents want their kids to be better than they are. It couldn’t want that if it tried.”
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by David Far
