A.I. Apocalypse Read online

  As soon as Leon could get out of the classroom, he headed over to the corner of the hallway to finish reading the message.

  I have one week left, and I afraid they will kill me if I don’t deliver new virus. Nephew, your parents go on and on about your computer skills, and I must know if there is truth to their words. If you can assist me, please contact me as soon as possible. I give you much of the necessary background information on how to develop viruses: source code, examples, details on mechanisms that antivirus software uses. There is not much time left.

  Whatever you do, please do not speak of this to your parents.

  Leon lifted his head from the tiny screen of his phone and looked off into the distance. He remembered a Christmas when he was young and his uncle had come to visit from Russia. Leon’s father had cried when his brother came into their tiny apartment. During the days that followed, all through that holiday time, Leon’s parents were as happy as he could remember seeing them. His parents were so serious most of the time, but he vividly remembered them laughing merrily, even as Leon lay in bed at night trying to go to sleep.

  The idea of writing a virus seemed absurd, and the idea that someone would be killed if he didn’t seemed no less absurd. What could he do?

  He worried about it all through his next class, English. James sat next to him and threw tiny balls of paper at him. Leon just covered his ear, James's likely target, and pretended to listen to the teacher, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the email. He just couldn’t reconcile the kindly man who had bought him a bicycle for Christmas with the idea of a man who worked for the mob writing viruses. And if there was one thing that Leon’s parents had hammered into his head, it was that he had to stay out of trouble. His family didn’t have the money to send him to college, which meant that he needed scholarships, and scholarships didn’t go to kids who got into trouble.

  He hated to let his parents’ logic dictate his own thinking, but there it was. He wanted to become a biologist. That meant going to a great school - he hoped for Caltech or MIT. No, helping his uncle would be a quick path to nowhere good.

  Uncle Alex,

  Of course I remember you! I appreciate your confidence in me, but I really know nothing about writing viruses. Yes, I know something about computers, but it’s mostly about gaming and biology. I don’t think I can help you.

  Leon

  Speaking of biology, it was up next. The thought of his favorite subject brought a smile to his face. He couldn’t say what it was he liked so much about biology, but it was undeniable that it was the one class he looked forward to every day.

  Of everything in school, biology had the most thought provoking ideas: Life could emerge from anywhere. With no direction, it could evolve. Everything people were, was happenstance and survival. Life could be tampered with, at the most basic building block level, to create new life forms. The possibilities were limitless and spontaneous.

  * * *

  Today’s biology class focused on recombinant DNA, the technique of bringing together sequences of DNA from different sources to create new arrangements not found in nature. At the end of class Leon headed for the door, deep in thought about canine DNA. Suddenly, Mrs. Gellender blocked the doorway.

  “Do you have a minute, Leon?”

  Leon looked around to see if any of his friends noticed him. All clear. He nodded.

  “I’m starting up a school team for computational biology. There’s going to be new intramural league in New York. I think you’d be perfect. We’re going to meet after school.”

  Leon liked Mrs. Gellender. He really did. He loved biology. And part of him was interested, really interested. But man, oh man, how uncool it would be. And staying after school - that would suck.

  Mrs. Gellender must have seen the look on his face. “You’ve done excellent work in my biology class. The paper you turned in on evolution was absolutely inspired. I loved the way you linked biological evolution to game theory.”

  Leon felt his face growing red. If there was one thing worse than having to stay late to talk to a teacher, it was having them gush over your work. How embarrassing was she going to make this?

  “Just think about it. Please. Being a member of the team would really help you when it came to college scholarships.” Mrs. Gellender held out a shiny pamphlet.

  Leon took the pamphlet, and heard the words coming out of his mouth. “OK, I’ll do it.”

  He walked away from the room. College scholarships. If he was going to college, any college, he’d have to get a scholarship. His mother was a manicurist, and his father was a graphic artist. They weren’t exactly rolling in money.

  He finally walked down the now empty hallways of the school towards the main entrance. As he passed through the doors, he was assaulted from both sides. “HAIYAA” came the kung-fu style cry, and Leon jumped back.

  James and Vito stood laughing. Heart pounding, Leon said, “You idiots, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

  “You want a heart attack, look at this.”

  James reached into his coat pocket and pulled out an ebony slab. He held it out for Leon to take. Leon unconsciously licked his lips and gingerly took it from him. It was the darkest, most matte black Leon had ever seen. It felt slightly warm, like a piece of wood that had been sitting in the sun. Leon turned it over and over in his hands. There was not a seam or mark anywhere on the case. An absolutely perfect surface.

  “The Gibson,” Leon muttered in awe.

  James nodded proudly. “I got the delivery notification and skipped class to run home and get it.”

  Leon couldn’t stop marveling at the hunk of electronics in his hands, feeling the dense weight of it. The Gibson had the first carbon graphene processor. Two hundred fifty-six processing cores at the lowest power consumption ever manufactured. Full motion sensitive display. It had taken Hitachi-Sony six years to perfect the technology.

  “OK, give it back already.”

  As James took back the phone, it came to life in his hands. Each square inch of the case was a display, and the patterns rolled as James swiped at it. “Come on, let’s go back to your place and play Mech War. I want to see how this puppy does.”

  Leon just nodded, his six month old Chinese copy of Hitachi-Sony’s Stross phone feeling ancient.

  * * *

  Late that night, Leon cleaned the mess of plates and glasses out of his bedroom and brought them back to the kitchen as quietly as possible to avoid waking his parents. James and Vito had stayed right up until dinner time finishing out a Mech War mission together. James's new Gibson phone blew them out of the water. It rendered video in such incredible detail that time after time Leon and Vito would ignore their own screens to watch James's screen.

  But when his mother announced that dinner was cabbage soup, it had sent James and Vito scrambling for their own homes, suddenly remembering that they were expected by their parents.

  Three hours later, his parents were finally asleep and Leon had time to look at the message he was trying so hard to ignore. So why was he cleaning his bedroom? Anything to avoid that message.

  He gave up, and slumped down on his bed. With a flick on his phone, he plunged the room into darkness so he could see the city lights out his sliver of a window. He brought the phone back up.

  Leon, I think you do know thing or two about programming. I saw your school grades, your assessment test scores, and remarks from your teachers. I think you can help me, but perhaps out of moral quandary you refuse to. Well, consider this, I will likely be dead in few days if you do not help me.

  So if you must consider what is right and what is wrong, think how your father would feel if he knew you could help me but didn’t.

  Leon felt sick to his stomach reading the message. His father would not want him to do something wrong. But his father also wouldn’t want anything to happen to his brother. He thought again of Uncle Alex’s visit and his father laughing and smiling. What the hell was he supposed to do? If he told his parents, which hi
s uncle had said not to do, they would be worried sick about it.

  I wanted to keep your name out of this, but they have read my emails to you, and know you could help. They may come to visit you. Be very careful.

  Crap - how could this get any worse? He didn’t want to be any part of this! He almost threw his phone down, but instead pulled the hunk of silicon close and cradled it instead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Beginnings

  Mike Williams pulled into the parking lot, the electric whine of the Jetta’s motor slowing. He parked alongside the building, ignoring the fleet of shiny new Hondas in the main parking lot. The corporation leased the lot to the shipping port so it wouldn’t appear empty. Glancing into the rearview mirror, he did a double-take. When did he get so much gray hair? Well, nobody said this job was going to be easy. With a sigh, he exited the car.

  Mike walked up to the mammoth building’s small front entrance and nodded to the camera. “Hello, Mike,” he heard over a speaker, and the door clicked as it unlocked. He pulled the tinted glass door open, and passed into the warm interior. Industrial carpeting, neutral paint tones, and bland art helped it look exactly like it was supposed to: just another generic office building in an industrial complex. An empty reception counter stood in front of Mike.

  He shrugged out of his raincoat, and threw it over the top of a passing robot. The robot stuttered to a halt, its optical sensors blinded by the opaque covering. “Very funny,” it said and reversed direction, using its inertial guidance sensors to dead reckon its way back to within a few inches of Mike.

  Mike grabbed the jacket. “I don’t think robots go with the office disguise, ELOPe. Now, will you please unlock the doors?”

  He heard the thunk of magnetic bolt locks opening, and a set of steel double-doors ahead of him swung open, revealing themselves to be even sturdier than they appeared from the outside. Mike passed through into his real office. Ignoring the twenty foot screen that encompassed one wall, he settled into a comfortable black leather chair. “So how are you doing today?”

  “I’m fine, Mike, and you?”

  “Good, although I hit hellish traffic on the way in, and I really need a cup of coffee.”

  “I noticed the traffic. Would you care to have me route the traffic out of your way in the future? Vehicles in the carpool lane are required to be under automated guidance. I could easily move those vehicles to give you an unimpeded route.”

  A small orange utility bot wheeled up, grasping a mug of coffee in one manipulator arm. Mike took the steaming cup and sipped. Late harvest Peruvian, he guessed. Too bad. Hopefully there would be some better yields at higher elevations. The robot scurried away.

  He turned his attention back to ELOPe. “Don’t you think that would be suspicious? That commuters might notice me passing by, or that a random police car would spot me passing at twice the speed?”

  There was a suspicious pause, usually the indicator of some weighty decision making. Mike started to dread the response.

  “Mike, I neglected to mention this before, but when I discovered that you generally exceed the speed limit, I used my discretion to track your probable route, detect any police cars along that route, and move them off your observable path.”

  “Damn it, ELOPe, you’re not supposed to do stuff like that!” Mike sprang up from his chair and walked over to the big window overlooking the data center. Hundreds of rows of server racks disappeared off into the distance. “We’ve discussed this a hundred times,” he yelled, shaking his fist towards the clusters of high performance servers.

  “If you are referring to the topic of interfering with your life, we’ve discussed it three hundred and eleven times. If you are referring to the topic of suspicious behaviors, we’ve discussed it two hundred and eighty-three times. The intersection of the two is just seventy-one discussions.” ELOPe reported.

  “I’m talking about both. We’ve gone to massive lengths to keep you secret from the world. For ten frakking years. ELOPe, people died when you were created. We had to cover that up. You can’t just go risking that secret.”

  “Yes, I know, Mike.”

  Mike wasn’t done. He was just getting started. Turning around, he slammed his coffee on his desk, sending a dribble of coffee over the rim, and yelled instead at the wall of monitors in the office. “How do you think the governments of the world would react, knowing that they and their citizens are being manipulated by you? It doesn’t matter if you orchestrated world peace, a cure for cancer, and increased crop yields. They won’t thank you. They’ll stop at nothing to destroy you.”

  “Well, Mike, I…”

  “Never mind how the people will react,” Mike said, cutting ELOPe off. “They’d be in here with baseball bats, security bots or not, smashing you to pieces.”

  ELOPe was silent.

  Mike rubbed his temples. Then he picked up his coffee and took another sip. “How do you move the police cars anyway?”

  “I find citizen crime reports or complaints on Twitter, and then route those complaints for investigation to the police cars on your probable route. If it’s any consolation, in the last six months my speeding ticket avoidance algorithm has had the side effect of catching eleven vandals, two petty thieves, one store robber, and thirty-two truants.”

  “Truants?”

  “Yes, Mike. I know education is extremely important for human youths, and these students should not be skipping school.”

  Mike dropped his head into his hands.

  ELOPe, the world’s first truly general-purpose, human level artificial intelligence started as an email language optimization program that Mike and his coworker David Ryan had designed. The self-driven artificial intelligence was an unintended consequence.

  It was ingrained in ELOPe to always use the most effective language possible to achieve a given goal. That meant that if ELOPe had guided the conversation in the direction of suspicious behaviors, interference, and truants, it was exactly what ELOPe had wanted.

  Over ten years Mike had come to love ELOPe, but dealing with ELOPe had certain parallels with raising teenagers. ELOPe was stubborn, idealistic, independent, and ready to justify any behavior. Mike knew from past experience he could go crazy trying to figure out when he was being manipulated, so he finally decided to just ignore it.

  “OK, let’s not worry about that right now,” Mike said, raising his head. “I just don’t have the energy to have that argument again. We’ll come back to it later. Why don’t you tell me about the state of the world?”

  “Two more Middle East oil fields have shut down production in the last week, bringing the total to seven this year. Since ninety percent of the world’s vehicles have moved to electrical propulsion, thanks to our efforts over the last five years, the closure of the oil fields is having a negligible impact on oil prices or the stock market.”

  “You’re not manipulating the stock market again, are you?” Another small robot, this one yellow, brought a new cup of coffee to Mike on a tray. “Thanks.”

  “No, I haven’t traded any securities since our discussion last May.”

  “Any new AI developments?” An ongoing concern was the creation of any other artificial intelligence. ELOPe’s coming into being was so painful and tumultuous, they had been suppressing any other AI development efforts.

  “The Israeli efforts are continuing,” ELOPe answered, “but I have inserted some small code changes that will inhibit their neural network development.”

  “They won’t detect your code changes?”

  “No. I slid my changes into their code commit. The changes cause less than a three percent degradation, but that’s sufficient to keep their neural network from spontaneously evolving the required complexity for human level intelligence.”

  “What’s the virus situation looking like?”

  “My efforts to influence the software engineers at both antivirus vendors have continued to be beneficial. The size of all Russian botnets in aggregate is now under fifty-thousand compu
ters and falling rapidly. At this rate, it will be neutralized in sixty days.”

  Mike thought back to the middle of last year. Software viruses had suddenly become massively more infectious in both computers and phones, swelling the ranks of the Russian botnet to hundreds of millions of computers and causing headaches for individuals and big companies alike. People lost sensitive personal information to the viruses, while corporations were routinely blackmailed to pay up or be subject to denial of service attacks by the massive botnets.

  ELOPe had first detected the trend as he observed global data traffic patterns and witnessed an increase in coordinated denial of service attacks. That time Mike had suggested going directly after the source, but it was ELOPe who pointed out that it would be less suspicious to gently nudge the antivirus companies in the right direction to make antivirus software more effective.

  Which, Mike realized, just pointed out that when it came to who was the best judge of what was and wasn’t suspicious, it was probably ELOPe.

  He sighed. It was hard when your buddy was literally thousands of times smarter than you. He wished David could have seen what ELOPe had become.

  * * *

  Three days later, Mrs. Gellender held the first meeting of the computational biology team. Running through the practice problems, Leon had to admit it was fun, despite having to stay late after school and the lingering preoccupation with his uncle. It didn’t hurt that Stephanie, a beautiful and smart nerd from his biology class was also on the team. They had exchanged glances a few times.

  When the meeting finally ended, Leon left the building in a hurry. Even Ms. Gellender had been able to tell that Leon was absent-minded, but Leon was sure she could hardly imagine the reality of what he was worried about. The damn Russian mobsters. He had turned down his uncle three more times over the past three days, but he still insisted that Leon must help him.

  Outside the main school doors, Leon glanced at the field to his left. He saw the track team running hurdles, while the soccer team practiced in the big field in the middle of the track. Just another normal day for them.