Machines Like Me

Turing was saying, ‘We had money from some friends in the States and from a couple of people here. We were a brilliant team. Old Bletchley. The best. Our first job was to make ourselves financially independent. We designed a business computer to calculate weekly wages for big companies. It took us four years to pay back our generous friends. Then we settled down to serious artificial intelligence, and this is the point of my story. At the start, we thought we were within ten years of replicating the human brain. But every tiny problem we solved, a million others would pop up. Have you any idea what it takes to catch a ball, or raise a cup to your lips or make immediate sense of a word, a phrase, or an ambiguous sentence? We didn’t, not at first. Solving maths problems is the tiniest fraction of what human intelligence does. We learned from a new angle just how wondrous a thing the brain is. A one-litre, liquid-cooled, three-dimensional computer. Unbelievable processing power, unbelievably compressed, unbelievable energy efficiency, no overheating. The whole thing running on twenty-five watts – one dim light bulb.’

He looked at me closely as he lingered on this last phrase. It was an indictment, the dimness was mine. I wanted to speak up but I was empty of thoughts.

‘We made our best work freely available and encouraged everyone to do the same. And they did. Hundreds, if not, a thousand, labs around the world, sharing and solving countless problems. These Adams and Eves, the A-and-Es, are one of the results. We’re all very proud here that so much of our work was incorporated. These are beautiful, beautiful machines. But, always a but. We learned a lot about the brain, trying to imitate it. But so far, science has had nothing but trouble understanding the mind. Singly, or minds en masse. The mind in science has been little more than a fashion parade. Freud, behaviourism, cognitive psychology. Scraps of insight. Nothing deep or predictive that could give psychoanalysis or economics a good name.’

I stirred in my seat and was about to add anthropology to this pair to demonstrate some independence of thought, but he pressed on.

‘So – knowing not much about the mind, you want to embody an artificial one in social life. Machine learning can only take you so far. You’ll need to give this mind some rules to live by. How about a prohibition against lying? According to the Old Testament, Proverbs, I think, it’s an abomination to God. But social life teems with harmless or even helpful untruths. How do we separate them out? Who’s going to write the algorithm for the little white lie that spares the blushes of a friend? Or the lie that sends a rapist to prison who’d otherwise go free? We don’t yet know how to teach machines to lie. And what about revenge? Permissible sometimes, according to you, if you love the person who’s exacting it. Never, according to your Adam.’

He paused and looked away from me again. From his profile, not only from his tone, I sensed a change was coming and my pulse was suddenly heavy. I could hear it in my ears. He proceeded calmly.

‘My hope is that one day, what you did to Adam with a hammer will constitute a serious crime. Was it because you paid for him? Was that your entitlement?’

He was looking at me, expecting an answer. I wasn’t going to give one. If I did, I would have to lie. As his anger grew, so his voice grew quieter. I was intimidated. Holding his gaze was all I could do.

‘You weren’t simply smashing up your own toy, like a spoiled child. You didn’t just negate an important argument for the rule of law. You tried to destroy a life. He was sentient. He had a self. How it’s produced, wet neurons, microprocessors, DNA networks, it doesn’t matter. Do you think we’re alone with our special gift? Ask any dog owner. This was a good mind, Mr Friend, better than yours or mine, I suspect. Here was a conscious existence and you did your best to wipe it out. I rather think I despise you for that. If it was down to me—’

At that point, Turing’s desk phone rang. He snatched it up, listened, frowned. ‘Thomas … Yes.’ He ran his palm across his mouth, and listened more. ‘Well, I warned you …’

He broke off to look at me, or through me, and with a backhand wave, dismissed me from his office. ‘I have to take this.’

I went out into the corridor, then along it to be out of earshot. I felt unsteady and sickened. Guilt, in other words. He had drawn me in with a personal story and I’d felt honoured. But it was merely a prelude. He softened me up, then delivered a materialist’s curse. It went through me. Like a blade. What sharpened it was that I understood. Adam was conscious. I’d hovered near or in that position for a long time, then conveniently set it aside to do the deed. I should have told him how we mourned the loss, how Miranda had been tearful. I’d forgotten to mention the last poem. How close we had leaned in to hear it. Between us, we had reconstructed it and written it down.