The Turing Option

“No one really knows exactly — but we have a pretty good idea. It isn’t really just one big computer. It’s made of millions of little bunches of interconnected nerve cells. Like a society. Each bunch of cells acts like a little agent that has learned to do some little job — either by itself or by knowing how to get some other agents to help. Thinking is the result of all those agents being connected in ways that make them help each other — or to get out of the way when they cannot help. So even though each one can do very little, each one can still carry a little fragment of knowledge to share with the others.”

“So how does LAMA help them share?” Brian had listened with complete concentration, taking in every word, analyzing and understanding.

“It does this by combining an Expert System shell with a huge data base called CYC — for encyclopedia. All previous Expert Systems were based on highly specialized knowledge, but CYC provides LAMA with millions of fragments of common sense knowledge — the sorts of things that everyone knows.”

“But if it has so many knowledge fragments, how does LAMA know which ones to use?”

“By using special connection agents called nemes, which associate each knowledge fragment with certain others. So that if you tell LAMA that a certain drinking-cup is made of glass, then the nemes automatically make it assume that the cup also is fragile and transparent — unless there is contrary evidence. In other words, CYC provides LAMA with the millions of associations between ideas that are needed in order to think.”

When Paddy stopped talking to light his pipe the boy sat in silence for almost a minute.

“It’s complex,” Paddy said. “Not easy to pick up the first time around.”

But he had misunderstood Brian’s silence, misunderstood completely because the boy had followed what he had said to its logical conclusion.

“If the language works like that — then why can’t it be used to make a real working artificial intelligence? One that can think for itself — like a person?”

“No reason at all, Brian, no reason at all. In fact that is just what we are hoping to do.”

7 February 22, 2023

Erin Snaresbrook felt logy with sleep — even though she had slept for only five hours. It had not been by choice but by necessity, since she hadn’t been to bed at all for almost three days. She was beginning to hallucinate and more than once had found her eyes closing in the O.R. for lack of proper rest. It was too much. She had used one of the vacant intern’s rooms, fallen into a black hole of fatigue and, what seemed like a moment later, had been dragged painfully awake by the clamor of alarm. A cold shower shocked her back to life; reddened eyes blinked back at her from the mirror as she put on a touch of lipstick.

“Erin, I have to tell you. You look rotten,’’ she muttered, sticking out a furred and tired-looking tongue. “I prescribe coffee for your condition, Doctor. Preferably intravenously.”

When Snaresbrook came into her waiting room she saw that Dolly was already there, turning the pages on a worn copy of Time. She looked at her watch.

“Patients steal all the new magazines, would you believe it? Rich patients, or they wouldn’t be here, they even pinch the toilet paper and bars of soap. Sorry I’m late.”

“No, that’s fine, Doctor, it’s all right.”

“We’ll have some coffee, then get to work. You go in, I’ll be just a moment.”

Madeline had the mail ready and she flipped quickly through it, glancing up when the door flew open. She smiled insincerely at the angry General.

“Why are you and the patient still in this hospital?

Why have my orders for moving him not been carried out?”

General Schorcht snapped the words like weapons. Erin Snaresbrook thought of many answers, most of them quite insulting, but she was too tired for a shouting match this early in the day.

“I will show you, General. Then maybe you will climb down off my back.” She threw the correspondence onto the desk, then pushed by the General and out into the hall. She stamped toward the intensive-care unit where Brian was, heard the General’s heavy footsteps behind her. “Put this on,” she snapped, and tossed General Schorcht a sterile mask. “Sorry,” she said, took the mask and fixed it into position over the other’s nose and mouth; it’s not easy to fit one of the things with only one hand. When her own mask was in place she opened the door to the ICU just enough so they could see in. “Take a good look.”