Harry Harrison & Marvin Minsky - The Turing Option

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HARRY
HARRISON
AND
MARVIN MINSKY
WARNER BOOKS
A Time Warner Company
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1992 by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky All rights reserved.
Questar® is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.
Book design by H. Roberts Cover illustration by Bob Eggleton
Cover design by Don Puckey Cover photo by The Image Bank
Warner Books, Inc.
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
A Time Warner Company Printed in the United States of America
Originally published in hardcover by Warner Books. First Printed in Paperback
October, 1993
For Julie, Margaret and Henry: Moira and Todd—
A story of your tomorrow.
THE TURING TEST
In 1950, Alan M. Turing, one of the earliest pioneers
of computer science, considered the question of whether
a machine could ever think. But because it is so hard to
define thinking he proposed to start with an ordinary
digital computer and then asked whether, by increasing
its memory and speed, and providing it with a suitable
program, it might be made to play the part of a man?
His answer:
"The question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be
too meaningless to deserve discussion. Nevertheless I
believe that at the end of the century the use of words
and general, educated opinion will have altered so
much that one will be able to speak of machines
thinking without expecting to be contradicted."
Alan Turing, 1950
1
Ocotillo Wells, California
February 8, 2023
J. J. Beckworth, the Chairman of Megalobe Industries, was disturbed, though years
of control prevented any outward display of his inner concern. He was not worried,
not afraid; just disturbed. He turned about in his chair to look at the spectacular desert
sunset. The red sky behind the San Ysidro mountain range to the west threw russet
light upon the Santa Rosa Mountains that stretched along the northern horizon. The
evening shadows of the ocotillo and cactus painted long lines on the gray sands of the
desert before him. Normally the stark beauty of this soothed and relaxed him; not
today. The gentle ping of the intercom cut through his thoughts.
"What is it?" he said. The machine recognized his voice and turned itself on. His
secretary spoke.
"Dr. McCrory is here and would like to speak with you."
J. J. Beckworth hesitated, knowing what Bill McCrory wanted, and was tempted to
keep him waiting. No, better to put him in the picture.
"Send him in."
The door hummed and McCrory entered, strode the length of the big room,
soundlessly, his footsteps muffled by the deep-pile, pure wool Youghal carpet. He
was a wiry, angular man, looking thin as a rail beside the stocky, solid form of the
Chairman. He did not wear a jacket and his tie was loose around his neck; there was a
good deal of informality at the upper levels of Megalobe. But he was wearing a vest,
the pockets filled with the pens and pencils so essential for any engineer.
"Sorry to bother you, J.J." He twisted his fingers together nervously, not wanting to
reprimand the Chairman of the company. "But the demonstration is ready."
"I know, Bill, and I'm sorry to keep you waiting. But something has come up and I
can't get away for the moment."
"Any delay will cause difficulties with security."
"Of which I am well aware." J. J. Beckworth let none of his irritation show; he
never did with those below him in the corporate pecking order. Perhaps McCrory did
not realize that the Chairman had personally supervised the design and construction
of all the security arrangements of this establishment. He smoothed his silk Sulka tie
for a moment, his cold silence a reprimand in itself. "But we will just have to wait.
There has been a sudden and exceedingly large spurt of buying on the New York
exchange. Just before it closed."
"Our stock, sir?"
"Ours. Tokyo is still open, they have twenty-four-hour trading now, and the same
thing seems to be happening there. It makes no financial sense at all. Five of the
largest and most powerful electronic corporations in this country founded this
company. They control Megalobe absolutely. By law a certain amount of stock must
be traded, but there can be no possibility of a takeover bid."
"Then what could be happening?"
"I wish I knew. Reports from our brokers will be coming in soon. We can get down
to your lab then. What is it that you want me to see?"
Bill McCrory smiled nervously. "I think we had better let Brian explain it to you.
He says it is the important breakthrough he has been waiting for. I'm afraid that I don't
understand what it is myself. A lot of this artificial intelligence stuff is beyond me.
Communications is my field."
J. J. Beckworth nodded understandingly. Many things were happening now in this
research center that had not been allowed for in the original plan. Megalobe had origi-
nally been founded for a single purpose; to catch up and hopefully pass the Japanese
with HDTV research. High-definition television, which started with a wider screen
and well over a thousand scan lines. The United States had almost missed the boat on
this one. Only the belated recognition of foreign dominance in the worldwide televi-
sion market had brought the Megalobe founding corporations and the Pentagon
together—but only after the Attorney General had looked the other way while
Congress had changed the antitrust laws to make possible this new kind of industrial
consortium. As early as the 1980s the Defense Department—or rather one of its very
few technically competent departments, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency—had identified HDTV not only as an important tool in future warfare but as
being vital for industrial progress in future technologies. So even after the years of
reduced budgets DARPA had managed to come up with the needed research money.
Once the funding decisions had been made, with utmost speed all the forces of
modern technology had been assembled on a barren site in the California Desert.
Where before there had only been arid sand—and a few small fruit farms irrigated by
subsurface water—there was now a large and modern research center. A number of
new and exciting projects had been undertaken, J. J. Beckworth knew, but he was
vague about the details of some of them. As Chairman he had other, more urgent
responsibilities—with six different bosses to answer to. The red blink of his telephone
light cut through his thoughts.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Mura, our Japanese broker, is on the line."
"Put him on." He turned to the image on the screen before him. "Good afternoon,
Mura-san."
"To you as well, Mr. J. J. Beckworth. I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour."
"It is always my pleasure to hear from you." Beckworth controlled his impatience.
This was the only way to deal with the Japanese. The formalities had to be covered
first. "And surely you would not be calling me now if the matter was of no
importance."
"The importance must be assigned by your illustrious self. As a simple employee I
can only report that the spate of buying of Megalobe shares has been reversed. The
latest figures are on their way to me now. I expect them on my desk... momentarily."
For the smallest instant the image on the screen stilled, the lips did not move. This
was the first indication that Mura was actually speaking in Japanese, his words
swiftly translated into English—while the movement of his face and lips were
simulated by the computer to match the words. He turned and was handed a piece of
paper, smiled as he read it.
"The news is very good. It indicates that the price has fallen back to its previous
level."
J. J. Beckworth rubbed his jaw. "Any idea of what it was all about?"
"I regretfully report complete ignorance. Other than the fact that the party or
parties responsible have lost something close to a million dollars."
"Interesting. My thanks for your help and I look forward to your report."
J. J. Beckworth touched the phone disconnect button and the voxfax machine
behind him instantly sprang to life, humming lightly as it disgorged the printed record
of their conversation. His words were in black, while Mura's were in red for instant
identification. The translation system had been programmed well, and as he glanced
through it he saw no more than the usual number of errors. His secretary would file
this voxfax record for immediate use. The Megalobe staff translator would later verify
the correctness of the translation the computer had made.
"What is it all about?" Bill McCrory asked, puzzled. He was a whiz at electronics,
but found the arcane lore of the stock market a complete mystery.
J. J. Beckworth shrugged. "Don't know—may never know. Perhaps it was some
high-flying broker out for a quick profit, or a big bank changing its mind. In any case
it is not important—now. I think we can see what your resident genius has come up
with. Brian, you said his name was?"
"Brian Delaney, sir. But I'll have to phone first, it's getting late." It was dark
outside; the first stars were appearing and the office lights had automatically come on.
Beckworth nodded agreement and pointed to the telephone on the table across the
room. While the engineer made his call, J. J. punched his appointment book up on the
screen and cleared away his work for the day, then checked the engagements for
tomorrow. It was going to be a busy one—just like every other day—and he pushed
his memory watch against the terminal. The screen said WAIT and an instant later read
FINISHED as it downloaded his next day's appointments into the watch. That was that.
Every evening at this time, before he left, he usually had a fifteen-year-old
Glenmorangie Scotch malt whisky. He glanced in the direction of the hidden bar and
smiled slightly. Not quite yet. It would wait.
Bill McCrory pressed the mute button on the phone before he spoke. "Excuse me, J.
J., but the labs are closed. It's going to take a few minutes to set up our visit."
"That's perfectly fine," Beckworth said—and meant it. There had been a number of
good reasons for building the research center here in the desert. Lack of pollution and
low humidity had been two considerations—but the sheer emptiness of the desert had
been much more important. Security had been a primary consideration. As far back as
the 1940s, when industrial espionage had been in its infancy, unscrupulous
corporations had discovered that it was far easier to steal another company's secrets
than spend the time, energy— and money—developing something for oneself. With
the growth of computer technology and electronic surveillance, industrial espionage
had been one of the really big growth industries. The first and biggest problem that
Megalobe had faced was the secure construction of this new facility. This meant that
as soon as the few farms and empty desert had been purchased for the site, an
impenetrable fence was built around the entire area. Not really a fence—and not
really impenetrable, nothing could be. It was a series of fences and walls that were
topped with razor wire and hung with detectors—detectors buried in the ground as
well—and blanketed by holographic change detectors, the surface sprinkled with
strain gauges, vibration sensors and other devices. It established a perimeter that said
"No go!" Next to impossible to penetrate, but if any person or device did get through,
why then lights, cameras, dogs—and armed guards were certain to be waiting.
Even after this had been completed, construction of the building had not begun
until every existing wire, cable and drainpipe had been dug up, examined, then
discarded. One surprising find was a prehistoric Yuman Indian burial site.
Construction had been delayed while this had been carefully excavated by
archaeologists and turned over to the Yuman and Shoshonean Indian museum in San
Diego. Then, and only then, had the carefully supervised construction begun. Most of
the buildings had been prefabricated on closely guarded and controlled locations.
Sealed electronically, examined, then sealed again. After being trucked to the site in
locked containers the entire inspection process had been done yet one more time. J. J.
Beckworth had personally supervised this part of the construction. Without the
absolutely best security the entire operation would have been rendered useless.
Bill McCrory looked up nervously from the phone. "I'm sorry, J.J., but the time
locks have been activated. It's going to take a half an hour at least to arrange a visit.
We could put it off until tomorrow."
"Not possible." He punched up the next day's appointments on his watch. "My
schedule is full, including lunch in the office, and I have a flight out at four. It's now
or never. Get Toth. Tell him to arrange it."
"He may be gone by now."
"Not him. First in and last out."
Arpad Toth was head of security. More than that, he had supervised the
implementation of all the security measures; these seemed to be his only interest in
life. While McCrory made the call J.J. decided that the time had come. He opened the
drinks cabinet and poured out three fingers of the malt whisky. He added the same
amount of uncarbonated Malvern water—no ice of course!—sipped and sighed
gratefully.
"Help yourself, Bill. Toth was in, wasn't he?"
"I will, thank you, just some Ballygowan water. Not only was he in but he will be
supervising the visit personally."
"He has to do that. In fact, both he and I together have to encode an after-hours
entry. And if either of us punches in a wrong number, accidentally or deliberately, all
hell breaks loose."
"I never realized that security was so tight."
"That's good. You're not supposed to. Everyone who enters those labs is monitored
ten ways from Sunday. Exactly at five o'clock the doors are sealed tighter than the
bank vaults in Fort Knox. After that time it's still easy to get out, since scientists are
prone to work late, or even all night. You must have done that yourself. Now you are
going to find out that it is next to impossible to get back in. You'll see what I mean
when Toth gets here."
This would be a good chance to catch the satellite news. J.J. touched the controls on
his desk. The wallpaper—and the painting—on the far wall disappeared to be
replaced by the news service logo. The sixteen-thousand-line high-resolution TV that
had been developed in the laboratories here was sensationally realistic and so
successful that it had captured a large share of the world TV, Virtual Reality and
computer workstation market.
This screen contained tens of millions of microscopic mechanical shutters, a
product of the developing science of nanotechnology. The definition and color of
Beckworth's screen were so good that, to date, no one had noticed that the wallpaper
and picture were just digital images—until he had turned them off. He sipped his
drink and watched the news.
And that was all that he watched—and only those news items he was interested in.
No sports, commercials, no cutesy animals or pop-singer scandals. The TV's
computer sought out and recorded, in order of priority, just those reports that he
wanted. International finance, stock market report, television shares, currency
exchange rates, only news related to commercial relations. All of this done
continuously, upgraded instantly, twenty-four hours a day.
When the head of security arrived the wallpaper and painting reappeared and they
finished their drinks. Arpad Toth's iron-gray hair was still as close-cropped as it had
been during all the years he had been a marine D.I. On that traumatic day when he
had finally been forcefully retired from the Marine Corps he had gone right over to
the CIA—who had welcomed him with open arms. A number of years had passed
after that, as well as a number of covert operations, before he had a major difference
of opinion with his new employers. It had taken all of J.J.'s industrial clout, helped by
the firm's military connections, to find out what the ruckus had been about. The report
had been destroyed as soon as J.J. had read it. But what had stuck in his memory was
the fact that the CIA had felt that a plan presented to them by Toth was entirely too
ruthless! And this was just before the operations arm of the CIA had been abandoned,
when many of their activities had an air of desperation about them. Megalobe had
quickly made him a most generous offer to head security for the planned project; he
had been with them ever since. His face was wrinkled, his gray hair thinning—but he
had not an ounce of fat on his hard-muscled body. It was unthinkable to ask his age or
suggest retirement. He entered the office silently, then stood to attention. His face was
set in a permanent scowl; no one had ever seen him smile.
"Ready when you are, sir."
"Good. Let's get started. I don't want this to take all night." J. J. Beckworth turned
his back when he spoke— there was no need for anyone to know that he kept the
security key in a special compartment in his belt buckle— men strode across the
office to the steel panel set in the wall. It opened when he turned the key and a red
light began blinking inside. He had five seconds to punch in his code. Only when the
light had turned green did he wave Toth over. J.J. replaced the key in its hiding place
while the security chief entered his own code, his fingers moving unseen inside the
electronic control box. As soon as he had done this, and closed the panel again, the
telephone rang.
J.J. verbally confirmed the arrangements with Security Control Central. He hung up
and started for the door.
"The computer is processing the order," J.J. said. "In ten minutes it will make entry
codes available at the outer laboratory terminal. We will then have a one-minute win-
dow of access before the entire operation is automatically canceled. Let's go."
If the security arrangements were invisible during the day this certainly was not
true at night. In the short walk from the office block to the laboratory building they
encountered two guards on patrol—both with vicious-looking dogs on strained
leashes. The area was brilliantly lit, while TV cameras turned and followed them as
they walked through the grounds. Another guard, his Uzi submachine gun ready, was
waiting outside the lab doors. Although the guard knew them all, including his own
boss, he had to see their personal IDs before he unlocked the security box. J.J. waited
patiently until the light inside turned green. He entered the correct code, then pressed
his thumb to the pressure plate. The computer checked his thumbprint as well. Toth
repeated this procedure, then in response to the computer's query, punched in the
number of visitors.
"Computer needs your thumbprint too, Dr. McCrory."
Only after this had been done did the motors hum in the frame and the door clicked
open.
"I'll take you as far as the laboratory," Toth said, "but I'm not cleared for entry at
this time. Call me on the red phone when you are ready to leave."
The laboratory was brilliantly lit. Visible through the armor-glass door was a thin,
nervous man in his early twenties. He ran his fingers anxiously through his unruly red
hair as he waited.
"He looks a little young for this level of responsibility," J. J. Beckworth said.
"He is young—but you must realize that he finished college before he was sixteen
years old," Bill McCrory said. "And had his doctorate by the time he was nineteen. If
you have never seen a genius before you are looking at one now. Our headhunters
followed his career very closely, but he was a loner with no corporate interest, turned
down all of our offers."
"Then how come he is working for us now?"
"He overstretched himself. This kind of research is both expensive and time-
consuming. When his personal assets began to run out we approached him with a
contract that would benefit both parties. At first he refused—in the end he had no
choice."
Both visitors had to identify themselves at another security station before the last
door opened. Toth stepped aside as they went in; the computer counted the visitors
carefully. They entered and heard the door close and lock behind them. J. J.
Beckworth took the lead, knowing that the easier he made this meeting, the faster he
would get results. He extended his hand and shook Brian's firmly.
"This is a great pleasure, Brian. I just wish we could have met sooner. I have heard
nothing but good news about the work you have been doing. You have my
congratulations— and my thanks for taking the time to show me what you have
done."
Brian's white Irish skin turned red at his unexpected praise. He was not used to it.
Nor was he versed enough in the world of business to realize that the Chairman was
deliberately turning on the charm. Deliberate or not, it had the desired result. He was
more at ease now, eager to answer and explain. J.J. nodded and smiled.
"I have been told that you have had an important breakthrough. Is that true?"
"Absolutely! You could say that this is it—the end of ten years' work. Or rather the
beginning of the end. There will be plenty of development to come."
"I was given to understand that it has something to do with artificial intelligence."
"Yes, indeed. I think that we have some real AI, at last."
"Hold your horses, young man. I thought that AI had been around for decades?"
"Certainly. There have been some pretty smart programs written and used that have
been called AI. But what I have here is something far more advanced—with abilities
that promise to rival those of the human mind." He hesitated. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't
mean to lecture. But how acquainted are you with the work in this field?"
"To be perfectly frank, I know nothing at all. And the name is J.J., if you don't
mind."
"Yes, sir—J.J. Then if you will come with me I will bring you up to date a little
bit."
He led the way to an impressive array of apparatus that filled an entire laboratory
bench. "This is not my work, it's a project that Dr. Goldblum has under way. But it
makes a perfect introduction to AI. The hardware isn't much, it's an old Macintosh
SE/60 with a Motorola 68050 CPU and a data-base coprocessor that increases its
execution speed by a factor of 100. The software itself is based on an updated version
of a classic Self-Learning Expert System for renal analysis."
"Just hold it there, son! I don't know what a renal is. I know a little about Expert
Systems, but what was it you said—a Self-Learning Expert System? You are going to
have to go back and start at square A if you don't want to lose me."
Brian had to smile at this. "Sorry. You're right, I better go back to the beginning.
Renal refers to kidney functions. And Expert Systems, as you know, are knowledge-
based programs for computers. What we call computer hardware is the machinery that
just sits there. Turn off the electricity switch and all you have are a lot of expensive
paperweights. Turn it on and the computer has just enough built-in programming to
test itself to see if it is working all right, then it prepares to load in its instructions.
These computer instructions are called software. These are the programs that you put
in to tell the hardware what to do and how to do it. If you load in a word processing
program you can then use the computer to write a book. Or if you load a bookkeeping
program the same computer will do high-speed accountancy."
J.J. nodded. "I'm with you so far."
"The old, first-generation programs for Expert Systems could each do only one sort
of thing, and one thing only—such as to play chess, or diagnose kidney disease, or
design a computer circuit. But each of those programs would do the same thing over
and over again, even if the results of doing so were unsatisfactory. Expert Programs
were the first step along the road to AI, artificial intelligence, because they do think—
in a very simple and stereotyped manner. The self-learning programs were the next
step. And I think my new learning-learning type of program will be the next big step,
because it can do so much more without breaking down and getting confused."
"Give me an example."
"Do you have a languaphone and a voxfax in your office?"
"Of course."
"Then there are two perfect examples of what I am talking about. Do you take calls
from many foreign countries?"
"Yes, a good number. I talked with Japan quite recently."
"Did the person you were talking to hesitate at any time?"
"I think so, yes. His face sort of froze for an instant."
"That was because the languaphone was working in real time. Sometimes there is
no way to instantly translate a word's meaning, because you can't tell what the word
means until you have seen the next word—like the words 'to,' 'too,' and 'two.' It's the
same with an adjective like 'bright,' which might mean shining or might mean intelli-
gent. Sometimes you may have to wait for the end of a sentence—or even the next
sentence. So the languaphone, which animates the face, may have to wait for a
complete expression before it can translate the Japanese speaker's words into
English—and animate the image to synchronize lip movements to the English words.
The translator program works incredibly fast, but still it sometimes must freeze the
image while it analyzes the sounds and the word order in your incoming call. Then it
has to translate, again, into English. Only then can the voxfax start to transcribe and
print out the translated version of the conversation. An ordinary fax machine just
makes a print of whatever is fed into a fax machine at the other end of the connection.
It takes the electronic signals that it receives from the other fax and reconstructs a
copy of the original. But your voxfax is a different kind of bird. It is not intelligent—
but it uses an analytical program to listen to the translated or English words of your
incoming telephone calls. It analyzes them, then compares them with words in its
memory and discovers what words they make up. Then it prints out the words."
"Sounds simple enough."
Brian laughed. "It is one of the most complex things that we have ever taught
computers to do. The system has to take each Japanese element of speech and
compare it to stored networks of information about how each English word, phrase or
expression is used. Thousands of man-hours of programming have been done to
duplicate what our brains do in an instant of time. When I say 'dog' you know
instantly what I mean, right?"
"Of course."
"Do you know how you did it?"
"No. I just did it."
"That I just did it is the first problem faced in the study of artificial intelligence.
Now let's look at what the computer does when it hears 'dog.' Think of regional and
foreign accents. The sound may be closer to dawg, or daw-ug, or any other countless
variations. The computer breaks down the word into composite phonemes or sounds,
then looks at other words you have recently said. It compares with sounds,
relationships, and meanings it holds in memory, then uses a circuitry to see if its first
guesses make sense; if not it starts over again. It remembers its successes and refers
back to them when it confronts new problems. Luckily it works very, very fast. It may
have to do thousands of millions of computations before it types out 'dog.' "
"I'm with you so far. But I don't see what is expert about this voxfax system. It
doesn't seem to be any different from a word processing system."
"But it is—and you have put your finger on the basic difference. When I type the
letters D-O-G into an ordinary word processor, it simply records mem in memory. It
may move them around, from line to line, stretch them out to fit a justified line or
type them out when so instructed—but it is really just inflexibly following
unchanging instructions. However, your languaphone and your voxfax program are
teaching themselves. When either of them makes a mistake it discards the mistake,
then tries something else—and remembers what it has done. This is a first step in the
right direction. It is a self-correcting learning program."
"Then this is your new artificial intelligence?"
"No, this is only a small step that was made some years ago. The answer to
developing true artificial intelligence is something completely different."
"What is it?"
Brian smiled at the boldness of the question. "It is not that easy to explain—but I
can show you what I have done. My lab is right down here."
He led the way through the connected laboratories. It all appeared very
unimpressive to Beckworth, just a series of computers and terminals. Not for the first
time he was more than glad to be at the business end to this enterprise. Much of the
apparatus was turned on and running, though unattended. As they passed a bench
mounted with a large TV screen he stopped dead.
"Good God! Is that a three-dimensional TV picture?"
"It is," McCrory said, turning his back on the screen and frowning unhappily. "But I
wouldn't look at it for too long if I were you."
"Why not? This will revolutionize the TV business, give us a world lead..." He
摘要：

HARRYHARRISONANDMARVINMINSKYWARNERBOOKSATimeWarnerCompanyWARNERBOOKSEDITIONCopyright©1992byHarryHarrisonandMarvinMinskyAllrightsreserved.Questar®isaregisteredtrademarkofWarnerBooks,Inc.BookdesignbyH.RobertsCoverillustrationbyBobEggletonCoverdesignbyDonPuckeyCoverphotobyTheImageBankWarnerBooks,Inc.12...

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