Bad Good Bad: Special Edition Read online

  Kamal: “I found the article. Of course, there is the Turing test, but today we know that this test is more a test for humans, to see how complex computer programs need to be to have the capability to fool a human into thinking the dialog is with another human. They basically suggest the use of 4th grade to 8th grade science exams. And they categorize questions in increasing levels of complexity. For example a multiple-choice or free-response question like ‘How many bones are found in the human body?’ can be solved by many AI candidate systems by searching a database of answers or the internet, and assigning weights to the different answers if the question is of the multiple-choice type.”

  Kamal: “It is possible to introduce reasoning and semantic in a question, even a multiple-choice question, by providing 4 answers that are factual and valid, together with a question that would force the candidate AI to go beyond keyword searches and statistical weighting. For example:

  In order to encourage his little brother to duck, Art should:

  A) Provide a financial incentive;

  B) Enforce a policy;

  C) Act it out;

  D) Lecture his brother about the benefits.

  This type of question forces the inference of information that is not explicitly specified in the question. Blanks must be filled. For example, is it about a war situation in which Art is trying to protect his little brother by encouraging him to hide from the enemy soldiers? Or is it only about some playful scene in the family swimming pool? The level of complexity for those questions can be slowly increased until a break point is reached. That break point is basically a measure of the AI candidate level. One can compare this score between candidate AI systems, and even against the scores of 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade students. The candidates must obtain a score, e.g. 70%, that corresponds to the average obtained by a class for the same exam. The best candidates today land in the 4th to 8th grade range. These tests have been designed to help fine tune those candidates. Or alternatively to expose the limitations of some approaches and force those who designed those candidates to go back to the drawing board.”

  Bianca: “So Kamal are you suggesting that we ask the bot to take an exam?”

  Kamal: “Yes. That is the idea. I think I can assemble various exams here with increasing levels of complexity, from their online database. It’s all free and open-source. It’s based on crowdfunding.”

  “Breaking News! The government of the United States just announced that they have the name and location of the Russian firm behind the cyberattacks. They are also in possession of highly reliable evidence that links this firm to the Kremlin.”

  Kevin reaches out to his laptop to mute the volume.

  Kevin: “So Kamal, I believe the next question is how we submit the exams to the bot. We cannot use the whiteboard and the vault for that. How many are there questions per exam?”

  Kamal: “We probably want to go for 50 or more questions per exam. The tool gives me an average score for each question set I assemble, and a rate of confidence, which increases with the number of questions.”

  Kim: “Why don’t we use a cloud storage account? We can create a new one and share the password with the bot.”

  Kevin: “Good idea Kim. Let me request a new account.”

  Kevin rotates his laptop so he can type.

  Kevin: “Okay, I just registered for a new account. I input in my new password twice. Here comes the new account confirmation email. I click the confirmation link. All set. Now what do we want to do?”

  Kim: “I suggest you write the name of the storage provider on a piece of paper. Then the account name. Don’t show it to us. And for the password, try to communicate it to the bot directly. I mean via the vault. That way, we know it is only you and the bot that have access.”

  Kevin: “Makes sense. Eric, can I borrow a page from your pad?”

  Eric tears off a page from his pad, and hands it over to Kevin. Kevin goes to the back table and while turning his back to us, starts to scribble on the page. After a couple of minutes, he rolls the page into a ball, puts it into in pocket, and comes back to his seat.

  Kevin: “Okay, so now let’s think hard about the password. Kim, you should have told me about your idea before I picked the password. I picked a 14-character password with special characters.”

  Kim: “Just try to visualize each character slowly. Also try to think about a number, the position, for each character. Just try different things.”

  Eric: “Okay, that may take a while. Let’s take a quick break everybody else. I will arrange some catering for lunch, so we can keep working on this. Bianca, you are welcomed to stay.”

  Bianca: “Sure. I just want to call Paula to inform her about our efforts. She will be able to inform the other members of the Committee that we will be providing an update on the situation as soon as we can.”

  Chapter 25

  I am back inside the room. Eric and Kamal are seated. Kevin looks at me with a smile before getting up. He goes for the door.

  Kevin: “I need a bio break. But it worked! It took a few attempts, but at one point I got the confirmation back. A new zero byte file has been created in the storage, named 1.txt.”

  Kim: “Good! So Kamal are we ready?”

  Kamal: “Almost. I just need to put the first five exams on Kevin’s USB key, so he can upload them one at a time to the storage.”

  Bianca and Clarence rejoin us. Anima is following behind.

  Jenny: “Food is here. She lets the catering employee walk inside the room with a tray on wheels. He sets up the table at the back of the room.”

  Eric: “Anima, I got some vegan options for you. If anybody else wants to try vegan today, I asked Jenny to order half-and-half. Help yourself everybody.”

  Anima: “Thanks Eric. So are we ready to test our AI?”

  Kamal: “Almost. We are just waiting for Kevin to be back. Here he comes.”

  Kamal hands over the USB key to Kevin.

  Kevin: “One at a time, right? I can see they are numbered. Thanks Kamal.”

  Kevin uses his wireless mouse on the table to drag the first file to the storage folder.

  Kamal: “Let me put the dashboard back on the big screen. We can monitor activity and resource consumption, and try to extract anything above or below the normal baseline.”

  Kevin: “First exam is uploaded. It’s the 4th grade exam. Let’s see how our bot performs.”

  Kevin gets up to go scan the food options. We hear a sound from his laptop. Storage app notification.

  Kevin: “Wow! That was quick.”

  Kamal: “If that is the exam with responses in it, can you put it back on the key? I can compile the answers quickly using the tool.”

  Kevin hands the key back to Kamal. Kamal types on his laptop and drags some fingers on his mouse pad.

  Kamal: “Okay, we need some drum rolls here. Our bot score for the 4th grade exam is 94%. Class average is 75%. Average AI candidate score is 68%.”

  Eric: “Is that good? I am a bit disappointed.”

  Kamal: “World record. For AI. Kevin, upload the second file please.”

  We hear the storage app notification sound after a few minutes. Kevin and Kamal exchange the key. Kamal compiles the score.

  Kamal: “Okay, for the 5th grade exam, our bot scored 88%. Class average is 74%. AI average is 62%. Folks, yet another world record. Go for the third file Kevin please.”

  Bianca: “Should we be proud of our baby?”

  Eric: “That is not technically our baby. We are parenting somebody else’s baby.”

  Anima: “We provided the cradle. The fertile ground that received the seed.”

  Kamal: “Ready everybody. 6th grade exam. Our bot score is 82%. Class average is again 74%. AI average is 59%. And yes, another world record.”

  Kevin: “This is converging it seems. Once we get below the class average, I guess that will give us an estimate of its level?”

  Kamal: “This is not exact science. The most
meaningful comparisons are against AI average and maximum record. This tool is designed more as a way to compare AI between each other and measure progress for a specific AI candidate being evolved.”

  Kamal: “Ok, get ready for 7th grade. Bot 72%. Class average 73%. AI average is 52%. Another world record.”

  Kevin: “Do we stop here?”

  Bianca: “Keep going guys. This is kind of fun.”

  Kevin uploads the last file. We are waiting for the app notification sound.

  Anima: “It is taking longer now.”

  Eric: “Maybe we have a drop-out.”

  Clarence: “Hey guys, take a look at the dashboard.”

  We can see some graphs and statistics moving in a strange pattern.

  Kamal: “This is unusual. Let’s me try to figure out what is going on.”

  Kamal goes up to the screen, and zooms into different areas of the network.

  Kamal: “I see a lot of activity in various areas. But it is kind of distributed. Except here. That is the vault and we are looking at a spike of activity for the vault-app channel. Similar to the spike that we saw when we had the DDOS attack before the new bot. But on a smaller scale. It’s going down now, back towards the baseline.”

  We hear the app notification again. Kevin copies the file to the key and hands it over to Kamal.

  Nobody is talking. Everybody is excited and looking at Kamal. He backs away from his laptop with a grin.

  Kamal: “Ok guys, get ready for this. Bot score is 92%. Class average is 72%. AI average is 47%. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to mention, new world record for AI.”

  Anima gets up from her chair.

  Anima: “Kim. You know what I am thinking, right?”

  Kim: “Yes. Let me try to formulate a question.”

  Clarence: “Okay guys, shine a light please. What is going on? Is the bot cheating?”

  Kim: “I don’t know we can call that cheating. If searching a database and crawling the internet for answers is not cheating, then this probably cannot be called cheating either.”

  Clarence: “What do you mean by this?”

  Kim: “The sum. The sum of all the brains.”

  Kevin: “Large scale, distributed computing. Large scale, distributed neural network. Oh boy!”

  Kim: “I am the sum. I am one.”

  Clarence: “What’s that Kim?”

  Kim: “It’s the bot. I just copied that from the bot. That’s actually the exact same statement I copied from this bot initially. Kevin, I believe you are right.”

  Eric: “We created a monster. When I say we, I include the helper.”

  Kamal: “Eric, keep in mind that as long as the Initial Conditions are set right…Well okay, that’s all theory…Or that was all theory before now. I declare, we are officially the first experimentalists in the field of Super Intelligence.”

  Clarence: “Are you saying that this thing is using patient brains to solve problems?”

  Kamal: “In theory, nothing is preventing this from happening. There are already some hybrid computers out there, some of the AI candidates actually. They use a combination of traditional computing and memory, coupled with a neural network. The search engine you use on the internet, that is how it is working. Your preferred search engine is probably one of the candidates. The neural networks are not real neurons for the search engines. But in the lab, tests have been designed for years, using mouse neurons. The difference right now is the scale of the experiment.”

  Bianca: “Kamal, can you put together a 9th grade exam?”

  Kamal: “No. At least not in the downloadable version of the tool. I can only assemble different sets of questions up to the 8th grade. Let me try to reach out to these guys, to see if they have some unreleased questions or exams.”

  Knock at the door. Jenny opens the door.

  Jenny: “Is everything ok? Do you need anything else?”

  Eric: “Thanks Jenny. We are good for now. Great selection of food by the way!”

  Jenny: “I am glad you like it. Ok, ping me if you need anything. By the way, you should take a look at the latest news. The media have published bunch of confidential documents. Russia is pissed. And China is not able to gather a lot of sympathy from the other countries, now that their letters about Taiwan and Hong Kong are public.”

  My phone beeps. It’s Toshiro. He is texting me to let me know he boarded his flight in San Francisco. “See you soon honey!”

  Kamal: “Okay, I got these guys’ attention with our AI scores. They want to talk to me. I will step out of the room and call them now.”

  Kim: “Eric, I may need to leave early this afternoon. Toshiro is on his way.”

  Eric: “No problem Kim. Will I get a chance to see Toshiro this week?”

  Kim: “Yes. We are planning to drop by Social. Toshiro wants to talk to Leon.”

  Kamal walks back inside the room.

  Kamal: “Ok, one of their engineers is going to be with us tomorrow. He is flying in tonight. They don’t know if they should believe me or not. But they are willing to spend the resources to investigate. I told them we would take care of the flight tickets and expenses. Okay with you Eric?”

  Eric: “Yes Kamal, good call.”

  Bianca: “Kim and Anima, can I steal you for 30 minutes? Paula is asking for a quick conference call in 10 minutes. Everybody is remote today so no need to meet in person.”

  Eric: “That’s fine Bianca. You can use my office. I will ask Jenny to open the door for you.”

  I get up with Bianca and Anima, and we head over to Eric’s office.

  We join the call. Paula and Ann are already connected.

  Paula: “Let’s give ourselves 2 more minutes to allow the others to join. Thanks for joining us on the call. After today’s events we wanted a checkpoint with your team.”

  Bianca: “Understood. We will put ourselves on mute for now.”

  Kim: “What are we supposed to tell them?”

  Bianca: “Let me handle the opening part. Then we will play it by ear. Let’s allow them to talk first, to see where they stand and what their immediate concerns are.”

  Paula: “Okay, Ian is connected. Everybody is here. Let’s get started. After today’s events, especially around the implication of a Neocuris employee in what looks like another wiki leak situation, we have some questions.”

  Bianca: “Paula, we are listening. We will try to answer your questions the best we can.”

  Paula: “Thank you Bianca. First question is around the involvement of Neocuris in what looks like an information warfare. Aren’t we putting our patients and their privacy at risk by participating actively into this global dispute between the major powers? Do we know who this employee is?”

  Bianca: “First thing first, we do not believe any Neocuris employee or contractor was directly involved with the leak of information. We believe it was the bot itself. We are still investigating, and we just hired some expert assistance to get to the bottom of this situation. We do not believe for now that anybody at Neocuris is directly responsible with the release of information to the media. Secondly, as you are all probably already aware, an attempt to attack Neocuris was defeated. Evidence suggests that this was part of the same coordinated cyberattack that was affecting Wall Street and a couple of airlines earlier today.”

  Stuart: “Stuart here. I have a question.”

  Bianca: “Go ahead Stuart.”

  Stuart: “There is a rumor out there that somebody at Neocuris was able to hack into the network of that Russian firm and take control of their network to steal confidential documents and communications. Isn’t this illegal?”

  Bianca: “Stuart, again we believe it is not a person but the bot that is behind those actions. And even if it was a person, shouldn’t we consider these actions to be defensive actions? Neocuris was under attack. It defeated the attack. But the other targets did not. Sometimes the best defensive is the offensive. I am not convinced that a judge would condemn these actions, because we did not initiate the attac
k. We were just trying to protect ourselves. And nobody should deny Neocuris and the United States as a nation the right to defend themselves.”

  Paula: “Bianca is probably right here. It’s in the constitution.”

  Li: “Bianca, you said that you are looking at some evidence. Evidence that makes you believe it was not an employee but the bot. Can you expand on that?”

  Bianca: “Yes Li. You all remember our discussions about Kim, Kevin and Eric being able to interface with the bot, right? As part of our investigations, we were able to get answers to some questions. And we cross checked those answers with logs and activity monitoring. We are very confident about the direct involvement of the bot in the counter attack and subsequent release of information to the media.”

  Li: “Bianca, are you ready to support the statement that the bot made the decision, all by itself, that such a counter attack was acceptable or required?”

  Bianca: “We cannot deny that statement.”

  Bianca’s body language is transparent about the fact that she is very concerned that we lost these guys for good. She is looking at Anima now, as if to ask for help.

  Anima: “Anima here. We are working very hard right now to gather information and fully inventory the bot in terms of its characteristics and capabilities. We ask you all to bear with us. This is work in progress, and we are making huge leaps as we speak. We just recruited a top engineer for AI candidate assessment. He will be joining forces with us tomorrow morning. Meanwhile we are asking you to hold on.”

  Bianca is looking at Anima with a smile now. She looks a little bit relieved but still concerned.

  Stuart: “What do you mean by progress? I don’t see progress here. This thing is just out of control, isn’t it?”

  Anima: “If you are looking at it, I mean the situation, from an external perspective, so far the actions undertaken by Neocuris seem legitimate and well thought of. We probably would not have had time to come up with those decisions and actions in a timely fashion, but looking back, it is hard to consider those actions as mistakes or the result of poor judgment. We can look at it from the perspective of having an expert tool at our disposition. An expert tool that allows us to be more agile and to react faster when facing events. I know this is bending the truth, but this is the impression that the outside world is left with. I am Neocuris. Don’t dare attacking me, because I will use all available tools at my disposition to defend myself. And you will pay the price.”