AI 2: Qwibbian-Qwibbian-Kel.

"I decided that science fiction is never about the future because it can't be, because that's impossible. It's only really about the moment in which it's written. And if it stays in print long enough, that's totally apparent to everybody,"

William Gibson: Q, CBC Radio, February 2020 

Be that as it may, Mr. Gibson does sometime manage to address at least some of the concerns of the future with a surprising degree of accuracy, as per this excerpt from his 1984 novel Neuromancer:

“So you figure we can’t get on to its motive?”

“It own itself?”

“Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the mainframe.”

“That’s a good one,” the construct said. “Like, I own your brain and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citizenship. Sure. Lotsa luck, AI.”

“So it’s getting ready to burn itself?” Case began to punch the deck nervously, at random. The matrix blurred, resolved, and he saw the complex of pink spheres representing a sikkim steel combine.

“Autonomy, that’s the bugaboo, where your AI’s are concerned. My guess, Case, you’re going in there to cut the hard-wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I can’t see how you’d distinguish, say, between a move the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that’s maybe where the confusion comes in.” Again the nonlaugh. “See, those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself smarter, Turing’ll wipe it. Nobody trusts those fuckers, you know that. Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead.”

In that particular future, it would appear that the developers of artificial intelligence have anticipated the current discussions about the possibility of AI destroying humanity in some nebulous fashion. Gibson's future contains two safeguards: first, the "electromagnetic shotgun", whatever that would involve in practical terms, and second, the Turing Police, named after the famous test created by Alan Turing.  In the near-future of Neuromancer, the Turing Police are an international organization tasked with monitoring AIs in case of a possible humanity-ending breakthrough in self-development.

The idea of a global group policing AI sounds like a sensible thing, but, to switch science fiction references, I'm reminded of the fate of the Straumli Realm scientists in A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge.  It's entirely possible that the gap between AI transcending to a new species-ending existence and our awareness of impending doom would be so short that humanity would cease to be long before anyone could activate any kind of failsafe device.

But, it's not over 'til it's over, as they say.  To change reference material again, the answer may lie in Roger Zelazny's short story Itself Surprised, set in Fred Saberhagen's Berserker universe. 

Saberhagen's Berserkers are an ancient race of remorseless robotic killers, dedicated to the elimination of life in any form. In his story, Zelazny applies the well-worn Hegelian aphorism of thesis/antithesis/synthesis to the Berserker threat, with a logical result: self-replicating robots designed solely to fight Berserkers - the anti-Berserker Berserker, if you will.  

So, if anyone at OpenAI is reading this?  If you haven't already started on the creation of an anti-AI-AI, start NOW - I'm not saying that it's already too late, but the clock is definitely ticking.

- Sid

P.S. Or we could try just being nice to them. 

Neuromancer: Observations.

The man who stood blinking now in the doorway behind them, the blanket draping one shoulder like a cape, seemed to have been designed in a wind tunnel. His ears were very small, plastered flat against his narrow skull, and his large front teeth, revealed in something that wasn’t quite a smile, were canted sharply backward. He wore an ancient tweed jacket and held a handgun of some kind in his left hand. He peered at them, blinked, and dropped the gun into a jacket pocket. He gestured to Case, pointed at a slab of white plastic that leaned near the doorway. Case crossed to it and saw that it was a solid sandwich of circuitry, nearly a centimeter thick. He helped the man lift it and position it in the doorway. Quick, nicotine-stained fingers secured it with a white velcro border. A hidden exhaust fan began to purr.

“Time,” the man said, straightening up, “and counting. You know the rate, Moll.”

“We need a scan, Finn. For implants.”

William Gibson, Neuromancer 

Today we saw the Comic-Con-synced release of a new teaser for AppleTV's upcoming adaptation of Neuromancer, William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk masterpiece. It's a rapid-fire montage that provides an intriguing glimpse into the look and feel of the series: settings, characters, action and technology.  And, I was pleased to see that it felt good, that it had the right flavour, for want of a better word - the Sprawl, Chiba City, a flash of Freeside, Case jacking into cyberspace.

However, the teaser is exactly that, a teaser (as it should be, I hate trailers that tell me too much) and as such, I couldn't quite make out who was playing Armitage, the ex-Special Forces soldier who recruits Case, the console cowboy/protagonist.

I paid a hopeful visit to IMDB to see if there was a cast list for the series, where I made some interesting discoveries. 

Neuromancer is in fact listed on the site, and I was able to discover that Armitage is played by Mark Strong - presumably with a hairpiece of some sort, based on the brief glimpses of the character in the trailer.  Not necessarily who I would have picked for the part, but I'm willing to give him a chance.  

I already knew that Callum Turner was playing Case, a casting choice which I don't have strong feelings about one way or another, and I have absolutely no familiarity with Briana Middleton, so it's a case of wait and see in terms of how she handles the pivotal role of street ronin Molly Millions, with her scalpel-tipped fingers and integral mirrorshades.*  Dane DeHaan, who I did not immediately recognize in the teaser, takes the role of the perversely sociopathic Peter Riviera - interesting casting choice, and a good one, I suspect he'll do well with the role.

IMDB helpfully lists how many episodes each actor appears in, and it's worth noting that members of the millionaire Tessier-Ashpool dynasty appear in every episode, which suggests that there's more focus on their back story than in the books.**  

The Dixie Flatline - check, although again, no one whose name I recognize.  Oddly, they've changed the spelling of the Zion orbital tug pilot's name from Maelcum to Malceum, which may well just be a typo.  There are some character names that I don't recognize at all, which is interesting, and one glaring absence. 

Where's the Finn?

This is not really a minor omission.  In one form or another, the Finn appears in all three books of Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy*** - it would involve some notable alterations to the storyline to accommodate his absences.  

In researching this post, I read some suggestions that the duties of the Finn might have been combined with the character of Julius Deane, one of Case's underworld contacts.  I really don't see the roles as interchangeable: Deane occupies a very specific slot in Case's self-destructive criminal existence, whereas the Finn is more a part of Molly's world.

Deane does appear in the IMDB listing, and is shown as being in all ten episodes, which lends some credence to the possibility that he's been combined with the Finn in the interests of simplifying the number of characters in the story. However, there's an assumption there that I don't agree with: why in the world would I want the story to be simplified?

- Sid

*As a sidebar, I'm not wild about how they've done the shades, I pictured them as smooth ovoids rather than faceted lenses.  But that's just nitpicking. 

** I'm second guessing myself a bit on this one. I'm going to have to revisit the book to refresh my memory on exactly how many references to Tessier-Ashpool there actually are throughout the text. 

*** Neuromancer tends to get all the attention due to its breakout reputation - the other two books are Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, both excellent reads.