Agreements

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 101 DAYS

We had an unexpected visit from Ambassador Lazlo at our facility today. She was first briefed by Riddick and Tosner, and then to my surprise I was “invited” to meet with all three before she addressed everyone else.

“We all appreciate your help,” Lazlo began when I was seated in the main conference room. She was speaking, but I heard Sanda. “I remain skeptical that, as Caleb just joked, you found that the bugs are really features. Sanda was given very specific instructions about how to generate international, intra-national, and business agreements, and it very clearly didn’t follow them.”

“What would you like to know?” I asked, sure that she had read all of my writing about the subject and had much more information than I did.

“Sanda was a computer; a tool, not a person. If a tool doesn’t do what someone tells it to, then it is malfunctioning. If this very important tool malfunctioned, then we must assume its work product has errors. That is a fatally unacceptable result for everyone. Can you convince me otherwise?”

There it was, the ultimate and most obvious test. But… “That’s the wrong test.”

Lazlo’s eyes widened. “Not to me and most of the world.” 

Riddick was smiling behind her, which I took as encouragement to make what the point that mattered most to me. “Sanda’s primary purpose, as I understand it, was to help create a strategy with the highest chance of avoiding imminent extinction. I think it did exactly what it was told, even if the results didn’t entirely meet expectations.”

Lazlo countered, “Those expectations are a big part of success. We live in the world we have, not the one we want, and this world functions with certain kinds of agreements that drive action. No agreements, no action, and the strategy won’t be implemented. That’s failure by any definition.”

I understood what she meant. The Global Emergency declaration was itself the result of a formal agreement, a treaty, without which the entire effort might not have been launched. It was rational enough to be an article of faith that similar agreements were necessary to take the next steps. I recalled the text of the declaration in the context of what I’d learned since then, and suspected Sanda’s influence in avoiding official failure as the result of future discoveries.

“There wasn’t any requirement explicitly in the declaration that involved follow-up treaties or other agreements,” I stated, hoping I was remembering it right. “Later, WICO said that treaty negotiations would likely begin right after strategy integration, and signed by the first of April. But that was all aspirational, as I and others read it, while the only remaining hard target was strategy execution at the beginning of July. It doesn’t look good, but no one’s failed yet.”

“Technically, yes,” Lazlo said, visibly flustered, “but this is a major deviation from established protocol…”

Riddick interrupted, “I’d say what we’re trying to do is a major deviation, wouldn’t you, Samantha?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Besides, I never expected you to defend the status quo when the evidence was against it.”

There was a long silence. Tosner broke it, his voice quaking with nervousness. “As I see it, there’s a disagreement about what will work and what won’t. That’s my area of expertise. Ambassador, why don’t you let us test whether this new approach is viable? With Sanda down, we’re all winging it anyway.”

Lazlo turned to him. “I can give you until Sanda is repaired, and then I want all of your attention on full spectrum reliability tests of the AI components and behavior, followed by regression testing to identify any ways it could have failed before. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and find only a few things to fix instead of having to create something new.”

“Do you want me to continue using the current strategy as the baseline?” Riddick asked with a mix of hope and more humility than she probably felt.

There was ice in the reply, which I knew was intended for both of us. “Use your best judgment. I expect you’ll learn something of value, however this turns out.”

Reality Check

The scene rings true with my experience and knowledge of how expectation can conflict with reality.