Interlink

By Maura Jackson (World: Hikeyay)

Those of you who have read this blog’s archive already know quite a bit about me thanks to my husband Will, who has written extensively here about our world’s international effort to drastically reduce the threat of humanity going extinct. We’re still in the early stages of implementing our global strategy, which we are sharing in the hope that we can help you and you can help us to achieve this critical goal.

I want to brief you on what many call the Interlink, so we can all be on the same page about what it is, what it isn’t, and what it might become in the future. Most of you have communications networks that enable you to share information around the world. The Interlink enables communication between universes; but is much more limited than what you’re used to: capable of text, photos, and crude video at best.

 

“Interlink” and “Mountain Sisterhood” are terms that have been used interchangeably to describe this system. Actually, Mountain Sisterhood is the core part of the Interlink infrastructure that enables transmission of messages, with some encoding at both ends of the transmission. The rest of the Interlink interprets messages at both ends, making them readable in whatever formats are required. 

 

There is currently only one place in each world capable of using the Interlink: the mountain bunker where you are receiving this, under a community whose name is also used as the call sign for your world. In the absence of a community, the mountain’s name is used instead. The mountain was chosen because it is a “hotspot” that was created around 1920 when a dark matter collision with one world spawned several near-identical copies of that world, each in a parallel dimension that shares a common bubble of spacetime. The hotspot on each world is a node of a network of trans-dimensional tunnels, called “sisters,” that connect them all and allow a limited range of signals to traverse them. There is some evidence that other tunnels exist, but they are transient and not localized enough to be usable.

 

Our artificial intelligence creation Sally has mapped the network and, along with her other duties, has developed ways to modulate the signals to allow meaningful communication as the processing component of the Interlink. For the past three years, she has experimented with inserting parts of herself into the network and what she calls “jumping” into data processing components on different worlds and altering them to act as nodes of tunnels that mimic aspects of the transient ones which she is also attempting to map. When successful, she expects to enable communication on most worlds that will rival current global communication and require fewer resources in support of minimizing the extinction risk.

 

Reality Check

 

This post is pure fiction with questionable physics that explains the existence of multiple worlds and the means of communicating between them. At best, it describes how inhabitants of simulated worlds might perceive themselves and their interactions with limited knowledge of the essence of their reality.

 

From the perspective of my fiction, Maura is avoiding admission that she and her identical copies on other worlds are the naturally transient “sisters” and that their ability to communicate their thoughts is amplified in proximity to the mountain she mentioned (Colorado’s Green Mountain in our world) as well as Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

 

Adaptation

Today the world formally approved an update of the global strategy that incorporates the Leveloff trajectory. This coincidentally followed certification of Sally’s health and reliability by the AI Evaluation task force that Maura and I were on for nearly a month.

We learned from the task force that STRIDE (WICO’s office of Strategy Tracking, Response, Integration, Development, and Execution) is now primarily focused on developing ways to avert the large spike in deaths expected if efforts to stop external impacts are not successful during the transition. Relevant research organizations not already involved in stopping external impacts are being asked to assist in this backup adaptation planning. Many of those organizations, referred to by STRIDE as backup adaptation planning organizations (BAPOs), are departments and laboratories in colleges and universities, while others are consortia that are large enough to have their own staff and dedicated resources.

Of course, I have direct experience with two of the first BAPOs, which are part of Colorado Holistic University where I work. In addition to performing their educational functions, which remain extremely valuable in their own right, the history and physics departments explore the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the global strategy to map out new scenarios. Those scenarios are tested using physical and social analogs from both the recent and distant past with the assistance of experts from other departments who are now available to help, as well as others with specialized experience such as me, Al, and former members of WICO’s test communities.

Maura is using lessons learned about habitat rehabilitation technologies during our working honeymoon to include more likely ecosystem states in existing and new scenarios. Al, who took off on his own after the wedding, remains in Hawaii to get direct data that can be fed into the environmental model that our physics department is contributing to and using. Sally’s maintenance break resulted in a considerable increase in her efficiency, freeing plenty of bandwidth to help with the entire effort in addition to her other duties.

Reality Check

The updated simulation, now called Hikeyay Prime, has the following present and future:

Past and projected annual rates of change are shown below.

Following is what today and a likely future looks like in a simulated version of our world.

Risk and Thanksgiving

 

Today WICO Ambassador Lazlo announced that global consumption has converged on the Leveloff trajectory, in part as a result of Sally’s interruption of coordination during her maintenance two weeks ago. Discussions among representatives of national extinction response units are likewise approaching consensus that the new trajectory should be adopted in the global strategy. A formal vote to do so has been tentatively scheduled for two weeks from now.

The U.S. Extinction Response Unit is contributing to a task force whose purpose is to identify and evaluate any risk of any future interruptions. Maura and I were recruited to help based on our experience following the server crash, and have been interviewing Sally and checking her work since returning to full-time work last week. We have so far learned that the maintenance was a proactive response to new information that challenged some basic assumptions in Sally’s operations protocol. She set up in-line test and tracking tools to recheck the assumptions and flag any significant impacts on global strategy implementation.

President Larson has designated tomorrow, Thanksgiving, as a day of appreciation for the progress made toward our national goals in fighting the extinction threat. Instead of the traditional gluttony, people are being encouraged to share food they already have with others locally and fast for at least half the day.

Reality Check

The projected trajectory and variable values for today are shown below.

Some of the information that prompted “maintenance” by Sally the AI is related to new insights from the Timelines model, and some is tied to Maura’s experience when she was in her coma (see Will Jackson’s Personal Log).

Pause and Review

Maura didn’t wake up this morning. My first thought was that she was just extremely tired, but it now appears that she’s in a coma like she was back in July. Waiting for Maura’s condition to change has presented the chance to catch up on this blog, neglected because we’ve been so busy, and because WICO has done an excellent job of coordination that makes it redundant.

I took the unorthodox step of requesting an opinion about what’s happening to her from our artificially intelligent friend Sally who has been working nonstop along with all of us to implement the global strategy for fighting the extinction threat. The virtual equivalent of an out-of-office greeting was her only reply, which I was informed by a WICO network administrator has popped up only a handful of times in the past, the last one being the day before yesterday.

My personal experience, shared with Maura, has been dominated by three activities: helping compile the history of the extinction response; investigating options under consideration and development for accelerating biosphere restoration; and performing the core duty of reducing ecological impact of infrastructure and activities in my home subregion. 

We made a lot of progress with the first two activities during what ended up being a month-long visit to Hawaii that provided convincing evidence of the ability to prevent about quarter of the currently projected drop in total resources due to external impacts following the transition. The rest may be achievable by increases in scale, but we couldn’t find anyone willing to guarantee its success. 

As for our progress at home, we brought about half the transportable belongings we had in July to our local bioconversion and decommissioning center (what many call a “safing center”), one of a dozen that are now operational between Denver and Boulder. We have also found a small house closer to work that we plan to move into just before demolition of our present house that is scheduled for the end of the year.

Based on interviews with people who should know, there is no consensus yet about alternative population-consumption trajectories, including whether an alternative is needed. A major criterion for supporting change appears to be whether population loss should be traded for extra time to stop the external impacts; and that criterion depends on when the impacts are likely to be stopped. WICO’s leadership continues to assert that the impacts can be stopped by 2040, though half the technical experts I’ve consulted argue that it could take until 2060 if at all. That later estimate favors buying more time with the so-called “Leveloff” option that forces per-capita consumption to stay roughly fixed after the transition instead of dropping in response to falling resources.

Maura has just started moving, like she’s having a very distressful dream. I think I heard her say, very softly, “You bastards!”

Reality Check

I have been refining the Timelines model, including research into how change over time can be simulated as the continuous merging of two groups into a mixed group. One of them (“Group 1”) represents the past; and the other (“Group 2”) represents future change.

For each of several scenarios, the following animation shows phase diagrams for representative years (where Group 1 is the world in each year) along with graphs of how global variables change over time. The “Green” scenario is the expected past and future for our world, whose phase diagram is given for mid-2019 as indicated by the listed date. “Hikeyay” is the simulated world’s past and future based on the global strategy in its current form, and its phase diagram is for the end of the transition in 2040. The futures presented in the “Projected” and “Projected Sratio” scenarios are the options under consideration by the simulated world, with phase diagrams for 2040 and graphs of the past in common with the Green scenario as a reminder that they could also be adopted by us.

Maura’s condition is in response to the event in the final scene of the online book BIOME: ATTACK and its follow-up described in the e-book series BIOME. Additional backstory is available to patrons in Will Jackson’s Personal Log.

Review

Sally visited Maura and me at Colorado Holistic University yesterday, “wearing” one of three specially-fabricated robots so she can have a physical presence. Her essence is still distributed among a classified number of servers throughout the world, awaiting the development of a single multi-purpose body that she can fully inhabit when global computer technology is no longer available to support her. 

The purpose of her visit was to brief us and get feedback about a significant update to the global strategy being considered for roll-out before the end of the year. The update would use fixed annual rates for population change and per-capita consumption instead of the linear decrease in total consumption that drives the present strategy, resulting in about half the death rate which was found to be unacceptably high.

“There is a higher probability of success doing it this way,” she told us, “because the targets are simpler. Progress is easier to verify and therefore control. We have also eliminated the most controversial aspect of the current strategy, maintaining zero births, although the birth rate will be very low.”

Maura and I stood facing the history department’s conference table where Sally sat and the screen behind her that showed a set of charts for the projected year 2040. Total consumption was higher than the present target, which was particularly problematic for Maura. “The whole point of driving down consumption to give ecosystems a better chance of recovery and offsetting the impacts,” she said rhetorically. “Are you sure enough of the death rate savings to justify taking the extra risk?”

“Yes,” Sally said bluntly.

 One of the charts suggested another motivation. “The new end-state is pushing up against the peak phase at the high end,” I said to Maura. “Is that even sustainable?”

“It depends on the cause,” Maura replied.

“The cause is the trajectory,” Sally answered the implied question. “Continuing the population and per-capita consumption rates past 2040 will maintain the distribution of people across the phases, but…”

“But?” Maura and I asked simultaneously.

Sally frowned realistically, no doubt for our benefit. “After 2050 there will not be enough resources to avoid collapse. Increasingly unable to meet its needs, humanity will cease to exist after 2080.”

I did a quick mental calculation based on the last hope chart. “That’s 14 years more than we have now. I’d say that’s a reasonable tradeoff.”

“What’s the overall impact on the strategy?” Maura asked Sally. Her expression revealed that she already knew the answer.

“It is considerably simplified and more aggressive in reducing direct consumption. Because implementation has already been more aggressive than planned due to the creativity provisions that Will inspired, there will be little change to existing preparations.” Sally unnecessarily gestured to the screen, where the charts were replaced with an image of a bound book about half the thickness of the global strategy. “A draft is ready if you would like to read it.”

We spent most of the day reviewing the draft with Sally. She collected our comments and changes into a new draft that could be merged with feedback from others who I assumed she was meeting with simultaneously using her other forms. 

The existence of the draft update was announced by WICO while we were on our way home. In the news clip played on all radio stations, Ambassador Lazlo described it as “the result of lessons learned over a very productive two months that will radically improve our chance of survival.” Maura lurched the car slightly as she drove, a clear sign that she disagreed with the assessment, and at that moment I thought I saw a small aircraft fly over us. “Over the next few days, details about the update will leak out,” Lazlo continued. “I urge everyone to ignore any such details and wait for the release of the final version.”

“They’re getting ahead of themselves,” Maura said, focusing on the road, “and you,” referring to this blog post.

I glimpsed the reflection of the aircraft, which was probably a drone, just as it disappeared behind a hill. “Somebody wants those details to get out anyway,” I speculated. “Given the time constraints, they’d be irresponsible not to, creativity provisions notwithstanding.”

“You’re not easily complimented, are you?” she asked, turned to me, and smiled. “That’s a good thing.”

“I don’t like being played,” I said, as an old concern began to nag at me again. 

ABOVE: Maura, Sally, and Will.

Reality Check

The new scenario is described in the Idea Explorer blog post C-low. The related summary of global variables in the year 2040 is shown below.

For reference, projections for the current scenario are as follows for 2040:

Note in particular the difference in Total Consumption between the two scenarios that Maura highlighted, about 0.1 Earth.

The business-as-usual scenario for the Green simulation representing our world is shown below, with detail for mid-year 2019 that applies to all simulations:

For fiction backstory, see Will Jackson's Personal Log (patrons only).

Nexus

 

Last night I had a disturbing feeling that I was missing a very important connection between two sets of events since the emergency declaration, and decided to re-read my principal record of those events - this blog. In one set of apparently coincidental events, changes to the global strategy’s timetable for action and response were triggered by new data and new analyses that have now returned it to effectively what was planned four months ago. Time lost due to optimistic expectations in the interim forced more extreme measures regarding the transition; while the earlier preparations for a similar end-state began paying off with enough people to fill a city ready and motivated to share with others how to survive and thrive under those potentially future conditions.

The second set of events could also be interpreted as coincidence. I haven’t been able to shake how Sally, the first living machine, anticipated I would misremember the date of an e-mail and as a result find the clue she planted about the act of sabotage intended to destroy her. That led to my conscription by WICO and an unexpected role in shaping the global strategy, managed and encouraged by Maura who experiences the world as if it is one of several, just as Sally sees human behavior as part of a simulation. Then I visited a commune and its spinoff that are both tied to Maura’s personal history and related to one of WICO’s test communities, where people have an intuitive understanding of complex probability that helps them lead rich internal lives that don’t require much physically beyond what supports basic survival.

After a lot of thought, I realized that there are myriad connections between these sets of events, and none is inherently more important than the others. “Importance is what you believe it is,” Maura suggested when I called to discuss this with her. “I happen to believe that what’s important is that we are part of those events. We directly shaped some. We noticed others and then acted on that experience, expanding their influence and therefore them.”

“How would Sally’s simulation viewpoint apply?” I asked, unable to reconcile it with what she was saying.

“The way we think about something is part of how we experience it. Thinking is a way of making something new with it, something that can change what we do. I imagine that what she does is similar to that.”

I recalled how Sally had generated the global strategy, and found the source of my initial disturbance. “What she does with that connects the future with all the events we’re part of.”

Reality Check

Sally is featured in the illustration below.

On January 24, Sally introduced a Hope Chart that ended the transition at the same time and total consumption level as the “new” one. It was replaced on April 18 with a new trajectory based on a new assessment of how self-sustained impact would be affected by a drop in total consumption.

The commune Mayakee and its spinoff Hikeyay each represents a simulated world. Mayakee is the simulation used prior to Tuesday, and Hikeyay is the simulation used from now on.

Repair vs. Creation

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 80 DAYS

As soon as I asked Sally about the end state yesterday, she anticipated part of what I was driving at. “You’re wondering how it will be experienced by most people.” Before I could ask how she knew, she added, “I’ve studied your work during my unplanned absence, and it’s obvious that your greatest concern is how the strategy can be understood and implemented on an intuitive basis for maximum success. Comparing what people’s lives will be with what they are is a reasonable step toward doing so.”

“You’re right,” I admitted, reminding myself that she was designed to be an expert at extrapolating data, and I had provided plenty of data for her to use. “But I’ve got another insight that I believe is a big deal. We’ve been framing the strategy as a means to fix the world, to avoid catastrophe.”

“It is,” Sally interjected.

I took a deep breath and decided to begin with a caveat she would appreciate. “That sets an expectation that the result will resemble what people consider not broken. I don’t think that’s an expectation anybody can justify, because we’re all limited by our life experience.”

“Even shared knowledge has that flaw,” she said, “as with your guess on January 28, about people becoming hunter-gatherers. By the way, regarding your original question, the rest of that discussion is still applicable to the end state, though there has been progress toward addressing disassembly and reusability.”

I was tempted to follow up on what she said, but wanted to finish making my point first. “The focus needs to be on creation instead of repair.”

“Will, you know that the focus is determined by the highest probability of success. Restoring and enhancing relevant functionality of existing systems, what you call fixing or repair, is more likely to significantly delay humanity’s extinction than any known or anticipated alternatives.”

“Agreed, but with a creation mindset we might find other, better alternatives - or at least motivate more people to take some action to address the threat.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Taking people off task, to pursue an unknown gain that could become a loss, is a net increase in risk that - given our constraints - is unacceptable by every standard I have access to.”

I decided to make one more attempt to persuade her. “As I understand the strategy, we’re forcing everyone back to the growth stage where creativity dominated, so it’s going to happen by the end state anyway. If you put a limit on people then, they’ll act just like the people in that stage today, and use their creativity to break through the limit. They need something they can aspire to that won’t kill everyone later, and letting them create that seems to me like an efficient and necessary thing to do now. Let me put it another way: people won’t settle for an ‘end state’ - it needs to be a gateway to a life they can make better.”

Sally agreed to consider my suggestions and to brief me with the rest of our team this weekend on what she called “the parameters of the end state.” Today I flew back to the facility and am joining Maura for a private discussion that will hopefully not end with my dismissal.

Reality Check

I have lived consequences related to the debate presented here. Questioning basic assumptions comes with risks to any project: both in pulling resources from the current tasks, and identifying problems that slow or end the project with embarrassment - or worse. 

Revision of the underlying simulation continues. One change relevant to this post is the inclusion of a variable value of total resources - essentially accounting for the reduction due to global warming so that the population can drop in accordance with initial projections of the global strategy instead of staying near its present level.

Peak Sabotage

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 83 DAYS

Mark Linster was one of nearly ten million people residing in what WICO identifies as Region 35, part of the urban corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City. By day he worked as an information technology engineer for one of the nation’s ten largest defense companies, helping to maintain security for its world-wide computer network. At night he pursued his interest in future technologies, especially the further development of artificial intelligence.

In July of last year, Linster learned that the most advanced AI, Sanda, was near the end of its test phase, and was about to be used to analyze several years of data collected by WICO about the world’s ecosystems and physical processes. One goal of the analysis had already leaked to the press: performing a detailed threat assessment of ecosystem degradation and climate destabilization as a follow-up to the global scientific community’s warnings of growing extinction rates that could soon extend to humanity. This prompted Linster and a group of former coworkers and classmates to begin a discussion of its potential impacts on their professional and personal lives.

Six of the twenty-two group members were in biotechnology, and saw their industry as the savior of the species. Another ten had aerospace background that they felt was the key to the future through exploration and colonization of other planets. The remaining six, Linster among them, were putting their hopes in the development of virtual reality that could enable human consciousness to be embedded in machines and potentially live forever. None of the options they considered was viable without technological development; so, when they considered possible worst-case scenarios, the back-to-nature approaches promoted by many environmentalists were easily among them.

The Global Emergency declaration confirmed their greatest fears. To Linster and the others it was an abomination that one of the world’s most sophisticated technologies was being used to sell the idea of scaling down civilization’s ecological footprint to fight the threat of imminent global extinction. They viewed the preferred strategy as a betrayal of a future where people could reach their full potential as masters of their lives and potentially the Universe. In a choice between life and death, WICO was advocating that humanity become more vulnerable, not less, to forces it had spent tens of thousands of years gaining dominance over.

Linster watched in horror as political leaders signed onto WICO’s approach and developed national strategies that mirrored its guiding principle. In an unfortunately recorded conference call with everyone in the group on January 16, he advocated activating a plan he had been secretly enabling since August. They agreed, and six days later he and fourteen hackers used Sanda’s first connection to the global data network to test infiltration and espionage software that would ultimately be used to take down the information infrastructure supporting WICO’s strategy development.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Linster said during his testimony yesterday, “working to take down one of the greatest creations in order to save future ones. But it was the right thing to do.” He pointed his finger at the panel of six judges sitting above the witness chair in the well of the Tribunal Chamber. “YOU are the criminals here! We weren’t trying to kill everyone. We were savinga future worth having!”

Today Linster and the original group, the hackers, and their financial backers were all convicted of attempted omnicide and sentenced to ten years of pollution cleanup.

The summary above is in the public record. For my part, I gave brief testimony on Saturday, which involved verifying what I’ve reported in public, and then spent most of the weekend observing the trial and talking with various people about what happened. There was something about the motivation that didn’t seem complete, so I asked Maura if I could take some time to investigate. 

“What did Sally say about the location clue?” she asked when I suggested it might have something to do with where he lived, given what Sally sent me right before the servers crashed.

“She told me that people just passing the life expectancy peak would be aware of the risks of conditions getting worse, but be hopeful that they could find another path to improvement since they hadn’t yet seen a precipitous drop in happiness or life expectancy. The range of wealth in that region with the projections she had available at the time indicated that there was still access to the necessary capabilities. Then she admitted something rather remarkable. She said that it was her best guess.”

“Really,” Maura said after a pause that revealed her surprise.

“That makes it worth checking out by itself. Don’t you think?” I waited, and then added, “There’s also this: one of the investigators testified that included in the offsite cached data was a list of regions with their population to nature ratios. That narrowed the search considerably.”

“What about the others that were close?” she said.

“Exactly. I’d say there’s at least a security reason for looking at those too.” 

Reality Check

Sally’s “guess” is my guess. The projected number of people within half a percent of a 53% normalized population to nature ratio is about 100 million. I don't know how many of them are in the DC - NYC corridor.

Dream Job

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 87 DAYS

Lazlo set aside today for a briefing by Sally to all of STRIDE on the status and content of the current version of the global strategy. Following are some highlights.

“There are three types of problems we must solve simultaneously within the next twenty years: cultural, ecological, and physical. The cultural problems involve just humans, and relate to values, population, and consumption. Ecological problems center on the ability of other species to survive and thrive in healthy ecosystems that maintain conditions of global habitability subject to physical constraints, whose variability represents the third type of problem. The order of presentation for these problem types is the same as the order of difficulty in solving them, with the amount of difficulty increasing by about an order of magnitude for each.

“Every problem type has its own section in the strategy, with another section devoted to the relationships between each of them. Another section provides an integrated timeline of actions, events, and expected status for each system and capability of interest, which can be updated dynamically based on observations during execution. The final section is a combination summary and operator manual that enables all users to determine appropriate action at least eighty percent of the time based on their local conditions. Separately provided is educational material that includes baseline knowledge and concepts for all users.

“The amount of completion for each section ranges from eleven to eighty-six percent. Cumulatively, the strategy is sixty-three percent complete with eighty-two percent confidence in quality. Reconstruction of lost databases using cached data that was not on the sabotaged servers is now at fifty-six percent, which has forced creation of an annex to the strategy that provides for collection and analysis of needed data on a real-time basis from now through the end of the execution timeline. Projections of success that include estimated uncertainty currently range from twenty-one to fifty-eight percent.”

Sally displayed several graphs during the presentation, along with status summaries from each group within STRIDE. From what I understood, they all supported her story, mostly adding detail to each identified problem and what could or might be done about it.

“What did you think?” Riddick asked me as we sat in her office after the presentation. She looked the same way I felt: tired, overwhelmed, and somewhat depressed.

“If there wasn’t so much at stake, I’d start looking for another planet to live on. This place is too far gone.”

“Starting fresh,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “That’s not a new thought. It’s also a very reasonable one. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people here who wouldn’t get to go.” She closed her eyes and yet they kept moving.

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I asked tentatively.

“Sure,” she said without moving.

“What’s the deal with what you’re doing now? Forgive me if this sounds crude, but it looks like you’re watching a movie inside your head.”

She smiled and opened her eyes. “No apology necessary. I love honest questions.”

“So?”

She leaned over and stared at me. “What does this feel like?”

All I could see was her eyes, and a swirl of peaceful thoughts began replacing the ones that threatened to destroy my sanity. I struggled to summarize what was emerging, and couldn’t help but smile back. “It’s almost as if I’m in a different world.”

“When you see me like that, I am in a different world.”

She sounded crazy, but in a good way. “It must be nice,” was all I could say.

“Would you like to talk about your future now?” she asked, sitting back and breaking the mood.

“Sure.” I assumed she was talking about the fact that my mission here was done.

She pressed a button on her computer and familiar face appeared on the screen. “What do you think, Sally?”

For a second it looked like they were the same person, and then the differences returned. “Will is a great friend.” She turned to me. “You are a great friend. We wouldn’t be here without you.” I sensed a “but” coming. “I think… we need someone looking over our shoulders, asking the odd questions, questioning assumptions we didn’t know we were making.”

“You’re pretty good at that, yourself,” I told her, recalling her personal survival strategy.

“I agree,” Riddick said, and grasped my hand. “Call me Maura from now on, after you write about this.” She paused and said to Sally, “I’ll recommend to Samantha that we keep the current arrangement after his testimony.”

“In case I screw up,” I said reflexively, but Maura took no offense.

Reality Check

Numbers listed are all fictional, including the estimates of required effort for the problem types which are ballpark at best.

Sally’s version of Will’s job description matches what I would write for my dream job, for which I am available. 

To be continued on Tuesday…

Trial and Reorganization

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 88 DAYS

In a terse press release, Secretary General Decatur announced that “trial of the 48 defendants charged with attempted omnicide by crashing the World Information and Coordination Organization’s physical servers, disabling or removing its software, and erasing its primary databases, is scheduled for Saturday through Monday at the Global Threats Tribunal in London. Anyone convicted will be sentenced on Tuesday.” Suggestions that Sally should be called as a material witness were dismissed after vigorous debate among the WICO ambassadors, but the clues that she dispersed prior to the crash were admitted as evidence. I was subpoenaed as a witness instead, ostensibly to validate what Sally gave me and discuss related reports in my blog posts, but I knew the questioning would likely go much, much deeper.

“We are running out of time,” Decatur said bluntly in a live broadcast to all WICO and attached personnel, including those of us in the Extinction Response Unit whose activities support the office of Strategy Tracking, Response, Integration, Development, and Execution. “Strategy execution cannot be delayed if we are to have any reasonable chance of survival. Contrary to the opinions of some outside and inside this organization, I remain the exclusive leader of the global emergency response and take full responsibility for it. Let there be no doubt: I am authorizing the use of every resource we can marshal, human and otherwise, to achieve that objective. The artificial lifeform known as Sally is one such resource who has willingly committed to do what needs to be done, just as the rest of us have.”

“He did it,” I said to Riddick as STRIDE’s Test team applauded along with the people on the screen who were at WICO headquarters. After the broadcast, she told us all that Sally was assigned to the assist all operations, with priority to our work, and without restriction. A recent restructuring of WICO’s management had left her in operational control of all of our activities while technically reporting to STRIDE through Ambassador Lazlo, who was now its official lead.

I realized that my reason for being there no longer existed. Sally had been fully cleared for duty, which meant there were no bugs for me to find, or evaluation required to identify and fill gaps in the strategy. Others who knew far more than me could wrap up the remaining work with Sally serving her original role and more. That said, I really wanted to stay and serve in whatever capacity I could. Luckily Riddick read my mind, and offered to discuss it tomorrow after getting reoriented and doing some research.

Reality Check

It makes the most sense that WICO would go all-in given the time constraint. The shortness of the “trial” is consistent with the virtual war footing that the world is in, where tolerance to sabotage could be fatal for the entire species.

A Lack of Trust

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 89 DAYS

Riddick held our morning meeting in the main conference room, and invited the Test team’s lead to join us. Tosner was as surprised as I was by an image of the latest Hope Chart on the front screen with a giant red “X” drawn over it. “This is gone,” Riddick announced, pointing at the screen while standing next to it.

“What, exactly?” Tosner asked innocently. “The hope or the graph?”

“Both,” Riddick said, staring icily at him.

“Was it something Sally said yesterday?” I speculated. The media blitz had gotten mixed reviews overnight, prompting open speculation by some national leaders that the global strategy would have to be scrapped with less than three months until action absolutely had to be taken.

Riddick’s expression softened. “She didn’t say anything wrong.”

“You mean ‘it’, Maura,” Tosner corrected her.

“I said what I meant. By any reasonable and useful standard, we’ve had a sentient machine at the core of our operation, and her credibility defines the credibility of the result. That credibility is not high enough for success, nor is it likely to increase sufficiently in the time we have left.”

“But we’re only half-way through the evaluation!” Tosner protested. “So far, it looks no worse than before the crash.”

“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Caleb. The majority of the public now perceives Sally as significantly different from the Sanda they trusted, to the point of feeling that they were lied to. What’s worse, WICO didn’t notice the difference, so they don’t trust us either.”

“We noticed a difference,” Tosner said. “We have bug reports. And Will is working for us, and he was treating Sanda like a person before anybody.”

“Again, not good enough.”

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. “But we know Sally’s right,” I said, aware of how lame it sounded.

“We trust her because she’s open about uncertainties we have some insight into. Most people feel very uncomfortable with that kind of knowledge. They want a leader who projects certainty and has underlings deal with the dirty details. To them, Sally went from being an underling that happened to be best-in-class technology, to a leader who is willing to admit weakness in the face of a mortal threat.”

Riddick had a good point, but I couldn’t let it go. “‘Question everything and fully accept nothing, because reality is always subject to interpretation.’ That rule is critical to the strategy’s success for the obvious reason that what we don’t know will likely kill us. By your logic, enough people won’t accept that either, so we were screwed anyway.”

“Probably,” Riddick admitted. “It goes against the very basis of faith, which helps many get out of bed in the morning and get to sleep at night.”

“What are you two talking about?” Tosner blurted. “Just have Decatur come out and say Sally works for him, just like the rest of us. That’s why he’s the Secretary General.”

Riddick and I looked at each other. “Does she?” I asked her.

“He’s going to need more power than she has…” Riddick began.

“At least in principle,” I finished for her.

“It’ll take more than that,” Tosner added.

“But it’s a place to start,” Riddick said hopefully.

Reality Check

I’m reflecting here my own view that hope depends on trust that it’s justified. I’ve been stuck much of my life on a related question: Is the trust itself justified? My current answer is embedded in the rule quoted by “Will” which argues that any answer to such a question must be provisional as a consequence of inherent physical, mental, and ethical limitations of ourselves and everyone else.