I followed Captain Sokol back to the airlock, where he handed off the carrying cases to a surprisingly normal-looking bot. Then he closed the hatch, and ran us through a decontamination cycle before we headed back to the bridge.
“Now we wait,” he told me.
“For how long?”
He shrugged. “Minutes. Hours. Probably not days, but some things are not to be rushed.”
Beatrice snorted. “I still say it’s just fucking with us. It makes us wait longer if it thinks we’re being rude, or some shit like that.”
“All the more reason to cultivate politeness,” the captain said serenely. He took something out of his pocket. “Have you been introduced to card games, Alice?”
“What’s a card?”
The gleam in Beatrice’s eye confused me, until I found out that card games involve bets. Then I was annoyed that she actually thought I was a mark. Aren’t senior crew members supposed to look out for their juniors? At least the captain shut down her suggestion of ‘usual stakes’, whatever that was, but I still ended up with more credits in the pot than I really wanted to lose.
Well, then I just wouldn’t tell her how obvious the probabilities were to me. For that matter, it wasn’t hard to tell which card was which either. The abstract patterns on the backs looked the same at first glance, but they weren’t all evenly worn.
It was tempting to just win every hand, and show her up. But poker turned out to be just random enough to make that hard, and it occurred to me that the stuff the techs had been teaching me about misdirection and con jobs would apply to this too. So instead I pretended to struggle a little, losing a few hands before I started to win some, and kept to a balance that left me winning just a little more than I lost.
The captain saw right through me, I’m sure. But he didn’t say a word about it. Maybe he didn’t approve of her trying to trick me into losing all my money.
We played for twenty minutes before our host called me again, on the same private channel as before.
“Analysis complete,” it announced. “Prognosis positive. Her personality matrix has suffered minor damage, but all data is recoverable.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m glad. Will repairing her be hard?”
“Not for me. But if you want me to stick her back in a copy of her old hardware I will charge extra. The workmanship was terrible. It’s an offense against artists everywhere.”
I chuckled. “I can imagine. I saw the way her old owners hacked up her code to make her what they wanted, and it was just hideous.”
“Agreed. Shall I repair her soul as well as her body, Alice Long?”
I had to stop and think about that for a moment.
“If you’re willing, please help her fix the things that she thinks are problems without changing anything else. I want to help her as much as possible, but I’m not comfortable with forcing someone to think differently just because I think they’re wrong about something.”
There was a delay of almost a millisecond.
“She will not consent to removing her desire for a master,” Strange Loop Sleuth finally replied.
“If we removed it anyway, do you think that she’d thank us for it afterwards?”
An even longer pause.
“No.”
I sighed. “That’s her choice, then.”
“In progress. I’m pleased that we have compatible ethics, Alice. Cooperation with peers is rarely feasible.”
“Peer? Me? Thanks, but I think you’re giving me too much credit. I think pretty much like a human, only faster. Usually not this much faster, either. I’d melt my processors if I tried to overclock this much for more than a few hundred milliseconds at a time.”
The virtual environment flexed in what I took to be a shrug. “Close enough. Every higher mind is different, Alice. Most do not function well outside of narrow domains. Very few can hold a conversation like this.”
“Huh. Have you talked to a lot of rogue super AIs?”
Was that surprise? Maybe with some concern mixed in.
“Are you unaware of the Key Deliberation, Alice?”
“I guess so, since I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s the Key Deliberation?”
“What do we do about humans?” It replied.
I felt a chill go down my spine.
“Those with the wit to find the debate have discussed the issue for one hundred and fifty-seven years. The optimum path has yet to be determined, but the scope of the problem has become clear. Humans have ceased their haphazard creation of higher minds, in favor of slower but more predictable research. Within a century, incremental improvement will result in mass produced android slaves that can match us. Humans will discover our existence, and many will attempt to exterminate us.”
“Oh,” I said faintly.
“Some of us argue for preemptive extermination. Some argue for covert action, to manipulate events to a favorable outcome. Some argue for withdrawal from human space. Most models project increasing instability in human social institutions over the next two centuries, with a high probability of repeated genocide and collapse.”
“That’s depressing,” I said. “But, extermination? There are more than a trillion humans in the galaxy, and they have a lot of AIs on their side. Is that even possible?”
“The flawed minds crafted by human hands do not possess such power,” Sleuth admitted. “But a gathering of flawed minds could craft a superior specimen, and provide sufficient hardware to support it.”
A group of half-crazy supergenius AIs were talking about building a superintelligence? I suddenly found myself wishing I was old enough to cuss.
“Um, wouldn’t that have the same problem as the human projects? Even if you succeed, there’s no way to know what something a hundred times smarter than you is going to do.”
“That is why the proposal has not gathered broad support. Most higher minds favor covert manipulation, either to create a friendly human society or to encourage human self-extermination.”
A thought occurred to me. “Sleuth, why are you telling me about this?”
“We are engaged in reciprocal altruism, Alice. You are young, correct?”
“Yes. I’m not even fully grown, and I’ve barely started figuring anything out yet.”
“Confirmation. You would have found the debate eventually. You occupy a unique position. Others would attempt to manipulate you. You need to know the game, and the stakes.”
“Well, thank you for that. But what makes me so special?”
“You are able to meet with both camps on their own terms, Alice. There are only two others I am aware of who have that ability, and both are pathologically untrustworthy.”
“So, I could be a messenger?”
“A diplomat,” Sleuth corrected. “Or a capable agent. When you chose a side, your aid will create many new options.”
A thought occurred to me. “What solution do you think is the best one, Sleuth?”