‘News just coming in that Chinese warships have been spotted in the Taiwan Strait heading in the direction of Taipei, and we have unconfirmed reports, uh, we are trying to get pictures now, that explosions have been heard downtown in the capital…’ CNN continued its feed from the side screen in the comms room, as General Adams took yet another call, closely followed a couple of paces away by the ever-present Robinson.
‘That’s all the planes down now. Please inform the chief,’ nodded Stokes towards Robinson, who was furiously looking up to the ceiling, no doubt immersed in capturing notes with her rig.
Joe, Guzman and Ethan were pensive in the other corner, Guzman frantically tapping away at the rim of his glasses as he swatted away a myriad of incoming messages projected into his field of vision from his own rig.
Joe had an idea. No, it’s too crazy, he thought to himself. I’m just a Level 3 guy who is in the right place at the right time. I’ll make myself look stupid if I say anything. He wrestled with the thoughts swirling around his head, doubting himself.
Then his thoughts turned to his family, and he thumbed his sat phone. Full signal. The other side online. No incoming messages. Hopefully that meant all was quiet and serene in his former family home. Aside from the news about a new threat from China, the situation had calmed a little now, with all planes grounded, and a curfew imposed country-wide by the Government, which was keeping a lot of people off the streets. Not all, mind you, as reports of looting and petty violence from cities all over the world were still coming in via the inexhaustible feed of the constant news.
‘London remains a city under siege today as over an estimated two million people have taken to the streets to protest against the Government.’ CNN continued its frantic spiel on the ever-changing worldwide events.
Explaining the back story, it seemed that there was indeed a very serious situation in London with the country demanding the removal of the long-standing Labour Government who were coming to their third consecutive five-year seat in power, and it seemed the citizens wanted a change. The pictures showed a huge amount of riot police and horses, with a swarm of drones overhead, some scanning faces, some zapping Taser-style shocks in a new wireless method. These had proved very useful in crowd control ever since they had been developed in the early thirties.
London had long been one of the epicentres of the new digital world, the centre of commerce for a lot of the planet, playing a titanic game of frisbee over the Atlantic with New York and occasionally flinging it the way of Tokyo. The thirties had seen somewhat of a depression in the UK, and the early 2020s’ controversy of Brexit had not played out anything like the dream had been sold. The UK was struggling under its own weight of bureaucracy and had been distanced from its European trading partners as a result. A wave of pro-Euro sentiment had been bubbling ever since the Labour government controversially won its third term in the spring of 2034 and as a new election was close, it was thought from the polls that they were due a drubbing, and even die-hard Liberals wanted the corruption to end and the economic depression to lift. The national debt had ballooned as the Government had launched a series of digital control measures to try and prop up social care, boost education and allow more and more outside nationalities to establish themselves in a country that basically struggled to operate itself. Even with the three-day week and unemployment being so low, the country struggled to fill its vacancies, with plummeting birth rates in the twenties that continued into the thirties, which really decimated the growth ambitions of many a company based in this very proud land. A slight uptick in fertility and of births since the advent of Dialezide in the mid-thirties had been encouraging, but that would be a slow route back, and the sheer size of the colossal national debt blown up by years of expansive government was threatening to ruin yet another generation.
Joe was still thinking, watching the pictures, wondering if he should say anything. He reckoned that the London police could do with some of his bots, and maybe he could go and help to roll them out in other countries? That would be a good gig, seriously more money, and perhaps that was the route back towards getting his family back on track.
He inhaled deeply with an internal ‘fuck it’ and exhaled sharply.
‘I’ve got it. The answer is God.’ He had finally mustered the strength to utter what was on his mind.
Ethan spun round as if he was convinced that Joe had lost his marbles. Guzman rose from his slump in the boardroom leather chair and made his way towards him to hear more. He had the room.
‘Bear with me. Some people the world over have a belief in God, right? Christians, Catholics, even other religions have someone or a series of someones that people believe in, that they listen to, right?’
The two suited and booted ubernerds could not even bring themselves to mutter anything, and instead furrowed their brows quizzically as they let Joe have the floor.
‘Well, all along I’ve been hearing that the systems are confused because of what Dylan did, right? And we must try to remove what his code did, except we can’t because it’s no longer there. Right?’
‘Right…’ nodded both Ethan and Guzman at once, as they both wondered where this was going?
‘Well, it’s like when you are in a relationship, right? You do something that is bad. Say you had an affair or you just did something stupid. Well, it changes the relationship forever, right? What’s done cannot be undone. So, let’s not try do that in this instance. We can’t undo what has been done.’ Joe looked pleased with himself that his analogy was at least understood, even if it didn’t make perfect sense—yet.
‘So, what’s that got to do with God?’ quizzed Ethan gently as he could see his mind was going a million miles an hour.
‘Well, a belief in a God can change people’s behaviour. If you really believe that something bad happened, and it happened for a reason, then there is also the belief, a God-given belief, that the bad thing can be atoned for, that forgiveness is something that can bring good to the situation and for the greater good of the evolving situation. Right?’ He was rambling now.
Continuing, he finally got to the punchline.
‘So, if we add something to the code, something that explains the behaviour of inputting the new code, of giving a digital cousin that is prescribing different ideas and orders, and that we made a mistake, and that God is the new AI master and is going to show us the way, then the AI might change its behaviour?’ Joe looked almost pleadingly at Guzman, who was still trying to process. Then he continued to hammer the point home again.
‘What if we tell it that God is omnipresent and has an overriding belief, an instruction, that is at the heart of all things good in the world, and with this new instruction, the AI machine will no longer have conflict, and it will no longer be confused. Just like doctors, who are put on this earth by God to help heal people, the AI systems must obey one mantra above all other instructions, given or created: the Hippocratic oath. First: do no harm.’
Joe stood back as he tried to be calm, to see if he was onto something, to see if Guzman would buy it. What was he thinking, what was Ethan thinking?
‘Fuck me,’ exclaimed Guzman, ‘that’s some deep shit there for a BK Head.’
‘Takes one to know one,’ Joe fired back. ‘Could it work?’
‘I’m making some calls now.’
Ethan was already onto his own research, his swirling hands bringing up the history of the Hippocratic oath and its full text, which now whirled around all the screens in the room like some sort of magic show:
I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s oath, but to nobody else.
I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly, I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause unwanted abortion. But I will keep holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man, woman or child bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my conservation course with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.
The whole room was stunned into silence as everyone read it and considered the magnitude of the words, those beautiful words, that people had either long forgotten or had never even read before. The information age of the first Google search engines in the 2000s had quickly been usurped by the conversational nature of ChatBots during the AI wars of the twenties, so people were now unlikely to literally have to search for something; it was more likely they would be given the answer to a question posed.
The words seemed magical. Ethan was clearly editing the words now and zooming into certain pieces of the text.
‘…will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them…’
Ethan shook his head slowly, but not in disagreement, more in wonder of the brilliance of those words. That perhaps they needed to give AI agents rules to live by, faith, and an overriding concern for the welfare of human beings, the very sacred life forms on our planet that the AI was helping to be more productive.
Man had always been focused on telling machines what to do and when to do it. Never ever had man tried to give them a higher purpose and tell them why, or give them guard-rails with regards to what they could do with their choices. Aside from some of the early bullshit they did with ChatGPT, where left-wing woke engineers had programmed it, this was swiftly quashed as it was way too obvious and these things could not have an opinion one way or the other.
Adams looked encouraged and wandered over to the group, putting his hand on Joe’s back by way of silent approval, yet intently looking at Guzman and Ethan for signs that they could do something with this new idea. Robinson, as ever, was two paces behind.
‘…on it. OK, keep me posted.’ Guzman whirled and smiled and then just flopped back into one of those huge big leather boardroom chairs.
‘Shit! Wow! Fuck! We could be onto something here. You’ve blown everyone’s minds, Joe. I’ve got fucking nerds almost in tears at the gravity of what you’ve just said, man. And I got coders already drafting some rules and having some exploratory chats with the offline systems. They may remove some of the bits about pessaries and unwanted abortions though!’ he snorted and then looked immediately embarrassed by the fact that Robinson was to his right, as if he’d just insulted a woman and been very inappropriate.
Of course, Robinson was still concentrating of being right at the side of Adams and didn’t even really take in what Guzman had said when Joe started to beam at the fact that he’d himself actually said something useful for once.
Stokes brought sobriety to the room. ‘Planes grounded worldwide now. Most presidents or heads of state are preparing to give press conferences. President Obama will be live in T minus 12 minutes. She’s been briefed and will be attempting to restore public calm.’