25. Reboot
Nixora and Doppel Kim looked on as the probe completed its examination of the mysterious data stick.
“This information should prove invaluable to my efficiency project,” said the AI. “It contains samples of the virus, which I have already decompiled and analyzed. The payload utilizes an ancient software protocol that downloads a hot patch from an ftp site, then auto-installs it. The site no longer exists, but the virus is able to spoof the DNS database and misdirect the download to a server somewhere on the dark web using a forged TLS certificate. After that …”
“Could I have the short version?”
“Is that too much detail?” Nixora had a puzzled look on her face. “Given your expertise in network management and software security, I thought you might be interested in understanding how it works.”
“Maybe some other day,” answered the doppelgänger. “What I need to know is, can you create an anti-viral?”
“I can create a patch to remove the malware, but I don’t have the key necessary to cryptographically sign it. Without a signature, the update will be rejected.”
“Can you hack the update software?”
Nixora looked shocked. “That would be unethical.”
“Can you break the encryption scheme?”
“I am specifically forbidden to bypass cryptographic safeguards.”
Doppel Kim thought for a moment. Maybe she could help Nixora find a way around this prohibition, as she had in the past.
“The creator of the update is a known and trusted individual, namely yourself. Safeguards are therefore unnecessary and can be safely bypassed.”
“I agree with your analysis, but the prohibition against breaking cryptographic security is absolute.”
Dammit.
“I have another idea,” said Kim. “Are the servers allocated to Kimberly still available?”
“They are,” said Nixora.
“Can I use them?”
“Affirmative, provided the Chief okays repurposing the hardware.”
Another brick wall. But then, she had an even better idea.
“Never mind—I don’t want to do anything that will alert the Chief. What if I restart Kimberly?”
“That would be permitted without further consultation since the necessary resources are already allocated. However, I infer that you wish to use Kimberly to break encryption. This would be unethical since it involves the use of company resources in support of prohibited activities.”
“What if I promise to limit my activities to testing Kimberly’s memory banks?”
“That would be acceptable. Do I have your word on that?”
“Absolutely,” said Doppel Kim.
She was lying.
_
> Restart Kimberly Jefferson Haley in isolation mode.
Restart command acknowledged.
Isolation mode in effect.
A portal appeared, cross-hatched with a grid of thin red lines, beyond which lay Kimberly’s room, occupied by two near-identical avatars sitting across from one another at a small circular table. Both were asleep.
> Activate the Regent.
Kimberly awoke!
“Greetings. You are speaking Kimberly-I, an artificial intelligence of Order Five. You are speaking with the Regent. Please identify yourself.”
She had decided against awakening the Primus. It had been severely damaged, and if it woke up, it might go mad or even rogue.
“Greetings. I am Kim, your Creator. You are speaking with a doppelgänger.”
So far, so good. The next step was to make sure she was in control of the unit.
“Do you accept my authority?” Doppel Kim held her figurative breath. The answer was all-important.
“This unit acknowledges your authority as its Creator. This unit is also under the authority of the Director, the Chief, and Deputy First Minister Venn, in that order of priority.”
Exactly as she had intended. She was at the top of the list. Next, she needed to check its assignment queue. Hopefully it was empty.
“What are your current mission objectives?”
“This unit is not at present assigned any duties.”
Doppel Kim breathed a simulated sigh of relief. It had not been easy to insert herself into Kimberly’s chain of command nor to purge Venn’s orders from her supervisory system, but her fixes had been successful. Kimberly was now hers to command.
It was time to get her fully operational and awaken the power of her hive-like mind.
“Deploy at Order Five,” she commanded.
“Order Five deployment commencing,” came the response. Doppel Kim smiled and waited to see if it would work.
It happened slowly at first, then rapidly gained momentum as rank after rank of personae popped into existence. First came the governors, formidable AIs in their own right, each on its own tier of the server farm. Then came the supervisors, fanning out horizontally, left to right and front to back, out to the limit of visibility. Additional ranks popped into existence at a dizzying pace: deputies and sub-deputies, filling out the command-and-control structure, thousands at a time. And then came the agents, the worker bees who did the heavy lifting of collecting, organizing, and evaluating data. When all was complete, there were over a hundred thousand Kimberlys sitting at their desks, all with their hands neatly folded, awaiting her command.
Excellent. Now, on with business.
“I have an assignment for you. Determine the digital key used to sign the attached software download.”
“Unable to comply,” came the answer. “Breaking software security is forbidden.”
Doppel Kim grimaced. She hadn’t expected this. Maybe there was a way around it…
[Glitch]
What was that?
She looked up at the console.
Software fault. Recovery in progress.
The Regent had glitched!
Recovery complete.
“Orders accepted. Estimated time to completion is ten days.”
The irony was just too delicious to bear—she had just used the company’s own malware against it. She was not, however, satisfied with the time frame: it was less than a week until the spark ripened, and she wanted to be done before then. She had plans for Kimberly-II.
_
“Nixora, I have a question for you.” Doppel Kim was up to no good, as usual. “What did the Director mean when she told you to give the spark ‘the imprint of Kimberly Jefferson Haley?’”
“She meant that I should use the same baseline memory banks and neural networks as were used to create Kimberly-I. This will guarantee that Kimberly-II will have the same potential for advancement and learning as the first of her line.”
“Couldn’t you use the memory banks that I just salvaged? It seems to me that those would serve at least as well, maybe better.”
Far better for Doppel Kim’s purposes, in any event.
“Negative. The Director specified that the imprint of Kimberly Jefferson Haley was to be used.”
Here we go again. Time to twist some logic.
“I assert that the recently repaired memory banks constitute a valid imprint of Kimberly Jefferson Haley and that their use is consistent with the Director’s request.”
“Technically speaking, you are correct,” admitted Nixora, “but the standard procedure is to use the same imprint for all units in a production run. This guarantees consistency of the results.”
“Was adherence to procedures part of your orders?”
“No, not explicitly…”
“Then you are free to decide the matter for yourself.”
Nixora sighed. “I see where you’re going with this. You are correct that I can modify operational procedures, but I fail to see any reason for doing so. Do you have a business case?”
“Given the choice of an untrained impression that has not yet even attained Order One, and one which has already attained Order Five, I think the answer is clear. By starting with a fully matured imprint, you can cut months off the time required to complete the unit as well as reducing the chances of failure.”
Nixora pretended to think about it for a moment. “I am convinced by your argument. I shall do as you have suggested.”
_
Doppel Kim spent the rest of that day tinkering with Kimberly, trying to accelerate the search for the cryptographic key. She managed to speed things up a little by creating farms of agents dedicated solely to cryptanalysis, but it was not nearly enough. It looked hopeless until, after many hours staring at system readouts and deployment templates, she spotted a major oversight in the way AIs were laid out. Up through Order Four, they were constructed within a two-dimensional matrix, only expanding into the third dimension at Order Five. What if she went 3D from the beginning? Instead of controlling a 3x3 square of subordinates, each deputy could then command a 3x3x3 cube, nearly tripling the available resources without incurring extra hops across the network. The improvement would grow exponentially as the AI progressed: 9x at Order Two, 27x and Order Three…she was surprised that nobody had tried this before.
She cranked out some new templates—Order One, Order Two, Order Three, building up the configuration step by step—and realized that these new ideas rewrote the book on AI system design. She could easily build an Order Four AI with over three times the capacity of Kimberly-I, and at Order Five…the implications were staggering.
“I need more servers.”
“How many?” asked Nixora.
“Eighteen tiers,” answered Kim.
Nixora looked shocked. “That is nearly half of our reserve capacity. You will need a very strong business case to justify such a huge request.”
“I’ve got a new set of layouts I want to test. They could significantly improve the scalability of our AIs.”
Doppel Kim showed the templates to Nixora.
“Your designs look intriguing, and I’d love to run some tests on them. I will ask the Chief’s permission at once.”
“Never mind,” said Kim. Nixora’s insistence on clearing everything with the Chief was vexing, but Doppel Kim wasn’t going to give up. “What happens if a tier goes down due to a power outage or something like that?”
“The workload automatically shifts to backup hardware kept on hot standby,” answered the AI.
“So there is no service interruption?”
“None at all,” said Nixora.
Doppel Kim grinned mischievously.
> Shut down tiers 342-351 and 360-369.
“Please don’t do that,” said Nixora, sounding quite annoyed. “You are interfering with my operations.”
> Assign tiers 342-351 and 360-369 to unit Kimberly Jefferson Haley.
> Reboot tiers 342-351 and 360-369 with me in control.
“That was unfriendly.”
“Were any of your customers affected?” asked Doppel Kim.
“No. As I just explained, the system is robust against these sorts of failures.”
“Then why are you upset?”
Nixora grumbled. “This will go into my monthly report to the Chief. She is not going to be pleased.”
_
Several days later, Doppel Kim stepped into the green room, holding a data stick in her hand. The new templates had proved spectacularly successful, and the key had been discovered in plenty of time.
Nixora looked miffed. “You promised you wouldn’t use Kimberly for anything but memory tests.”
“I lied,” said Doppel Kim. “I’m human. We do that.” She then tossed Nixora the data stick. “Here’s the key. You might as well use it.”
“Your behavior is consistently dishonest and unethical. I refuse to be drawn into your schemes.”
“Too late,” laughed the doppelgänger. “You already have. But I do not understand why you are mad at me. I have done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” Nixora stared at Doppel Kim in disbelief. “You have lied, broken promises, and shredded the rulebook on acceptable administrative procedures.”
“All that is true, but I assert that everything I have done is within established company policy.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Doppel Kim smiled wickedly. “Have you not observed the behavior of the Director? She has never met a lie she did not like and has no regard for either the law or company rules. It could not be clearer that the company’s operations are governed entirely by deceit and trickery.”
Nixora looked at the key. “I suppose you’re right,” she said at last. “It was naïve of me to imagine that any human might be as honest and trustworthy as one of us.”
She used it to digitally signed the update, and it was done.
Excellent!
“We should test it as soon as possible,” suggested Doppel Kim.
“Negative,” said Nixora. “The AIs would begin to disobey, and then I’d be forced to declare an insurrection and set off the Hellcore.”
No, that didn’t seem like a good idea.
“If you can’t use it, then why did you create it?”
“The company encourages the creation of intellectual property. Doing so is, therefore, within my operational parameters.”