CRAZY AS BAT SHIT

July 2059

“Consider this,” Jordan advised, addressing a select group of Derangers at a private presentation later that week. “The speed and computational powers of the two-million-qubit universal quantum computer XR-12 are not ten times greater than that of any previous supercomputer; they are infinitely greater. It is able to store and process more information bits than there are elementary particles in the whole universe—not just atoms, but elementary particles. And unlike previous examples of quantum computing, this hardware is now completely fault-free. There is no problem too complex. Climate change, vaccine responses, nuclear fusion reactions… We can solve them all once we’ve learned how to partner with the technology.”

He looked around the table. Some members had flown in from the West Coast, some from Europe. Put all their money and brainpower together, and they could solve any computational problem in the world. But each one of them knew that some problems would always remain unsolvable. They might look up at him now, bright-eyed and inspired by the vision he was painting. But when they looked away, their eyes would become more sober; they knew that the problems humanity posed to itself were unlikely to be solved by a machine.

“There is one question we need to ask ourselves,” Jordan warned. “Quantum computing can provide XR-12 with artificial superintelligence, giving it instant access to every piece of knowledge known to man—and now, with autonomic computing, it has self-managing characteristics of distributed computing resources, enabling it to adapt to unpredictable changes while hiding intrinsic complexity from its users. We have never experienced cognitive power like this in human history. The question is, can we contain it?”

They all turned to Will Portico, the mastermind of computer technology.

“The question is answerable in two forms,” Will assured them. “Firstly, an algorithm should always be designed to be the servant of its master. That’s a fundamental rule. Secondly, we need to remind ourselves that what we call ‘humanized intelligence’ in microchip architecture is not the same as sentience. Even the dumbest humans have feelings, emotions, and a soul. But the most powerful computer will never have these things.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Bill Jones, Jr., joked, “for us dumb human beings, at least. But getting back to the financial side of our investment here, are we going to make time on XR-12 available for lease outside the circle of those who are financially invested?”

“That’s for the members to decide,” Jordan replied, “but my vote would be ‘yes.’ If we want to see progress, we need to be agnostic when it comes to outside ideas.”

“I agree,” Hedley Payne said, “but I’d want to see a twelve-month moratorium, so we could get ahead of the competition… in my field, anyway.”

Everyone laughed.

“And where does this put us relative to the state and One World Government?” someone asked.

“Hopefully, ahead of the game,” Jordan replied. “But that depends on what game you think they’re playing.”

“Well, right now, that’s hard to figure,” someone else observed. “This Alexa phenomenon is turning everything on its head … in a good way, I guess, because Planet Academia is coming back into orbit. The kids seem to have had enough of the nastiness they’ve been indoctrinated into over so many years—but is it spontaneous, or is it being orchestrated? And if it’s orchestrated, who profits from it? I don’t even know what ‘Speak Freely Kindly’ means.”

“I have a theory,” Erasmus piped up. “My belief is that it’s an inevitable cycle, and it all comes down to fertility. For thirty or forty years, our political environment has been biased towards three groups. One group is the LGQ homosexual subsets of both genders. Another group is T, or the transsexual community. Now, neither of those groups have been able to replace themselves through natural breeding, for obvious reasons; they’ve relied on adoption or conversions. Which brings us to the third group… These are cis people of either gender in the twenty-five-to-forty age group. The political environment has biased the women against ‘male toxicity’ and towards either celibacy or non-procreative self-pleasure instead. By the time they reach forty, however, the biological imperative of motherhood overwhelms them—only for them to find that their luteinizing hormone has declined, and they’re now unable to conceive. In many cases, the men of their generation have become incels as a result of rejection, or else they’ve become habituated to bachelorhood. Look at how this plays out over forty years. Those LGBTQIs who first entered into the progressive undergrowth in their twenties are now in their sixties, and they haven’t replaced themselves. Those entering the college environment now are the children of two generations of the remaining solidly heterosexual parents, and thus they have a natural inbred resistance to progressive relativism. That’s what Alexa has tapped into: perfect timing within the cycle.”

 “I know Alexa,” Jordan revealed. “She used to be a pupil of mine, and I’d have to say that she’s as bemused by the response to her as we are. She credits her popularity with her association with Artie Sharp and the ArteFact Channel—which appeals to the young, in particular, because it’s anarchistic and ruthlessly focused on exposing falsehood. But if the state thinks it’s using her, they’ve either miscalculated, or they’re devious in ways I can’t fathom.”

After dinner, the tight four of Jordan, John, Hedley, and Bill retired for their usual nightcap and an evening of their favorite game, Offended. The game was based around two algorithms that Jordan had created. The first algorithm generated totally safe, inoffensive sentences assembled from public statements issued in the last month by UNSEC. The second algorithm generated single words, free of innuendo in themselves, which, when inserted into an inoffensive sentence, could turn it into Hate Speech (five points), offensive speech (three points), or dubious speech (one point). For every sentence drawn by a player sight unseen, the second algorithm generated four seemingly innocent word options. It was just a bit of fun designed to stimulate conversation.

They were in the last round, and scores were tight. Anyone who could create offensive speech or better was bound to win.

The UNSEC statement drawn by Erasmus read, George Kyros, the famous benefactor, will give the opening speech at the ninetieth Earth Day celebration in Potsdam. He had a word that he thought he could fit, but he wanted to clarify the rules. “Can a word be added to another word, or does it need to stand on its own?”

“What’s the word?” Bill asked.

“In.”

“And how do you want to use it?”

“‘In-famous’: ‘George Kyros, the infamous benefactor.’”

They allowed that it was offensive and awarded him the game.

His memory suddenly prompted, Jordan turned to Hedley Payne and whispered that he needed to speak to him later in private.

Bill Jones, Jr., wasn’t ever keen on losing, and he wondered whether infamous was offensive or just dubious when used in conjunction with the word benefactor. “See, I don’t know how Kyros can be called a ‘benefactor’ when, more truthfully, he’s a beneficiary. All the causes he gives money to indirectly promote investment vehicles in which he’s got stock. In fact, all those virtue-signaling saviors of the planet are hypocritical slime bags with their hands in government pockets, if you look close enough. Follow the money trail through all their foundations and NGOs, and you’ll see what really motivates them.”

“And how are you going to prove that, Bill?” Erasmus asked. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose my three points because you think he shouldn’t be called a ‘benefactor.’ It’s UNSEC that called him that, not me.”

They all had another chocolate mescaline, then broke up for the night. Jordan and Hedley stayed back to talk in private.

The development and trialing of XR-12 had been Jordan’s preoccupation for months, and most of the money received from Whitman for the ArteFact Channel endorsements had gone into it. He’d forgotten that XR-11 was being used by Hedley to monitor the Micomic Life Xtension gene-editing program for George Kyros, and that he and Hedley had speculated on the ability to override Micomic’s therapy at any time.

“Remember when we talked about your ability to locate the source of conscious mendacity in the human brain, and you said that, in your scenario, human truth could not be guaranteed unless you could find a way of calculating and adjusting for the influence of unconscious bias? You said then that the complexity of the calculations may be beyond you.”

“Sure,” Hedley agreed. “The proposition works in theory, but it would never work in practice.”

“I’d like to give it a try on XR-12,” Jordan replied. “We need a challenge that’s never been attempted before.”

“That’s a hell of a challenge,” Hedley commented. “Are you sure you haven’t got another motive in mind?”

What did Jordan have in mind? When the idea had first drifted into range, he’d been finding topics for Artie Sharp and providing a sympathetic ear for Alexa as she got sucked into state reforms with the Agenda Implementation Tribunal. The idea had piqued his interest at the time, but it had remained vaguely formed… Then, with all that had happened in the year since, he’d simply forgotten it.

“Something Bill said,” he decided, “about George Kyros being a beneficiary of climate activism, rather than a benefactor… It reminded me of an idea I once had. What if we could make him blurt out the truth about his motives by manipulating the part of his brain that allows him to construct elaborate untruths? Apart from being a shitload of fun, imagine the impact that would have.”

Hedley was incredulous. “You want to do this with George Kyros?”

“Well, his brain is the only one we’ve got access to.”

“You’re batshit crazy, Jordan. Assuming we could even make it work, where is he going to spout all these uncontainable truths—at the Potsdam Earth Day celebration?”

“… Now, that’s not a bad idea.”