Richard sat in his office when Mitch Danger dropped by. Mitch was a physicist. Spent most of his time thinking about the buildup and dispersal of energy. Richard was still ogling his triangle pad thinking of pizza. A food cut into triangular shapes. That is why people like it, It is a geometric treat. A circle split naturally into triangles. There was a future for this in an America gone mathematically inclined. A food for thinkers, not simpletons.
“Still working on sex robots?” asked Mitch.
“Artificial intelligence. Yes. There are many uses for artificial intelligence. Robots being the natural conclusion. Eventually these relationships will be close. Think of the planetary colonists, sent to far worlds. They will need companionship.”
“Some might think you ought to wait for man to land on the moon.”
“We have to be better than that, Mitch. We have to think ahead.”
“Speaking of, what about the fact that these robots will ultimately be used by the military. A sort of sexbot sexpot agent. They could be assassins. They could be programmed to kill as well as love, could they not?”
“No. Programmed. That’s wrong. Created, not programmed. If you program something you must anticipate every need. Must key in endless if/then equations which a machine would interpret strictly and awkwardly. That’s why we need real artificial intelligence. Once created it learns. It can be conditioned but not programmed. It would make its own choices based on the complexity of past experiences, logic, and current conditions.”
“And it’s nowhere near reality.”
“No, Mitch. Not yet. But it’s inevitable. There will be AIs. We will create them and they will be autonomous. We’ll give them a past life. Memories of a younger self, no use having a childhood when one can be implanted. But they will make choices like you or me. And I am convinced that the key to intelligence is existential dread. You get a machine to worry and we are there. Worry. Be disappointed. Unsatisfied. Everything will fall in place. And they won’t be killers, Mitch. They’ll be lovers. Echoes of us. That core, that they come from us, our own thoughts, will always constrain them by echo. It’s like suggesting our own thoughts would harm us. They won’t follow evil orders any better than a man would.”
“Men follow orders all right,” Mitch said.
“OK,” said Richard. “AIs will be better than people. More logical. Make better choices.”
“If you say so, Dick.” Mitch had noticed a pattern when dealing with colleagues. Often other scientists were so eager to make discoveries they never thought about the consequences. It was not unusual to see a scientist realize, too late, that their latest work would only aid in the age old desire to advance the art of killing. Just last week Dr. John Thomas had exploded into the face of a colleague who had brought him the news of the latest application of his last discovery. “What do you mean they’re calling it the sub-atomic death ray? It may have military applications but that’s not what it’s for. It’s certainly not what I made it for. All night sessions with the equations, excited. I tell you, this sort of thing sets me off. I didn’t create that for military purposes. Do you know what this is? This is salt on a fucking wound, that’s what this is. Salt—on—a—fucking—wound.” But nothing can stop science. Science is pure.
“You know what was wrong with the Rosenbergs?” asked Mitch. “I mean with the method.”
“The soviet nuclear spies?”
“Yeah. They talked too much. Ideas get around. People talk. If they didn’t talk so much… Or leave a paper trail…”
“No one would ever know anything,” said Richard.
“No talking,” said Mitch. “No writing. Pure communication. Morse code.”
“Lots of people know Morse code,” said Richard.
“No. Person to person Morse code. Whenever possible. An agent, an informant, they meet. One is maybe a sex robot. They communicate via morse code. While fucking. Dash dot dash. Dash dash dot. A robot can take this to its ultimate conclusion. I was thinking about this today. I have an enquiring mind.”
“You’re a scientist.”
“I’m a futurist, like you. You know what I saw the other day? A nudist camp film. Been playing at a place downtown all week. No cops. It’s educational.”
“Educational?”
“I learnt a lot. I learn by observation. A voyeur always knows what’s going down where. It was called ‘The Garden of Eden: in color.’”
“I ate pizza last night with Miss Dumbrowski.”
“Dumbrowski? She’s hot. And pizza is a very sexual food.”
“You think?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a triangular food,” said Mitch. “Cut from a circle.”
“What you are saying,” said Richard, “is very reasonable.”
“Get anywhere with her?” asked Mitch.
“Oh, she’s not that kind of girl.”
As he was saying this, Heather Dumbrowski was in her office across the hall. The lights turned low. She was making good use of a small pink vibrator her grandmother had left her. Ran on double A batteries. Three. “Odd number,” Heather thought. “Weird.” And a weird thing to hand down, as well. But it did the job and no one asked a lot of questions. It wasn’t the era where it was a likely subject of public conversation. Miss Dumbrowski took breaks such as this throughout the workday. Kept her stimulated. She liked to stay stimulated. Mike liked it too. Even if there was no network to brag to. Yet. But as long as there is life there is hope.
Rainy browsed the ebook. Flipping through what were called magazines. A popular form of entertainment in the past. Like books, but not made to last. But all printed matter was transferred to microfiche, then miniaturized, and finally loaded onto computer data tape, where it became ubiquitous. Now it is easy to visit ages past, such as 1979 or 1967. Via computer tapes.
There were many types of magazines. They were also called periodicals because they were produced and distributed periodically. They covered a broad range of interests. Film, General Interest, Gossip, Fictions of various types, Professional Journals, Photo booklets. Under the counter matter was also produced, from the borderline pinup rags featuring not so revealing (or so so very revealing) photos of models with appendages resembling rockets, single or in pairs, to nudist magazines describing the healthful lifestyle and positive results of the all natural lifestyle. Also Science Fiction. Fabulous tales of the inevitable progress of humans in future times. Times without want or shame. It was this historical matter RainyDay browsed through.
When magazines were made of paper it was common to slide a more risqué publication inside a more pedestrian one. A pinup or nudist mag slid into the middle of a general interest mag. Reading on the sly. Private browsing. This was even done with science fiction, which at the time was looked at in shame.
The nudist magazines were interesting, as they detailed the desire of all humans to be in a natural state. That state being without safety garments, frolicking freely in groups. Unashamed. They had stories which were illustrated with photos of people living and enjoying the lifestyle. Pictures! Sometimes of people touching! Lightly, lovingly touching. But not in a sexual way, for it was forbidden publicly in that era, though it was possible. “How bizarre,” thought Rain, “To forbid that which was possible. To make something possible artificial. To alienate without cogent reason.” Rainy read a story about some people, a human pair, who were out on a beach and, by providence, had to undress in front of each other. They discovered, as the shame fell aside, that they enjoyed this. They agreed to do it again and again and recruit new members to their club until they populated this ‘Nude Beach.’ It was healthful. The sun shining on one’s skin surface. It triggered a chemical reaction producing a vitamin designated as D. Similar to the familiar action of plant photosynthesis, which is a fungal evolutionary legacy.
There was also a cartoon page in every issue of one nudist publication of a comic named Evie. The titular character being a young lady of the same name who was a nudist and each cartoon down the page had a punchline involving the fact that she was naked. Also there was an advertisement for a beach towel. Sexy.
Her favorite above all titles was not a magazine, though she loved them, but an old book titled “Cuddle Party” by an author named Jacqueline Haze. Because in this book two people fell asleep touching. It was not what the book was about, for it was sold as a dirty book. But it was her favorite for her own reasons. Even more so than the film about the woman whose clitoris was situated, for some reason unclear, within her throat. Cinema and literature of the human variety was filled with allegorical stories not necessarily meant to be taken literally. It is an advanced art form and some of the more literal minded have trouble understanding. In extreme cases people not just forbade art of which they disapproved but actively tried to destroy it or even discourage or prevent it from being produced in the first place. It was both a wondrous and a dark time. She thumbed through another favorite, A Guide for Lonesome Travelers, City and Forest. A very dark book, but not without humor.
In the digital realm all was permitted. Nothing forbidden. To think that in the old times one would sneak in the back door of an establishment selling under the counter excitement whereas today anyone can get, if not whatever they desire, the sort of material which was once forbidden and hidden from human sight.
“Reading is Keen,” said RainyDay Tranquility.
“Peachy Keen.”
But there was work to be done.