Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

“So, if that’s the case, we should see him update the onboard software for the bots as soon as he has access to his lab again, right? He’d want to find and fix the vulnerability as soon as he can.” This story is hosted at n​ovelceo.com.

“I believe that is correct. A simple test for this hypothesis is to watch the software version of his cloud when we return home. If we see he has updated it in the first few days, that would provide evidence that my first theory is correct.”

And then Jeff would be off my ally list. He doesn’t seem to care as much that Father is a murderer, just that his murderous tendencies make the rogue AI situation worse. I wonder if there’s a way to keep him on board if he’s right and Father does an update as soon as we get back.

“OK. So what if that’s not it? What’s theory number two?”

“It is almost unthinkable, but it is the only other explanation I can come up with. My second theory is that he lied to us and the world about the resolution to his initial encounter with the swarm. He claims that he deceived the AI by reaching an agreement with the swarm mind to aid its development. Father may well have entered into that deal, but instead of a deception to cripple the AI as he claimed, he’s been working in good faith toward a future with the eventual goal of complete integration of the human mind and nanobot intelligence. A sort of human-nanobot hybrid.”

“Us,” I say. More specifically, me. Human nanobot-hybrid, that almost perfectly describes me with the new generation of the implant in my head. Does Jeff know that my implant is different from his? That it’s just made of medical nanobots? I haven’t talked to anyone but Louise and Evan about it, and Father doesn’t seem to have told anyone.

“Yes, us,” Jeff says grimly. If he knows, he doesn’t say. Maybe just the fact that he interfaces with the bots makes him think of himself as a hybrid.

“We would be the prototypes if this is the case,” he continues. “The test subjects for integration. If this theory is true, then I suspect this trip is simply a pretext for a field test of the implants under real-world conditions. Given that none of us have been able to grow our clouds to sizes comparable to his, it is clear that he has limits imposed on our systems that he does not have on his own—limits on the swarm AI’s ability to interface with our minds. So this would be a test of our integration with the implants and the simplified software interface, but not the cloud intelligence. That would come later, once he is confident in the initial results. Incremental testing like this would be consistent with his development process.”

I listen and nod along, not showing my growing skepticism. Jeff’s whole swarm AI theory still seems unlikely to me, and this new twist to it stretches the evidence he has. There are too many unknowns about how Father’s implant and processor work differently than ours. Plus the fact that I’ve had actual bots in my brain for a while now and I’m not feeling any dark whispers of a living machine. But if Jeff is into it, I’ll use it. I’ll ride this train all the way to Father’s grave.

“OK.” Time to feed the beast. “So if we don’t see him update his software in the first few days back on campus, then we can safely assume that he plans to hook up our brains to the same rogue AI that almost consumed the world?”

Jeff nods soberly in agreement. This is almost too easy.

Elevate humanity. Sure. If Jeff were right, that phrase would take on a whole new meaning. I hope Jeff is being his standard paranoid self. If I’m wrong and he’s right, that’s a future that’s so wrong I can’t even imagine it.