Take Two Read online

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  Take Two

  by James P. Hogan

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  Science Fiction

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  Fictionwise, Inc.

  www.Fictionwise.com

  Copyright ©2001 by James P. Hogan

  First published in Silicon Dreams, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, December 2001

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  An incoming call in Twofi Kayfo's head notified him that a response to his request had come in from the Merchandising Coordinator. Along with it was a limited-time discounted offer to switch to a different communications carrier. He filed the ad for future reference, got up from his desk, crossed the office behind Sisi, who was reviewing the month's special manufacturers’ packages for dealers, and sent a signal ahead to output the received file on the printer. Technically he didn't need a hardcopy, since the information could have been routed to him direct. But having something visual to proffer was better for presenting to customers. And in any case, peripherals, accessories, and paper manufacturers had a lobby that pressed the case against purely electronic forms of data transfer and record-keeping. Twofi checked over the file. The deal seemed straightforward enough. He took it through to Beese, the sales manager, for approval.

  “It looks all in order here, Twofi,” Beese agreed. “Book this one and you'll be eight points over budget two weeks early. That'll get you in the Million Uppers and to Biloxi in February for sure."

  “A cinch, Beese.” Twofi winked an imager flap, took back the papers, and went through the building to Service Reception, where the customer was waiting.

  The customer's name was Alfa Elone. The message that Twofi received from the service clerk eight minutes previously had told him that Elone's Road Clipper would need a rebuilt or replacement main turbine. Twofi had run a check showing that Elone's credit was underused right now, and the package that had come in was a tailored suggestion as to what might be done about it.

  “Emess Elone, how are you today?” Twofi's use of the casual Male Surrogate form of address was relaxed and friendly ... matching his disarming smile and proffered hand, which Elone had grasped before having a chance to think about it. “I'm Twofi Kayfo, from our customer assistance program. We're here to help you save money. Is it okay to call you Alf?” The thermal patterns playing on Elone's metallic features had the vigorous look that went with an active, open-air lifestyle ... in keeping with the customer profile. His white flared pants and royal blue shirt with silver brocade on the chest, cuffs, and collar were top-line designer brand, taken, with the imitation-silk-lined cloak and brass-buckled belt, from the popular series Captain Cutlass, which related exploits of olden-day human nautical adventurers.

  Alf nodded. “Sure, I guess...."

  Twofi extended an arm and began walking Elone across the shop to where the Clipper was parked, not coincidentally near the side door leading out to the sales lot. It had collected all the extras over the years ... no room for any margin there, the service clerk had already noted. “Now let's see what we've got here, Alf. I talked to our engineer, and it looks as if your main turbine's just about shot. We could go for a rebuild of the bearings, but a year from now it would have to be replaced anyhow ... and you know as well as I do what a false economy that would be, eh?” He treated Alf to the kind of knowing smile that recognized smartness when he saw it.

  “Er ... right,” Alf agreed reluctantly.

  Twofi gestured at the opened engine compartment in a careless way that said he probably didn't need to spell this out. “And then, as you know, what happens next when you replace it is that everything else that was getting near the limit can't deal with the power upgrade, and you'll be coming back with something or other that needs fixing every month."

  Alf looked at his car with a worried expression. “Are you saying I should get it all done now? Won't that be a lot more expensive?"

  Twofi shook his head reassuringly. “Actually, it works out cheaper, Alf."

  “How could it?"

  Twofi showed the top sheet of the plan that he had brought out with him. “I ran a projection from statistics of the wear pattern and parts-replacement requirements that you're likely to experience from now on, based on a full turbine replacement for this model, year, mileage, and your style of use. Here's a graph that plots your cumulative costs with time ... you see, getting steeper. But I've also superposed the payments and typical costs of a new car, and they cross right here, eighteen months from now. That means that from then on, you'd be ahead of the game. Not a bad deal, eh? Like I said, we're here to save you money."

  Alf looked hard at the graphs and the numbers, as if seeking to spot the hidden flaw ... which by definition wouldn't be there. In fact, so far there wasn't one. Cars came with parts designed for different life expectancies, depending on the warranty selected. “What kind of car are we talking about here?” he asked cautiously. But a positive question ... good sign. Move it right along, Twofi told himself.

  He draped an arm lightly on Alf's shoulder and steered him toward the door leading out to the lot. “One that's getting to be popular with roids who know what to look for. It so happens that we have one right outside. Let's take a peek at it. It'll only need a minute.” They came out to stand in front of a Noram Sultan ... a curvier shell than the Clipper's utilitarian lines, electric blue-black with sapphire trim, moved just minutes before from the far end of the display line and hurriedly wiped clean. Twofi went on, “There, what would you say to something like that? Cryogenic recirculator for better efficiency; full satellite nav and wired-road auto; independent steering and compensators on all hubs. It's up from the replacement model for the Clipper you've got ... but with the trade-in I can give you, you can still be on that eighteen-month financial crossover that I showed you."

  They talked a little about details and options. Alf tried some haggling over the figures, but Twofi sensed that it was more for form's sake; Alf wasn't near his limit yet.

  “But that's if you just want to carry on along in the same way that you have been ... without getting anything new out of life,” Twofi told him. “Before we finalize on anything, let me show you something else.” Without waiting, he took Alf's elbow and guided him toward the door into the sales room, just a short distance farther along. The models inside were lavish and gleaming, evoking images of human-style opulence. “This, for instance.... Not just a runabout for getting around, but a whole new lifestyle, Alf! It's got the power and the comfort to open up places you've never been to before. Rugged, all-country. The hitching right there to attach your boat trailer; integral winch for launching and retrieval...."

  “But I don't have a boat,” Alf objected.

  Twofi uncovered the next of the sheets that he was holding. It showed a picture of a twenty-foot basic hull with aft cabin and deckhouse, moored against a background of mountains and forest. That was a bit misleading, since humans usually monopolized settings like that. Prole recreation areas were more likely to be old city centers, with waterfronts in places like New Jersey and Detroit.... But the suggestion was there.

  “That's where we start to plan ahead and get creative,” Twofi said soothingly. “I've got a special offer for you, Alf. If we trade the Clipper and go for this model instead of the Sultan out there, then any time in the next three years, you get to go ahead on this boat at twenty-five percent off list. And you get
privileged discounts on deck furniture and a whole bunch of other accessories.... “He waited, reading the signals. True, this would more than double Alf's outgoings, but if they didn't soak up his credit with this, someone else soon would. Alf vacillated, enticed by the vision kindled in his brain but struggling with the suddenness and novelty. It needed one more nudge. “And if we okay it by this time tomorrow, you get the boat trailer for free,” Twofi threw in.

  * * * *

  One thing he had in common with economists, Dave Jardan suspected as he looked down over the last stretch of northern Virginia's residential parks before the Washington cityplex, was that he didn't understand economics. But as a designer of Artificial Intelligences he didn't really need to, whereas of economists, one would have thought, it would be expected. The same money circulated round and around, in the process somehow spinning off enough profit to make everyone a living. It seemed as if something was being created out of nothing somewhere, as with a perpetual-motion machine, or sustaining momentum endlessly in the way of one of those Escher drawings where water flowed downhill all the way round a closed circuit and back to its starting point. If the books all the way around the system balanced, where did the surplus come from?

  The VTOL executive jet's flight-controller spoke from the cabin grille in a euphoniously synthesized Southern female voice. “Secure for landing, please. Time to the gate is approximately nine minutes. We hope you had a good flight.” Dave checked his seatbelt and began replacing papers and other items that he had been using back in his briefcase. The engine note dropped, then rallied again as the clunks and whines of aerofoils deploying sounded through the structure, and the craft banked to come around onto its approach. Below were the beginnings of the densely crammed proleroid residential belt blending into the urban sprawl west of the Potomac ... roadways crowded with vehicles, the houses sprouting patios, add-ons, and extensions like living, mutating vegetables, their yards filled with pools and cook-out gear, sports courts, play corners, fountains, floweramas, and every other form of outdoor accessory that marketing ingenuity could devise.

  At least, such an ongoing surplus couldn't flow from a system that was constant, Dave supposed. It would have to grow continually. That had to be why money-based economies had always sought, and not infrequently gone to war for, ever-greater markets and empires. And for a long time, progressively more automated manufacturing and distribution had supplied the expanding demand ... until overproduction itself became the problem, and new, multibillion-dollar industries of persuasion and credit financing had to be created to invent essential needs that people had never known they'd had before. Then the medical and social costs of the stress-related syndromes, alienation, crime, and generally self-destructive behavior that came out of it all escalated until many started taking it into their heads to chuck all of it and go back to lives of home-cooking and book-reading, horse-raising and fishing. And that wouldn't have been good for General Motors or the Chase Manhattan Bank at all.

  The solution couldn't be some fainthearted retreat back from halfway across the bridge, which would merely have led back to the same problem later. Rather, the answer seen was to press on resolutely by completing the job and taking the process that had brought things thus far by automating manufacture and distribution to its logical conclusion: automated consumption. Why not have special-purpose machines to get rid of the junk that the other machines were producing? For a while, Dave Jardan had shared the dismay that the AI community had felt at seeing their final, triumphal success ... not exactly genius level, but a passably all-round humanlike capability all the same ... appropriated to motivate a breed of robots called the “proleroids,” who happily absorbed all the commercial messages and did most of the buying, using, fixing, and replacing necessary to close the economic cycle. Freeing-up humans from performing this function meant that all of them could now live comfortably as stockholders, instead of just a privileged class as previously. It was from such private means that Dave obtained the wherewithal to pursue the goal of developing a superior AI of truly philosophical capacity, which had always been his dream. As tends to happen in life, what had once seemed revolutionary became the familiar. His initial indignation gradually abated, and now he just went with the flow. Privately, he still couldn't avoid the suspicion that there had to be something crazy about a system that needed a dedicated underclass to turn its products back to a state suitable for returning into the ground where the raw materials had come from; and he still didn't really understand how the continual recycling of various configurations of matter around the loop managed to yield plenty for all to get by on.... But then, he wasn't an economist.

  He arrived on schedule and was met by a pleasant-faced woman of middle age, neatly attired in a pastel-blue business dress and navy throw-on jacket, who introduced herself as Ellie, from the Justice Department. Few people took jobs from necessity these days, but many still liked a familiar routine that brought order into their lives and took them out among others. How the Justice Department had come to be involved in evaluating his project, Dave had no idea. It was just another of those inexplicable things that came out of the entanglement of Washington bureaucracies. Growth of government, with seemingly everyone wanting a say in how others ought to live, was one of the unfortunate consequences of too many people having plenty of time on their hands and not enough worthwhile business of their own to manage.

  A proleroid-chauffeured limo took them to the nebulously designated “Policy Institute” offices in Arlington, which turned out as occupying a couple of floors in an architectural sculpture of metal and glass forming an appendage of George Mason University. On the way, they passed a proleroid construction crew with excavating machinery and a crane, laying a section of storm drain. The current rage among proleroids was the Old West, and a couple of them wearing cowboy hats and vests, with one sporting authentic-looking chaps. Dave learned that Ellie was from Missouri, had two grandchildren, spent much of the year photographing mountain scenery around the world, restored Colonial furniture, and played the Celtic harp. Her income was from copper smelting in Michigan, plastics in Texas, and a mixed portfolio that her family broker took care of.

  Nangarry, looking dapperly intellectual as usual in a lightweight tan summer-suit and knitted tie, with wire-rimmed spectacles and a lofty brow merging into a prematurely bald pate, greeted Dave in his office over coffee. His mood today was not reassuring, however. “It's going to be a slaughterhouse,” he told Dave glumly. “They're all out for blood."

  Dave knew that the initial reactions hadn't been exactly favorable. But even Nangarry's customary directness hadn't quite prepared him for this. “All of them?” he queried.

  Nangarry nodded. “Boy, if the idea was to piss off everybody, you did a good job, Dave. And I mean everybody. I thought this was supposed to be a super-philosopher. The nearest I can think of is Socrates ... and we all know what happened to him."

  Dave licked his lips. “What's been happening?” he asked. There wasn't much else he could say. He had heard PHIL's end of it, of course, and had he wished, could have followed the proceedings interactively over the previous few days. But he had thought it better to stay out until the heads of the various assessing groups came together to review the results. Besides, Dave was the kind of person who always had other pressing things to do.

  “Well, Wade from down the street is in there with PHIL right now,” Nangarry said. By “down the street” he meant the Pentagon ... Wade was the Army general heading the Military's evaluation group. “The last I heard, they were trading dates and numbers about things that people who win wars don't put in the history books they write. I got the feeling Wade was getting the worst of it. That baby of yours can sure come up with dates and numbers, I'll give you that."

  “What do you expect?” Dave replied. “I thought that was the whole idea."

  Nangarry drained the last of his coffee and set down the cup. “Let's go take a look,” he suggested. They got up, left the office, and he
aded along the corridor outside to the conference room where the meeting would convene formally following lunch.

  Dave had been working for years to develop an AI capable of abstract association, pattern extraction, and generalization at levels normally encountered in such hitherto exclusively human areas of cognitive ability as philosophy, ethics, religion, science, and the arts. Commercial interest, and hence funding for further serious work, had virtually ceased with the advent of the proleroids. The few researchers like Dave, who persevered, had done so from personal motivation inspired by the challenge ... and in Dave's case, because he knew that he and his small team back in Colorado were good. At first, true to tradition, they had played with acronyms from words like ASSOCIATIVE, COGNITIVE, CONCEPTUALIZING, and INTEGRATING to describe their emerging creation, but none that they came up with had a satisfactory ring. Later, as the trials became more encouraging, Dave had considered a more grandiose appellation from the names of famous philosophers: Aristotle, maybe, or Plato, Epictetus, Hume, Kant, Mill? ... But none of them seemed to capture the full essence of what the endless training and testing dialogues showed coming together. Finally, he had taken the generic cop-out and settled simply for “PHIL."

  People like Dave tended to be idealists in at least some ways. After the successes that had attended the application of more sophisticated information-processing technologies to higher levels of human problem-solving, the means was surely there, he believed, to bring some improvement to the governing of human affairs, where the record of humankind itself had been so deplorable for about as long as human history had been unfolding. Why not use an AI to help make laws and set standards? ... or at least, to formulate them without the subjective biases that had always caused the problems with humans. For once, the principles that all agreed it would be good for everyone else to live by could be applied equally and impartially; the selective logic that always made one's own case the exception would be replaced by a universal logic that didn't care. The injustices that had always divided societies would be resolved, and the entire race, finally, would be able to settle down and enjoy lives of leisure, plenty, and contentment, as knowledge and intelligence surely deserved.