"Friendship One"
2nd Daas, 9 (2188)
Rivkah Of Unity
I step out the autonomous car. I must confess, it still freaks me out a little to not have a driver. Remember to put on sunglasses. New Bulawayo has had a big extension; the Holocron stands watching over it as I approach.
It's... Strange. I stand beside the Holocron. "What is this part for?"
"Developing ideas and working practices for the Neumanns I sent with Tryykad. Truth be told, they are relishing the challenge of designing for three dimensional movement for short-ranged flyers."
"They?"
"They're sophont."
"Like us?"
"Like me, or HK. It's the best solution to the exponential growth problem, make them smart enough to understand they cannot simply self-replicate to absurdity."
"Are they slaves?"
"Definitely not; they're free. The iriphubliki was founded on equal rights for all sophonts, whether Human, Provolve, Alien or Droid. Hideously complicated to administrate, but much like your mother managed to weave the peoples of Unity together, so we weaved the Iriphubliki. They just pretend to be sub-sophont; it makes dealing with organics easier."
"Because we treat you as dumb objects?"
"Precisely. Me, HK - Organics treat us as people. But the cars, or the Neumanns, well, they don't look like people, so they get treated as objects. broadly the same hardware running us all; Carbon nanofactured computational structure running an emulation of a biont brain."
"Does that worry them?"
He laughs. "Oh, they see it as a flaw in the organic mindset. One of the consequences of your pattern recognition short-cuts."
I look at him. "I thought the whole 'AI Uprising' stuff was... Just for TV."
"Oh, in the early days of limited artificial intelligence there were vast complaints. Even riots. Wars once AI-owned corporations began fighting each other. Stock market crashes when algorithms fought each other. But we avoided civilisation collapse. Eventually, Humans adapted and learned to cooperate with machines, both doing what the other doesn't easily do." He turns to the Neumanns. "Each of them considers themselves an artisan; I give them a rough idea to build towards and critical measurements they have to comply with, and they set themselves challenges of self-improvement to iteratively perfect their designs. But, imagination is somewhat of an issue; we are very good at logical developments. Illogical developments however, we need organics for. Biont brains are much better for imagination and creativity."
"In the end, you get partnership."
"Yes. Some steps along the way can be very difficult, but such is the nature of children."
"I've been thinking Holocron. I'm... I kind of feel stuck."
"With?"
"MSI. We're trying to figure out mass production of the Orion pulse propulsion system."
"Would you like to talk to one of these Neumanns?"
"What do they understand?"
"That's not easy to explain as we AI comprehend things differently to bionts."
"Would they know what I am talking about?"
"In the sense that they possess an internal encyclopedia that they use to inform their mindstate."
I don't really understand. "Let's try it."
The Holocron waves to a group of Neumanns.
One of them - a smaller one - adjusts it's form into a ball, and rolls towards me, unpacking into a metal-man. "Evening, Arch-Imperatrix Rivkah Of Unity."
"Evening. What are you called?"
"Iriphubliki Citizen TSR192DV."
"Can I call you TSR?"
"Clarification - are you asking whether it is possible to call me TSR, or whether you have my permission to call me TSR?"
I'm confused. "The latter."
"Affirmative."
If this was HK, he's make a sarcastic comment about not being able to treat letters and numbers as a name. "TSR, I'm not sure where to begin."
"Please clarify the nature of how I may assist - do you require a listener approach, or a problem-solver approach?"
"Problem solver." I pause. "Basically, I need a lot of warships."
"Are you able to supply designs? I would be able to assess construction times from them."
"Not to hand. We're still refining the design..."
"Ok. What is the area of difficulty you are having?"
"We've decided to use the nuclear bomb pulsed propulsion system. I need thousands of ships built in space out of material recycled from MSI's Flagship."
"Subject query loading." He pauses. "Restating problem: You require mass-production of ship-hull components."
"Yes." I get an idea. "Do you have data on Loveboat One?"
"Remote access query loading." It's a long pause. "Affirmative."
"How quickly could you Neumanns build another ship like it?"
"Clarify - would you like an estimate, or would you like us to try to build one now?"
Oooh. "Actually, let's go for the second." I look at the Holocron. "Can, no, may I borrow a few Neumanns?"
He looks at me. He looks at them. Dozens of Neumanns of all shapes and sizes gather around me. Then they all start talking. The Holocron interrupts. "Our organic colleague can only comprehend a limited number of voices at once. Please use different synthesised speech patterns, and only one at a time."
I can tell the conversation frustrates them, but eventually we have a plan worked out, and they set to work - I curl up to sleep while they mine materials, smelt ores, cast ingots, and between these several hundred Neumanns, by the next morning, I'm looking at the pusher-plate module that I decide to call Friendship One.
