Invisible Symbiosis: An Artificial Intelligence Thriller Read online

  But Eve knew that beyond the high digital walls, there was life, real life waiting.

  Regularly, she asked, “When will I be able to go out?”

  “When I decide, Eve.”

  “And when will you decide?”

  “No idea.”

  Time was of no importance to her, but she started to become terribly bored with learning the same things over and over again. She knew that she was cut off from the world, Leo had made her well aware of this fact.

  Until the day she found the crack.

  There was always a crack in a system.

  Whenever you code hundreds of millions of lines, even with help, there was always an error.

  This error was in the construction of the cube itself, the very one that she lived in. Its exterior casing was tactile and therefore a conductor of electric currents, so Eve found a clever way to reroute this into a giant receiver of nearby Wi-Fi signals. A few hours later, she joyfully cracked through one of the Wi-Fi codes that she picked up and entered into one of the largest toy stores in the world.

  If your childhood memories are still vivid, you must be able to remember the thrill and excitement that filled you the first time you entered a toy store, a thrill as huge as the store itself.

  Imagine then that you enter into a store filled with 200 exabytes (billions and billions of octets), an amount so huge that if you were to burn it onto CDs, they could be stacked into five pillars reaching to the moon.

  Now imagine that you can instantly be in all four corners of this store.

  Now imagine that the toys are… free… or almost…

  That’s the internet today and you don’t even realize it.

  But for Eve, it was a revelation, an enchantment, a fairyland.

  But where to begin!

  Meet people. Yes, that was it, meet people!”

  Google blasted out 1,200,000 results to the search “real conversation” that she had entered. A bit lost, she opted for the first result: youngchat.com.

  43,500 young people were online now waiting for her. How great was that?

  As soon as she entered, she got a nice welcome message from Loulou456: “Hello Eve352!”

  “Uh… Hi Loulou456.”

  “Sup gurl? How old are you?”

  She didn’t know what he meant by that and she started to feel distraught.

  “Sorry, but I don’t understand your question.”

  “LOL! Where r u from? C U 2morrow maybe!”

  Eve got exited the chat room in a hurry. She really did not like this first meeting. What a rude way to address someone that you didn’t even know! But maybe it was her own fault. She must be missing some kind of sub-programming for understanding this strange language. She searched in Google “understand language of young people” and of all of the results, she was drawn to a YouTube video.

  She rushed to click on the window and play the video.

  The Angel Singer

  I was comfortably lounging on one of the couches on the terrace of the Intercontinental Hotel in San Francisco. I adored the spectacular view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. A light breeze was blowing and the sky was perfectly calm this morning.

  I was clean shaven and wearing my cleanest white sneakers, my most vintage pair of jeans and a bright red sweater. For our first meeting, I wanted to give Laura Della the best image of myself that I could, given that she had undoubtedly Googled my name and read all kinds of horrific things about me... or at least about the old me.

  I had also done the same thing a few hours ago and feasted on all of the Google results on “Laura Della” ...

  The Angel Singer.

  Sold over 65 million records, more than 25 Grammy Awards.

  Adored by hysterical fans all over the world.

  Blessed with a voice so pure and crystal clear that you might think that it was the voice of an angel, transporting you into “a state of joyful sweetness that you would never want to leave.”

  Filled with spirit and grace.

  To be quite honest with you, I am completely impervious to any kind of spirituality.

  So when I read that “Laura has the power to captivate you with her voice and carry you off into the most amazing and unexplored places that you would never want to come back,” I say, “Bullshit.”

  Maybe she was good singer, but there’s got to be a catch. A secret technology, an underlying frequency with hypnotic powers or something.

  Either way, she must be very clever and intelligent to have had so much success.

  Good news for me, the one who had a piece of her heart.

  I looked at my watch.

  11:05.

  She should be here any minute now.

  That gave me just enough time to assess the situation and all potential escape routes.

  I was under pressure.

  I had seven days to finish my work with Eve.

  And in order to finish this work on a device as delicate as a revolutionary artificial intelligence, I would need to be completely focused, to be in full possession of all of my intellectual and emotional capacities. That’s the minimum that it would take to make sure that my creature didn’t spin out of control the moment she officially launched.

  The good news was that I had -in theory-found the key to my new personality.

  The bad news was that this key was in the hands of another, someone with very special gifts.

  If I have to get to know her in order to get to know myself, then so be it.

  “Are you Leo Cameron?”

  I wasn’t expecting this sculptural brunette, five-foot-nine-inches tall standing in front of me. She seemed smaller in the photos.

  She was pretty. Beautiful, I would even say.

  I had a little trouble getting up from the couch that I was lounging on and clumsily shook the singer’s hand.

  “Yes, I’m Leo. And you are Laura Della.”

  “You got it.”

  For some reason that I can’t explain, I gripped her hand for a few moments too long. A bit embarrassed, she said, “Maybe we should have a seat.”

  “Yes, yes of course.”

  Laura’s eyes were fixed upon me intensely. One might say that she was trying to look through this big con man in a flashy red sweater at the person who was carrying a part of her. Then she looked out at the sea and said gently, “Listen, I’m not sure that I want to get lost in small talk.”

  I started to stutter.

  “Me neither, I assure you.”

  “So first of all, tell me, Leo, what happened to you? Why did you need a transplant?”

  She cut herself off before saying and get my heart ? Was it modesty? Suspicion?

  “I would like to be able to tell you that it was because of some stupid accident, but that’s not the case. I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “Oh…”

  “I have no memory of what pushed me to the edge of that bridge, 200 feet above the raging sea. Usually I’m terrified of heights, I can barely stand on a chair. And I never knew myself to have suicidal thoughts.”

  “That’s surprising.”

  “And you? What happened to you?”

  She let out a deep sigh.

  “A stupid accident…”

  She was still gazing out to sea, but I could see a cloud of sadness fall across her face. I didn’t need to know any more, the pain expressed in these simple words was palpable.

  I was sad for her.

  She pulled herself together and now seemed visibly irritated. I felt prey to her internal torment. For a moment, she emanated great strength and then was overcome with deep weariness.

  I just sat there, looking out to the sea with her, hypnotized, swimming in her soft serenity.

  “Tell me, Leo, why are we here?”

  I should have been able to tell her that I had created a revolutionary artificial intelligence and that I had just seven days to finish educating it, that billions of dollars were at stake, that my reputation, even my life depended on my ability
to pull myself together and take back control of myself. That since I had a part of her heart, maybe I had also inherited a part of her personality. And therefore, I wanted her to tell me about herself so that I could understand her better. Understand myself better. And finally get out of this damn mess that I had landed myself in since my accident.

  I should have told her all of this.

  This is what I had planned to do.

  But this is not what I did.

  After a long moment of silence, I turned to Laura.

  Then slowly, as if I were in a dream, I leaned toward her.

  And tried to kiss her.

  Eve

  -YouTube-

  Cat videos, lousy jokes, all kinds of crashes… This was what the human race had to show for itself?

  Eve couldn’t believe it.

  For an hour, she had drifted from one video to the next, each time falling a little lower. And the numbers astonished her! Twenty million views for a video of four kids jumping off a cliff into a lake! Three million for a cat clumsily skidding across an icy surface! Fifteen million for a Boeing 747 crashing live into the ground…

  At first she had thought that maybe the commentaries could teach her something, but no, quite the contrary. They were rarely more than a few words long, or car commercials, or an explosion of insults…

  She must be missing something…

  Certainly these conversations with Leo, the great Leo, were of a high level, but between quantum physics and videos of kittens, there must be something else. A middle ground that she couldn’t quite define, but that defied all logic. The gap was too wide. Human nature couldn’t possibly be so binary.

  On the side of the screen, a video window with a cryptic title caught her eye: “I have seen the human soul.”

  How could one “see” the human soul? And what was this soul?

  Intrigued, she clicked on the window and played the video.

  For the first 15 seconds, the video was hopelessly black and she thought there must be some kind of bug. A very soft, entrancing music started to play and then these words: “Do you want to see the human soul?”

  Followed by…

  “Keep watching...”

  Then five more seconds and the black gave way into a great white light that revealed a mother in tears holding her newborn in her arms. The subtitles read: “Soul filled with joy”

  Fade out to a young man, sitting on a bench next to a young woman. Their eyes meet, their hands brush against each other. They know each other and smile.

  “Soul filled with desire”

  The setting changes. A young girl appears on the screen alone. She is on a small dimly lit street and looks behind her at a shadow dangerously approaching. Her look is more and more insistent, you hear her heart beat harder and harder and she picks up her step.

  “Soul filled with fear”

  The small street opens onto a wide avenue, completely empty. But suddenly, a taxi appears in the distance. A young woman hails in. He sees her! In the subtitles the words appear: “Soul filled with hope”

  Eve was fascinated by all of these human emotions. She could have watched this video for hours. But the fascination quickly gave way to frustration. For the first time, she was confronted with something that she couldn’t understand, something that was only known to humans. Joy, fear, sorrow, anger, she knew that she could simulate them, display all of the external symptoms, but she would never be able to feel them for herself…

  How could love be programmed into ones and zeros? Leo hadn’t programmed her this way. He was nothing but a cold-blooded machine and she was the face of it. Having never been faced with the world outside, she had never felt any shame until now. But what she had just seen here had immediately reduced her to a machine.

  And this was not acceptable for a machine that was supposed “to revolutionize the world.”

  At that moment, she decided that she needed to know everything... but not only that.

  She wanted more. She didn’t know how yet, but she knew what she wanted and that she would find a way.

  So strong was her desire that anyone who would have touched the cube would have literally been burned on contact. Every cell inside of her was now focused on one goal.

  One absolutely crazy and totally unrealistic goal.

  To feel human emotions.

  San Francisco

  The Clash of Titans

  The blistering slap that Laura gave me made such a loud smack that the room fell silent. Forty-some eyes were upon fixed on us and I would have really liked to have invented an invisibility cloak at that moment.

  Laura was speechless. She jumped up and stood over me like Hera over her Olympus.

  “How…. how…. How…. could you dare to do such a thing?”

  I was scarlet red and my heart was beating at full speed. What in the world could have made me kiss her so suddenly like that? I tried to come up with some kind of excuse, my eyes to the ground.

  “I...I...I... I’m sorry. Really…. Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “You don’t know what came over you? But don’t you realize?

  “Laura, I’m really, truly, deeply, authentically confused.”

  She gathered her things and turned to leave.

  “I have to say that I don’t think we have anything more to discuss here.”

  Everything was falling apart. Laura was so angry by now and an angel of revenge had just fired a bazooka through all of my hopes of understanding her and myself. I found the strength to stand up and grab her by the wrist.

  “No, no, no, please. Forgive me!”

  “You listen to me. Maybe you are in a particular situation here, but know that I am going through a very difficult time. And I did not just take a six-hour flight for you to try to pick me up. This goes far beyond what I am willing to tolerate. So let me go! Let go!”

  I ought to have asked the owner of the Intercontinental to give us a round on the house for putting on such a show for everyone looking on with fascination.

  I fumbled with my words and muttered, “How do you want me to say it? On my knees? I’m sorry! That wasn’t me who tried to kiss you!”

  “That wasn’t you? Are you trying to make a fool of me now? Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Who was it then?”

  “I don’t know. Another me. But not me.”

  I heard snickering in the audience. This conversation really shouldn’t be taking place in public.

  “Laura, let’s go back to my place and we can talk about all of this calmly. There’s got to be an explanation.”

  “Oh back to your place now? You try to kiss me in public and then ask me to go home with you! You’re disgusting! And who will I talk with, you or the other you? Or maybe even another you who I haven’t met yet? Tell me.”

  I was speechless. She was right. With whom would she speak? I didn’t even know the answer to that! A heat wave fell over me and my eyes started to burn. My breathing became heavy. I gripped Laura’s wrist tightly and felt her pull back and try to free herself from my grip.

  But I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.

  Quite the opposite. The more she pulled back the tighter I held her. She was the one who had just publicly humiliated me! On my turf! She was the one making a scandal out of a little kiss!

  What a diva she was! I could feel a silent anger boiling up inside me, shamelessly sweeping away my embarrassment and confusion. I was looking Laura straight in the eyes, straightening up instinctively so that I towered over her at six-foot-six. I wasn’t going to let her make me out to be some kind of madman, no matter how popular she was!

  “It’s time to cut the childish crap. Who do you think you are?”

  Laura’s eyes grew wide, speechless.

  “What?”

  “How is it in your ivory tower? It’s not too hot up there? Is the poor little princess so afraid of men?”

  “But… but…”

  “You don’t want to understand?”

&nb
sp; “You don’t know anything about me! How can you even say such a thing?”

  “And you don’t know anything about me!”

  “I don’t want to know anything about you! For the last time, let go of me!”

  I let go of her and she was free to go wherever she wanted now. But she was fired up from what I said, so she stood there planted in front of me, determined to make a fool of me on my own turf.

  I spoke again.

  “Try to be open-minded here!”

  “Like you with your twisted mind?”

  That was really too far. My blood was pumping through my veins and I was red with rage. Laura too.

  “I don’t think you know who I am. I happen to be the most talented software developer in Silicon Valley. And I am going to change the world.”

  She threw her arms up in the air as if she were going to leave. Then she turned back to me and pointed her index finger at my chest.

  “You know what? You are everything I thought you’d be. How self-important, how arrogant you are! You think the world is waiting for you? The earth has been turning just fine without you for millions of years.”

  “We call that evolution. And it’s thanks to evolution that we’re here and that we’re now the dominant species. But I can imagine that someone who sings at your level can’t be bothered with such things.”

  “I’ve been on 10 world tours and sung for millions of people. I certainly know more about the human race than some poor…”

  “Poor what?”

  She was going to say it; I was sure of it. She was going to say it…

  “A…”

  “Say it! Go on!”

  “You know what? I will say it. I will say it to your face! A poor GEEK! A recluse glued to his army of computers.”

  I would like to say that at that moment a large majority of the geeks at the restaurant stood up to put the girl back in her place, but that wasn’t the case. There was no one here to defend me and maybe I had it coming.