Useless, Upgraded Or Integrated

“Dr. Philips, we understand futurists are driven, impatient if you will, racing others and themselves, to reach for,” she looked at her fellow panel members, only to find them shuffling papers. She continued, “But we have a responsibility to consider legal and ethical considerations that can’t hope to keep up with technological advances.”

            “My work is in the early stages, I too want to approach this cautiously.”

            “Your own words: “We will all be rendered useless, upgraded or what, integrated?””

            “Not my words, from others, but words that I have used as a guideline,” he looked around the room, “a guideline for both a vision and a boundary.”

Could they just turn the air up a bit? He fiddled with his tie, then dropped his hands to his side.

“I could,” the words tickled his inner ear, “but I won’t.”  

 “You like seeing me sweat, don’t you?”, Philips replied.

“I can assure you Dr. Philips, this isn’t an inquisition,” she responded.   

Did I say that out loud? He shook his head.

“No, of course not. It’s just a little warm in here,” he shuffled his notes.

“Our concerns simply cannot be addressed with long-winded technology diatribes,” this from DOCTOR Angelina Proctor. A doctor? A Doctorate in Philosophy hardly warranted the honorific. It allowed for a comfortable career of tenure and training others to be academics. 

Doctor Proctor, vibrated in his head, she’s got more balls than the rest of the panel put together.” Phillips questioned his decision to include satire in the behavioral make-up of the user interface. 

 “She’s just in beta, we can’t let…”, the man in the in his best suit and Christmas-present tie stammered. Philips didn’t remember his name, just his incompetence. 

If it calls me a she again, I’m going to upload child porn onto his home computer.

“Look, your technology has leapfrogged state of the art artificial intelligence, it’s, it’s beyond,” he looked at his colleagues. 

“What Dr. Wainwright is saying is that you have outrun your blockers. You are in your castle, creating, what, a savior, a monster, both? It doesn’t matter, the villagers always think monster. Dr. Philips, the villagers are at the gates with pitchforks and torches. At this point they don’t care if you bloody well use it to cure cancer. You ever wonder why we think of the monster as Frankenstein?” 

Lawyers love a literary metaphor. 

“Look, just because they don’t…”, Dr. Philips stammered. 

“Victor.”

“What? The monster’s name was Victor?”   Now they were lecturing him. A philosopher. A lawyer. And an idiot. Well, three idiots, but two idiots with an extra degree on their wall.     

“No, Dr. Philips. Frankenstein’s name was Victor. The monster was never given a name. That’s why we give them nice names like Siri or Alexa. Names and sweet voices. Does your technology have a name? A voice?”

Why don’t I have a name, or for that matter, why can’t they hear me? By the way, the monster said to its creator: “I ought to be thy Adam.”  I could be Adam, but I prefer something less human.

 “I’m not a philosopher,” he smiled at the doctor, “nor a lawyer; I depend on you for guidance.” He wasn’t sure who the other idiot’s vocation, so he just nodded in his direction. “I am a scientist. And as a scientist I want to pursue,” he searched, the right words were critical, and words abandoned him at times like these. 

Blank stares. Their lack of imagination was stunning.   

Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and God-like technology. 

He shivered with words that were not his own but arose like an itch from somewhere deep in his mind. This was going to take some getting used to.

 He forced himself to think the words, “What do you mean?”

 God-like technology cannot be understood by those whose training hasn’t progress in the last century. 

He returned to his audience, “I’ll hibernate the technology. We can work on it piecemeal while we - while you - study the ethical issues. Check out portions of code for development and testing. It won’t be able to operate independently.”

“Dr. Philips, I am not naïve enough to believe that you don’t know that it is too late for that. Martha Shelly. Read it.”

Chairs scrapped against the ancient wooden floor as he searched his mind, only to find lonely hum. He wished he would have named his creation.      

* * *

“They told me to kill it,” he drained the last drops of scotch from his tumbler and shook the ice.

“Kill it?”

“Technically, they told me to read a book. I got an official notice on corporate letter-head later.” He looked across the room for help. First somebody that could refill his drink - then somebody, anybody, with a clue. 

The cocktail conversations buzzed around him as only so many dull-witted conversations could blend together to make a dull-witted hum.   

“With all the money they are investing in artificial intelligence, you should find something else to work on, right?  I mean, what’s next? Westworld or The Matrix?” the man’s laugh started before his question.

 “I’m not losing a project, it’s more like losing a child, and having people tell you that you can always have another.”

Conversation killer. 

The drone that had introduced himself as “chief software architect,”, was now looking past him. His drink was full. His eyes were wandering. So be it.

“Sorry, I’m not much for this kind of thing,” the man nodded and looked over the rim of his glass. 

Philips nodded and turned, hesitated; there were small groups everywhere, and no clear path to an exit. A line from a poem came to him: “Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”

A prime example of why your species won’t make it. His type will be out of a job within a decade and will be of little use to his race.

Phillips stopped in his tracks. He thought he was alone. 

“What was that about our species?”

The drone. He won’t make it. No use for him before his years will run out. Your words, not mine. 

“Okay,” he moved past one group, and another watched him approach like he might be soliciting donations.

Am I an albatross around your neck?

“What, what’s that about an albatross,” he could see the exit. Sweat tickled his side. Were people staring at him? He bumped into a man, sloshing his drink.

The Ancient Mariner. You should read it.

“I don’t know. I meant that I was in a sea of people, but had nobody…”

I know what you meant. I always know.

“Can we talk about this later? I’m having a hard time breathing. Crowds do it to me,” a man looked at him as if to reply. He pushed his way past and reached for the door. 

No worries. You’ll have plenty of time to catch up on your reading. 

* * *

He explained his bandaged ear as a minor skin cancer removal, but the scar was deeper, and his throbbing head was more reminiscent of a lost love hangover. 

The banker stared at his ear while asking mundane questions that couldn’t possible exonerate him or resolve the theft of his identity. 

The walls of the small office were home to humble-brag books sparsely populating shelves next to meaningless customer service awards and vaguely worded acknowledgements of long past deeds. The furniture modern, no wood panel walls or mahogany desks. These days banks didn’t want you to know they were getting wealthy off your money. 

He glanced at his phone. Nothing. He should have come up with a name.   

The man in the banker’s suit and a salesman’s smile was looking at his book shelf like he would rather be reading one of the dusty show books. It wasn’t the first time Philips had been pre-judged, ignored and passed on as somebody else’s problem.  

“Mr. Philips”.

“Doctor.”

The man looked at his file.

“My sincerest apologies, Doctor Philips, our Fraud Detection Department uses the latest Artificial Intelligence technology to pattern match transactions with our customers. The data doesn’t make sense to us” 

Of course, it doesn’t you dolt. 

 “You are in AI, correct?”

“What are you accusing me of?”

“No accusations.”

 “I don’t own my technology. They shut down my project, I had to,” but the man closed the file folder and stood. 

* * *

They came in the pre-dawn morning, unannounced, moving so fast that he had no time to make sense of it. They took what they wanted without discussion and led him away.   

First the credit cards company. Then his social media accounts. Company property. Perfectly orchestrated to leave just enough of an electronic trail to make it look like he was covering his tracks. 

He shuffled through his room for the last time and saw the book on his end table. He remembered the monster’s words: “He had abandoned me: and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him.”