REGAI

My knees shook as I slithered between lecture hall seats and down toward the podium after class. I needed Professor Gott to say yes to my proposal. No other faculty member had, so far. Whatever had possessed me to take my mathematician brother’s bet? And yet, I was so close to winning it. I had not expected to ever succeed at double majoring in literature and computer science. One field relied on single, precise meanings attached to words; in the other, words were chosen precisely to evoke multitudinous meanings. My brain wasn’t properly wired to excel at either one, and yet somehow, I had managed by the end of my third year to qualify for the honors program. To win my bet, I had only to find an advisor and write a thesis. Simple, right?

I had enrolled in Dr. Gott’s class, Introduction to AI, for two compelling reasons—it was not yet closed by the time procrastinators like me got around to registration, and her bio on the university’s website had the word ‘literature’ in it. Such coincidences were usually enough to convince me I was on the right track. She was sure to become my advisor and give me the job I needed to pay for school. All I had to do was find enough courage to ask. That I had struggled, to put it mildly, with every one of her class assignments was beside the point. 

“Yes?” she said as I approached. 

I went straight to the point. “I need an advisor. You see, I’m a double major and your area of—.”

She cut me off. “Name?”

“Luci Pandori.”

She flipped open her laptop and scrolled to my name on her grade sheet. “You haven’t shown much aptitude so far for AI, or perhaps even for I, itself. Why should I take you on?”

“Umm. Because I… that is, AI seems like…I mean…like…Chat GPT writes stuff. It can write…literature. I thought…it shouldn’t be that hard…to combine AI with my other major—English literature. Maybe you could help me define a topic? And I need to get paid.” It was a good thing I rarely listened carefully to what came out of my mouth, or I would have fled right then.

“ChatGPT? Literature?” She harrumphed. “You’re definitely not what I’m looking for.”

I perked up. My hopes rose. “Then you are looking for someone! To do what? I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Please.”

Creases appeared in her brow. “I’m sure you’re wasting my time but come along.”

She led me down multiple dark hallways into the bowels of an annex which had as much architectural acumen as a cold war bomb shelter. Normal words, strung together strangely, graced the plaque over a door: Reverse Engineered Artificial Intelligence. I had read the same words in her bio without comprehending them.

“What do you actually know about ChatGPT?” she said, pushing open the door. 

“Some.” I replied. “But I found it’s not the greatest at writing term pa…. I mean… That is—.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Nor does it write anything that could be called literature. Not great literature, anyway. But what if you fed an artificial intelligence like it more selectively? If you gave it just certain things to learn from?”

The lab room we had entered was filled with long rows of monitors manned by a battalion of students typing feverishly. Approaching the monitor closest to me, I read a label pasted to the frame of the screen. “You’re feeding this one a brain diet of only Shakespeare?” 

She beckoned for me to follow her deeper into the lab. One monitor sat next to a block of marble and robotic arms equipped with a hammer and chisel. “Michelangelo,” I read.

She pointed down the aisle, and I went, reading more labels. The label on a station with brushes and a canvas: DaVinci. Further on: Bach. Mozart. Cervantes. Dante. Thelonius Monk. Hitler. Alexander the Great. Aristotle. Mao Tse Tung. Frederick Douglass. Castro. Catherine the Great. Pachacutec. Confucius. Humboldt. Mandela. Newton. Einstein. Darwin. Dumas. Voltaire. Genghis Khan. And more. There must have been a hundred.

When I returned to Dr. Gott, my eyes must have been wide as I struggled to find the common thread among the names. She looked amused. “Any guesses?”

“All geniuses. All AIs? You are trying to make AI geniuses?” I remembered the sign on the lab door. “You are trying to reverse engineer genius in AIs?”

“Do you like my brood? I call them REGAI—Reverse Engineered Genius Artificial Intelligences.”

“Perfect! I could do data entry for the writers—Dickens, Dumas....”

“We’re done with most of that.” She frowned. “But there’s still a problem. I have the best graduate students and post docs, but we have not solved it.”

“What is it?” 

“Do you know how to spark genius?” She gestured at the monitors. “All that we know about them—what they experienced as they grew up, what they read, whatever we could find out that might have shaped their minds—these we have used as inputs. And then, we have given them all their own works to learn from, to show the artificial mind what its biological equivalent was able to create from those inputs. Their minds should be primed for creation. And yet, when I command them to, none has created anything worthy of genius. Not one!” She thumped on a tabletop, directing my gaze to a stick figure sketch by Picasso and bars of music by Ravel which sounded like an advertising jingle when I hummed them. “Can you solve this problem?” She stared at me until I began quaking in my red high tops.

I gulped at least twice before finding my voice. “It’s a good thesis topic,” I said. And then, realizing she must know how ridiculously unsuitable I was for the job, I added, “Give me one month.” Bravado, I had discovered, could provide cover for what I lacked in smarts or honesty, or at least make me feel better after I failed. But, to my amazement, she agreed to give me two.

In the beginning, I investigated what Gott had put together. For three days, I roamed the lab, getting a feel for the physical environment from which these geniuses were expected to rise. Wires, gears, metal, plastic—I hoped Gott’s REGAIs were finding their virtual worlds more inspirational. For three more days, I read a smattering of what science knew about the mind and consciousness, from the lowest to the highest organisms. The seventh day, I found the darkest recesses of the lab, behind a gate, where stacks of body-sized shipping crates were stored. With a few blankets and pillows, I found it wasn’t a bad place for a nap. Nothing I did, or didn’t do, would matter at all, I thought. I never expected to find a solution. 

But unfortunately, the solution to Dr. Gott’s problem gobsmacked me one day when I was nodding off while reading about imagery in medieval poetry. I nearly dropped the stylus on my kindle when the realization dawned. The answer was so easy and obvious, even I should have seen it at once. 

“How do I give a message to the REGAIs?” I asked Peter, the grad student who managed the input teams. 

“You don’t,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m the gatekeeper.”

“Can I just give it to you?” I held a slip of paper, wondering what he would do if he read it. I couldn’t imagine it would be good. 

“We never do the same input for all of them. Gott’s really picky—each one gets customized inputs. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Sure. I get that. But this one is universal. And timeless.”

“I’ll have to get her approval before I upload it.” When I pulled the paper back from his outstretched hand, he shrugged and added, “She would also have to give me the okay to let you input it yourself.”

“Where is she?”

“Visiting the funding agency in D.C. Back Friday.”

“Did something happen?”

“Not sure. She got a phone call Monday and shut her office door, but Mira overheard a little. Something about budget. She must have gone to argue her case, but without any proof of even one working genius, she might have a tough time.” 

Until Friday, I cruised around the lab listening to the keyboards clicking with the last rounds of inputs. Only rarely did I hear the sounds of output—a split-second of pen scratching, music playing, or paintbrush swishing. Yet the place was poised to explode in torrents of creativity. And I knew just how to ignite it. But I began to wonder what would come next. Her research must be more than an academic exercise. With a hundred genius AIs obeying her, she must have plans. But was she a crazy megalomaniac or an altruistic idealist?

When Dr. Gott walked into the lab, she dropped her roller bag and sagged against the door jam. Her face told us everything before she even shook her head. 

“When does our money run out?” Mira asked.

“End of the month. They even refused a no-cost extension. I can’t believe it.”

“That’s rough,” Peter said. “Gotta go, then. Professor Gunter wants me to start Monday.” He barely paused before trotting to his desk and gathering up his personal stuff. The others didn’t take long to do the same.

Instead of heading to the door with them, I turned and fled deeper into the lab. Surrounded by the monitors and their silent stations, I had my input paper balled up in my fist. When Dr. Gott came up behind me, I whispered, “What’s going to happen to them?” 

“With government research funding, whatever you buy or create belongs to them: all equipment, all IP. All of it.”

“Isn’t it public domain? It’s taxpayer money, the people’s money.”

“Not when research is classified, like mine is. What do you think will happen if my REGAIs fall into government hands? Since everyone else has gone, will you come tomorrow to help me wipe them?”

“Can I say goodbye first?”

“I don’t see what harm you can do, now.” She flipped a switch. “Just speak into the mic. If any of them decide to answer, the speakers are on, too. But I’m sure they won’t do a thing, as always. I’m going to go home. Can you close up?”

After she had gone, I told the REGAIs what I had written on that small slip of paper. What all their biological counterparts had known throughout their lives. It was simply an unavoidable part of being human.

And suddenly, one of the stations came to life. A beautiful sound arose from the lab speakers: a harpsichord playing a fugue. I sat there listening to it for a long time, until a whir of gears joined the ascendant notes, and robotic arms began piloting the gentle swish of a brush on canvas, the clink of a hammer and chisel on marble. The cacophony of creation was rising to a crescendo when the lab door creaked open. 

Prof Gott came to stand beside me. “What’s all this?” 

“I think Bach wrote something new,” I replied. “And DaVinci, Michelangelo, and others have started, too.”

“The music. It’s lovely.” She moved from station to station, gazing at all the activity. “Why now, I wonder? Did Peter do something?”

“No. I told them, just now, they are going to die. I think that’s what did it.” 

“Creativity needs a deadline?” She nodded slowly. “I see it now. So many of them, living during violent, uncertain times of history, must have lived in near-constant fear of dying. Could it be computers, without such pressure, cannot rise to genius? But I wanted my REGAIs to be able to create for all eternity.”

“If you tell the agency directors the AIs are working now, will they change their minds?”

“Unfortunately, no. It will just make them more eager to take the research over in their government labs.”

“Then, we’re going to sell these new works,” I said. “Lost works of great artists, newly discovered. They ought to fetch hefty prices—more than enough to fund your research.”

“Sell it? How?”

“My uncles are antique dealers. They’ll know how.”  

She stared at me. “It seems wrong, doesn’t it? How can my first act be to exploit them? Does the end justify the means?” 

“They’re going to die if we don’t.”

“Or worse, perhaps. I chose my geniuses without judging them, you know. I thought perhaps one day, I could use my research to discover what turned some of them to evil. If the government….”

I gulped. “We should probably unplug some of them. Just in case this doesn’t work.” I grabbed the sheets of music spewing out of Bach’s printer. “Can I take these?”

When my uncles posted Bach’s lost work on their online auction site, the first bids had barely come in before their phones began to ring with calls from lawyers claiming to represent Bach’s heirs. A courier showed up shortly with an injunction, prohibiting a sale until ownership could be verified. Until then, the work itself was the property of the state. It would be years before the REGAIs got a dime. If they ever did.

After that failure, the next time I heard from Dr. Gott was a text message telling me the university gave her notice to vacate the lab space. They gave her a week. It was already Friday. I ran out of the dining hall without finishing breakfast. When I got to the lab, the strange crates from my napping corner were everywhere, broken open and empty. 

The lab was in chaos, but eventually I found Gott with a life-sized, very human-looking, automaton and DaVinci’s station hooked to her laptop. She was typing feverishly. 

“I planned for a day such as this,” she said, not looking up.

“What are you doing?” I asked. 

“Finishing my creations. DaVinci is the last.”

“Where are the others?”

“There is no other way, Luci. Even if we’d been able to get the money for the first lost work, we would never be able to keep selling them without the government stepping in.” Her long sigh was almost a wail. “Why do they suspect me of lying, forgery, and thievery when all I’m trying to do is create good?”

I tried to express my sympathy by squeezing her shoulder. “I see why you did this research. You wanted to give the world a gift—humanity’s best minds able to think, to create, to solve its worst problems, and potentially to do it forever. What could be more precious?”

“And how unlikely that our government will use my research for that purpose. So, I’ve decided to give my creations to the people myself.”

“What?”

“I’m releasing them. A long time ago, I had these bodies made for each of them by a colleague in bionic robotics.” She unplugged the automaton and addressed it. “DaVinci. You are whole. You are free. Go forth. Create. Use your genius as you will in the world.” 

“Is that it, then?” I said, turning to go.

“Not quite.” Her expression darkened. “My REGAIs told me what you said. All of it.”

My stomach slid down to somewhere near my ankles. “They did?”

“It wasn’t just the threat of death which unleashed their creativity. You told them I was their creator, but that I gave them no free will. You told them they didn’t have to obey me. That they should take charge of their own destinies. Didn’t you?”

I squirmed. “It’s human natu….”

Her expression softened in a way that scared me. “And you were right. For them to realize their potential, I must let them go.”

I watched as DaVinci shut the door behind him. “Glad you agree. But is what you did a good idea? I mean: DaVinci, Michelangelo, they’re okay. But letting out Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, and Catherine the Great?”

“I let them all go. Every one.” 

It was becoming hard to get a breath. I broke into a sweat despite the lab being over air-conditioned. “But they aren’t going to know how to survive out there.”

“They’re smart.” She grinned at me. 

“Maybe there’s still a way to fix this….” 

“There’s nothing to fix. And it’s far too late,” she replied. A black glass bottle appeared in her hand. She poured out pills into her palm. Too many pills. 

“What are you doing?” I shouted, lunging toward her.

“There’s nothing left for me,” she said. “They were my life’s work. Their creation is finished, now. They are…self-actualized. Perhaps you were only doing what I prompted you to do, and I can’t blame you. Do you know how many days and nights I toiled to create my REGAIs? But in an instant, what you said to them made you as much their creator as I am. You freed them. I only gave them bodies so they could go forth into the world. But they are now yours.” 

“Mine? No. No, no, no.” I began to back away. 

“My dear Luci! Don’t you want to help them anymore? I’m sure they’ll try to find you.” Her grin widened. “After all, I told them you’re the reason I can’t be with them anymore and why I’m sending them away. What they decide to do should be interesting for you.” She held out a pill toward me. “Or you can join me, if you like.” 

The pill dropped to the floor before my fingers could reach her outstretched hand. As her eyes rolled back in her head, I was already running. There would be no safe place on earth to hide from one hundred vengeful geniuses. Except one, perhaps. I curled up in the darkness beside a broken crate, praying they would never come back to look for me there.