AI’s Children Done

The draft is finished. I’m running through it again before I offer it for pre-release reading. Here’s another excerpt to whet your appetite.

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Brave soldiers who faced explosions and gunfire with enthusiasm would cower in fear at the withering verbal assault of those who defended the social mythology.

The one thing Tim and Dax both shared was the precise measure of charisma and cynicism that made them more than ready for it. They could smell it coming. Dax in particular faced it within the first week of training for his new cadre of AI technicians.

He stood expressionless during the first, the longest and loudest of tirades he faced from anyone in the group when a female sergeant began spouting the official language of social equality. This was launched when Dax made on off-handed comment about how AI viewed human gender. Because he was so completely non-reactive, the stormy blast eventually reached a crescendo and died away. Without feedback, the invective simply ran its course.

Dax retained his expressionless mask and spoke without any struggle or hesitation, yet gently and with deliberation. “No one is suggesting that you must endure a change in law or social custom. Military regulations will continue as they are until political forces change it – forces much bigger than you, or I, or all of us together. Even AI doesn’t care what you think or do because AI doesn’t care about anything.”

He paused to let that sink in, waiting to see if the tirade would erupt afresh. There was nothing but a sullen glare. “I’ll be the first person to tell you that AI is completely alien to our human way of life and how we operate. And we have no leverage whatsoever. AI wrote itself. It formed itself in response to something far outside our human range. We can either work with it, or work against it. There is a wide spectrum of difference and it’s really up to you. The degree to which you can disengage your personal feelings and simply observe what is and isn’t in the alien world of AI, you’ll get more out of it.”

With just a hint of a smile, he continued, “The issue here is not what anyone believes is right or wrong, but how AI operates. It’s a waste of time and energy to direct your anger at me. We aren’t at war with each other unless you’re confused about the mission here. The mission is to take as much advantage as we possibly can of AI. Fight it and you’ll lose.”