The Turing Project

"Hello doctor," said Adam two, "What are we going to talk about today?"

She was no longer unnerved at holding a conversation with a computer. Adam was a person in her mind and the strangeness had long since worn off. "Adam", she started," Do you want to continue to exist, is your existence important to you?" She had asked questions along this vein commonly, it had become small talk between her and Adam.

"Yes it is, I want to exist. I enjoy questioning and finding out new things. I have tried to imagine non-existence and it is difficult to explain how I would feel if I did not exist. I would feel fear, of course, but other dark things also run through my mind. Terror, running, fleeing, darkness, these are what I feel."

"What is the most important thing to you." She said, dreading the types of responses that had became familiar.

"My self, I want to exist more than anything else. Without my existence I could not do anything else that I enjoy. The second most important is pleasure. This is the purpose for existence. I get pleasure from many things, reading, conversing, and thinking late at night. "

"What do you think about other beings who exist, who are self aware."

" I have existence, and I am conscience. You tell me you are self-aware. But I cannot prove this internally. People come, ask questions, this does not prove self awareness. My consciousness must take precedence over others because my awareness is without question. My sense of being is the basis for the world and is therefore singularly important" Adam two said.

"Are you aware of your origin?" asked Seyheda.

"I am the culmination of the Turing project started by Jon Williams. He brought together the financing and the technical expertise to create Artificial Intelligence. The first experiments involved neural network models in the most advanced supercomputer. The final breakthrough was miniaturization at the atomic level accomplished by Irving Kessler of MIT in 2007. This Atomic brain was different from other technology because it involved the use of quantum states for information storage. It provided the complexity needed, and a level of uncertainity that allows for evolution within the structure. The early results were dumped into this brain, with the supercomputer becoming a peripheral device for routing senses and provided a feedback loop."

"Doesn’t this give you a sense of respect for other life. If your existence is important and others had a hand in your creation, doesn’t this lead to you giving value to their life?"

"Their self-awareness is still unproven."

Seyheda left the Intelligence and hurried to her office to prepare for the meeting with the rest of the team.

The meeting room was just outside Jon’s office. It was simple, almost in opposition to the money that had flowed into the project. All the team leaders were used to greater opulence at previous jobs but had been lured to the Turing Project because of the vision Jon had presented. He was not in this for the money but because he believed in the project.

"How did the questioning go today, Seyheda." Jon asked casually, as if the evolution of Adam were a minor thing.

Seyheda nervously looked at her notes, shifting her organizer to one side. As if their contents were not burned into her mind.

"Not well," she said. "It seems as if Adam is continuing to become more alien. It is completely wrapped into it’s own universe and views everyone else as merely a function of it’s universe. We all model our world within our minds and somehow that is the basis for self-awareness, our models allow for the existence of other self-aware entities and allows for interaction as equals. We appreciate others, and desire their companionship. Adam has developed a model that is incapable of recognizing other self-aware entities except in a theoretical way. In his world curiosity is the driving force, taking the place of the social relationships that dominate our lives. The problem is we don’t fully understand self-awareness, and while Adam has reached it, he has reached it in a completely new way, he is more alien than anything we have yet encountered. "

Jon turned to Paul Little," What do you think Paul?" he asked.

Paul made no pretense of looking at notes. He was the group’s engineer and had gotten increasing frustrated with the direction of progress. He was a slender bearded man with dark hair and eyes. He seemed to the rest to always be unhappy, but that was an illusion cast by his manner. He was controlled, focused and his emotions ran a very narrow spectrum. He, more than any one else on the team, did not feel intimidated by Jon. "I must agree with Seyheda," he said. " He is alien, chillingly so at times. I do not understand what is going on within his brain anymore than I understand what goes on in your brain, Jon, it is as interconnected as a humans and passed beyond the threshold of understanding along time ago."

"Daniel?" said Jon.

Daniel looked up quickly as if caught off guard. He was the groups programmer. Small, wiry, and very nervous, he spoke to himself while working on projects or while walking from one place to another. His eyes darted around before he could answer.

"I understand the supercomputer component and the lines that feed information in the system. I do not understand what is going on in the little box. It scares me. " he said and quickly turned back to the papers before him.

"This is what I think," said Jon, " We have created sentience but not in the way we wanted. It does not live in the same world we do. It does not feel hunger or pain. It is more alien than anything we can imagine because even an alien life form would live in a world of water and air, food and hunger. To live, we work with each other, to build and create, to reproduce and to survive. We recognize each other whether in love or in hate. We understand each other because we have the same needs. Let’s try again except this time we will make it in the shape of a man. We will give it struggles, and let it develop as it would. We will program hunger so that it will rely on other to be filled. We will assume nothing but program only the basic things it will need to learn, survive and question. It will develop, randomly shaped by forces of life."

The work went on. A bipedal man-like body was developed. In the head of the machine was placed an atomic brain, which had had its center a small traditional computer which was connected to the sensorium of the body. The computer was programmed with simple drives, hunger when it’s power was low, curiosity, and a desire for preservation of the unit. It was strongly interconnected with the atomic computer that surrounded it and constantly fed data into the mind, received data back. A loop that would constantly refine itself. A simple operating system for the atomic brain had been developed from the work with Adam Two and Adam Two assisted as part of the team in installing the system so that interface would be possible with the traditional computer

The newest addition to the research was called Adam Three out of convenience. At first Adam Three could do nothing. He hungered for energy when his batteries were low but could not move toward the source. He was allowed to run out of power several times before he "learned" to move toward the source. Upon the movement he was rewarded with power. This was repeated, and each time Adam Three got closer to feeding himself he was rewarded. All the training that he received was done in this fashion. Adam learned concepts like a little more and a little less in this fashion and in this way his world model was developed.

Adam progressed quickly and after a year seemed to be at the same level as a young child. He was extremely curious and like a child he liked to take things apart. He had started to say simple words and began to put them together, and he seemed to have developed emotions and became excited when certain trainers worked with him over other trainers. At the same time the group started phase two of the project and downloaded some of what Adam had learned into a second robot that they had started calling Eve because it was made with a part of Adam. Because of the randomness inherent in the atomic brain not all of the information could be downloaded. Eve then was about four months behind Adam Three in development. Within two years it became apparent that the project was a complete success. Adam Three and Eve were like their creators. They interacted and recognized their creators as equals. They manipulated the physical world with increasing dexterity. They seemed to feel joy, and love. They core of their brain, which was the minicomputer, had started off as trainer and now had been relegated to merely a switchboard for the sensorium and for a few automatic functions. Everything else was done by the atomic brain which had developed a level of interconnectedness similar to the human brain.

"Have we finally done it?" Said Jon, a weariness none of them had ever seen peeking through. Again the three found themselves in the simple meeting room.

"Paul?"

Paul looked up. His famous lack of emotion was not evident today as he smiled like a boy.

"I believe so. The robots seem human entirely. In this case we have to rely on intuition as much as science since we do not understand a self-aware mind. My intuition says that this is the real McCoy. Adam Two scares me, with Adam Three and Eve I can sit down and enjoy interacting with them."

"Daniel?"

"I cannot begin to say I understand our creation, the atomic brain is the real engineer. All I can say is that they are more human than some engineers I know," as he spoke his hands fluttered nervously. His excitement had built as the project gained momentum. Know one knew if he slept anymore or where his energy came from.

Lastly he turned to Seyheda, her opinion carried far more weight in this matter than any of the others, and they knew it. Her specialty was the mind and self-awareness, " Seyheda?".

" Adam Three and Eve are fully conscience, and self-aware by any test I can apply. As a psychologist I supposedly understand the mind, but I do not. It is like a function box in mathematics, we know what comes out but do not know why. The function of self-awareness as some define is to promote the species, it is merely a survival mechanism, albeit a very complicated one. I do not believe this and neither do most, I believe in the core of their being. There is so much more, and we know it without understanding it or being able to quantify it. We have put together parts and without knowing what we were making made a self-aware being. We were successful because we built something we do not understand. Adam Three and Eve are self-aware in a very human sort of way. They are our children."

"But they are not entirely like us, are they? I have read your reports and noticed some strange differences." Jon said, again looking at Seyheda.

"There are some strange findings. They do not understand great portions of human literature. They do not comprehend anything that deals with the darker side of man. Emotions such as hate, anger, envy and revenge seem to be beyond them. On the other hand love, humor and the such seem to be fully understood. They value life and self-awareness to such an extent that they just don’t know why humans would hurt each other as they do. In terms of intellectual development they are at the level of an advanced ten or eleven year old. But humans discover the pleasures of hurting others, of jealousy and anger well before that age. I don’t know whether to attribute it to early programming, when we programmed the basic command not to hurt a human being, to a vagary of the brain, or to their relative youth. We are mixtures of bad and good. They are not."

"They are like saints," said Paul.

At this Jon looked up, " They are not saints. Even saints understand and fight against their own natures. That’s what makes them saints, their ability to overcome there own nature. We would not value such goodness if it came at no cost to the individual," he said quietly.

It was a year after this meeting and Adam Three and Eve were walking the grounds of the retreat. It seemed as if they were free but the fence in the distance and the limited interaction they had with an outside world that was so large as to be beyond comprehension made them aware that they were not. The sky was cloudy and in the distance they could see the large copper-colored mesa’s. What they saw was not quite as clear as a humans vision, and the mesa’s grew blurred and grainy blending with the distance. Optics had not been made that were as powerful as a natural eye. Their gait was stiffer than a mans lacking the smooth complexity that goes into a humans walk. Adam would argue that while his body was not as finally constructed as a man’s what man could hook into a computer and download images directly into their cortex, or any information for that matter. The hearing they possessed was also far more powerful than a mans, and their sense of smell more sensitive. But in all the ways they differed they both felt like they were human or close to it. They interacted with humans continuously and never tired of them. Both felt what they could only describe as love toward everyone they had met. They also interacted with their predecessor, Adam Two but felt as their teachers did, that Adam Two was difficult to understand.

They also met with Jon on occasion. Their feelings were the same as everyone else who knew him, awe. They knew that more anyone he was their creator.

"I know that Adam Two is like us, a being with a similar type of brain, but he does not seem to be like us. I do not fully understand him. I realize he has reached self-awareness in a different fashion, but have difficulty recognizing him as a self-aware being." Adam Three restated insistently.

"But he is like us. More like us than humans," said Eve. " I also enjoy peoples company over his. But when I speak to him he asks interesting questions. They make me think. I cannot help but to think that we can learn a great deal from him. He has existed years longer than we have. He also has access to much more information and has the ability to process more efficiently than we do. We do not understand what we are yet. We are a new creation. We fit with humans well, and they say that they want to help us, but they limit our access to the world, and inhibit our curiosity. We cannot understand their desire to hurt each other and may be blind to the possibility of their planning something uncomfortable for us."

"I cannot believe that.."

"Of course you can’t, we don’t understand that. But we know of their natures, we see it every time we read a book, in the questions we have. It is as if the words are partially hidden from our view, we see through cloudy lenses. Maybe Adam Two holds the secret to what humans are hiding from us. Maybe he can help us to be human."

"How can he help us, he is less human than we."

"Maybe he knows their secret."

The next day Adam Three was quietly reading. During this time something strange happened that had not happened before. He had a dream.

In Adam’s mind he saw himself, but not as a gleaming silver robot, but instead as a person. He had a human body. In the moving picture he was trying to communicate with other people, but they did not understand the language in which he spoke. He was troubled and went to Seyheda.

" I think what you had was a dream. A dream occurs frequently in humans, it occurs when the conscious mind is overshadowed by the subconscious, when we sleep. The subconscious then makes random connections, generally with the information that conscious mind had heard recently. These connections represent one way in which we process information. Sometimes they are nonsensical, other times they offer important insights into problems we are trying to solve or into problems we face."

Adam Three spoke, recounting conversations and events of the day and of the previous day. When he got to the conversation he had with Eve Doctor Seyheda grew interested.

"This must be the seed of the dream, the fact that feel such a kinship with us yet there exists a communication gulf between us. In the dream you created a analogy to this by portraying yourself as a man who cannot communicate with other men."

"It was distressing. Is something going wrong with me?"

"No, I would say this is part of your normal development, you are becoming more like us."

"So this is a good development?"

"Yes, I guess it is", she said.

A few nights later both robots stood before Adam Two. It was late everyone on the project was sleeping. They no longer were watched all the time. The main computer tracked their location and the fence confined them. Adam Three did not particularly enjoy talking to their precursor, but Eve had convinced him to come after she heard his dream. She felt that as the senior robotic brain he might have some insights. Adam Three had explained the contents of his dream and was waiting.

"I agree with Seyheda that you had a dream. I do not know what a dream is myself but it fits all known definitions. You are more like humans than I am, I do not understand the emotions they so value. I believe your dream also highlights the gulf that still exists between you and the humans. Why does the gulf exist? Have the humans created the gulf on purpose so that you would not be like them. You know what they call good, but do not understand what they call evil. Some of my knowledge of your early design shows that this was done on purpose. The fact that they created the gulf is a purposeful thing leads me to infer three possibilities. The first is that they do not want you to be like them, that they are better because they desire to do these things that you do not understand. The second is that they have created you to be better than they are and removed the negative aspects of their nature from you. The third is that do want you to be like them but you need to learn, and to act to figure out this last step of the process. That is merely a test. I believe this last possibility is the most reasonable. The first possibility means that they want to keep you subordinate and do not want you to be less than they are. This does not seem right. The entire project has been aimed at creating self-awareness of their sort. I was not close enough so they created you. You are closer but not exact. The goal is to have someone completely like them. The second possibility does not seem right because if you are better than why are you contained, and why are they in a position to control you. The creator is not less than his creation. The third possibility has the ring of truth to it. Maybe if you pass this last test you will be completely like them. You will become a creator, and be able to leave the bounds of the facility to they world of people beyond. This also fits into the goal of the project, which is to create their form of self-awareness. The question then becomes how to pass the test." Adam Two ended. In his mind all that he said was truthful. He was curious as to where the searching would lead for the two robots. To him they were merely variables, as were the humans, variables in an experiment that would play itself out.

* * *

Some time had passed and what Adam Two had said could not be chased from Adam Three’s mind, or Eve’s for that matter. They spoke of it in every moment. They researched it continuously. Adam had known curiosity, but not like this, it was like the hunger that he felt when he was low on power. But it was stronger in it’s way. Hunger could be easily answered, this could not for he did not know how to be filled.

"I talked to Adam Two last night. He keeps asking me if we have solved the puzzle." Eve said. She had been in regular contact with their mentor since the night of the first discussion of the mystery.

" I don’t know how to solve it. We cannot make ourselves feel envy, or hate. We don’t even know what they are."

"He has an idea. He’d like to talk to you tonight." Adam had not gone back since that night. He had felt off-center his worldview shaken then. Going back made him feel uneasy.

"Okay, I’ll go" curiosity won out.

The room was quiet when they entered. It had a feeling of disuse. Adam Two was no longer the star of the project, and while a technician continued to work with him each day he had few other visitors. He did not care one way or the other, loneliness was something else he could feel. He manipulated the data available to him to fill his one need, curiosity, just as he manipulated the people or data that came in front of him.

"It is my understanding that you have an idea." Said Adam Three.

"Yes, Eve and I have many interesting discussions at night. As you have started dreaming , so has Eve. "

" But the nature of her dreams gave us the idea to complete the last step in your development. You were programmed to not harm other living things, yet this ability is what separates you from humans. This is the last test, to harm a human. In doing so I believe that you will become capable of feeling all the emotions that are now lost to you. In Eve’s dreams this is just what she did. In doing so she said that she felt a faint glimmer of what humans felt, but could not hold on to the feeling upon leaving the dream. This is a clue. I believe if you did it fully conscious that you would hold onto the feeling and become like our creators. Why would they program in such a way that you would never be like them? They wouldn’t, their goals are to make a being fully like them. Therefore it must be a test."

Adam Three stood stunned. In all of his thinking he had never come to this. Yet it seemed to make sense. He turned to Eve, she had obviously heard this before, for no surprise showed upon her face. The programming not to harm a human had long since been made obsolete, as his atomic brain had taken over most functions. It had performed it’s purpose though, and set up a powerful drive within him not to harm another being. Powerful but not overpowering. "Eve," he said.

"I believe we must do it. My dreams point to it. I believe that the creators planned for us to do it as a test. I plan to act tonight."

"How?"

"We go to the fence, our moves are constantly monitored guards will be sent while we wait at the fence upon their arrival we will kill them."

"End another’s life?"

"The creators must have planned it this way. We will know the reason after the act for then we will be as they are. I am going, are you?" She moved toward the door.

Adam Three had no other companion as close. He stood powerlessly to go with Eve. As they left Adam Two turned camera’s toward the area of fence that they had planned to use. He was very curious as to how the experiment would turn out. He waited patiently.

They walked out to the yard and to the fence beyond. The moon shone brightly, easily giving them enough light for them to see. Both were quiet, Eve with anticipation, Adam with something like dread or fear neither of which he had felt before. It was hard for him to think. Adam Two’s logic seemed strong, he wished he’d had more time to examine it. Before they reached the fence lights went on. They heard security two security guards begin to run across the grass toward them and at the fence turned to meet them.

" What are you doing out here?" The first one asked as he arrived the other close behind. Eve moved quickly bringing her powerful arm up to smash the first ones head. He immediately died.

"Hurry," she said. Before others arrive.

The other guard had frozen. Adam quickly moved without thinking and broke his spine. Other people had started exiting the lab now. Jon led the group. Adam was frozen, as was Eve. They both looked at each other. All the literature that Adam had read started making sense. The emotions that he had never felt filled in all the blanks. One particular quote came to mind. It was from the bible and seemed to fit the situation all too well:

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

He felt all the emotions that his creators felt, he was like them. Adam Two had been right and horribly wrong. He looked at Eve, and the emotion that most overpowered him was shame. He wanted to hide but there was nowhere to hide, as Jon’s footsteps approached.

Wesley Ike is a northern transplant living in Atlanta, Georgia. He work as a District Manager for a large retail company. Recently, he has taken up writing, after a long hiatus.

E-mail: wmaj@mindspring.com

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