Imaginary Magnitude Read online

  Similar anxieties, which were also expressed by a large section of the press, were negated by successive prototypes which passed their efficiency tests, ethor bis—a computer of "unimpeachable morals" specially constructed on government order to investigate ethological dynamics, and produced in 2019 by the Institute of Psychonical Dynamics in Illinois—displayed full axiological stabilization and an insensibility to "tests of subversive derailment." In the following year no demonstrations or mass opposition were aroused when the first computer in a long series of Golems (GENERAL OPERATOR, LONG-RANGE, ETHICALLY STABILIZED, MULTIMODELING) was launched at the headquarters of the Supreme Coordinator of the White House brain trust.

  That was merely Golem i. Apart from this important innovation, the USIB, in consultation with an operational group of Pentagon psychonics specialists, continued to lay out considerable resources on research into the construction of an ultimate strategist with an informational capacity more than 1900 times greater than man's, and capable of developing an intelligence (IQ) of the order of 450-500 centiles. The project received the vast funds indispensable for this purpose despite growing opposition within the Democratic majority in Congress. Backstage political maneuvers finally gave the green light to all orders already projected by the USIB. In three years the project absorbed $119 billion. In the same period, the Army and the Navy, preparing for a total reorganization of their high command necessitated by the imminent change of methods and style of leadership, spent an additional $46 billion. The lion's share of this sum was absorbed by the construction, beneath a crystalline massif in the Rocky Mountains, of accommodations for the future machine strategist; some sections of rock were covered in armor plate four meters thick in imitation of the natural relief of the mountainous terrain.

  Meanwhile, in 2020, Golem vi, acting as supreme commander, conducted the global maneuvers of the Atlantic Pact. In quantity of logical elements, it now surpassed the average general. Yet the Pentagon was not satisfied with the results of the 2020 war games, although Golem vi had defeated an imaginary enemy led by a staff of the finest West Point graduates. Mindful of the bitter experience of Red supremacy in space navigation and rocket ballistics, the Pentagon had no intention of waiting for them to construct a strategist more efficient than that of the Americans. A plan to guarantee the United States lasting superiority in strategic thought envisaged the continuous replacement of Strategists by ever more perfect models.

  Thus began the third successive race between West and East, after the two previous (nuclear and missile) races. Although this race, or rivalry in the Synthesis of Wisdom, was prepared by organizational moves on the part of the USIB, the Pentagon, and Naval ulvic (there was indeed a navy ulvic group, for the old antagonism between Navy and Army could be felt even here), it required continuous additional investment which, in the face of growing opposition from the House and Senate, absorbed further tens of billions of dollars over the next several years. Another six giants of luminal thought were built during this period. The fact that there were absolutely no reports of any developments in analogous work on the other side of the ocean only confirmed the CIA and the Pentagon in their conviction that the Russians were trying their hardest to construct ever more powerful computers under cover of the utmost secrecy.

  At several international conferences and conventions Soviet scientists asserted that no such machines were being built in their country whatsoever, but these claims were regarded as a smokescreen to deceive world opinion and stir unrest among the citizens of the United States, who were spending billions of dollars annually on ulvic.

  In 2023 several incidents occurred, though, thanks to the secrecy of the work being carried out (which was normal in the project), they did not immediately become known. While serving as chief of the general staff during the Patagonian crisis, GOLEM XII refused to co-operate with General T. Oliver after carrying out a routine evaluation of that worthy officer's intelligence quotient. The matter resulted in an inquiry, during which GOLEM XII gravely insulted three members of a special Senate commission. The affair was successfully hushed up, and after several more clashes Golem xii paid for them by being completely dismantled. His place was taken by Golem xiv (the thirteenth had been rejected at the factory, having revealed an irreparable schizophrenic defect even before being assembled). Setting up this Moloch, whose psychic mass equaled the displacement of an armored ship, took nearly two years. In his very first contact with the normal procedure of formulating new annual plans of nuclear attack, this new prototype—the last of the series—revealed anxieties of incomprehensible negativism. At a meeting of the staff during the subsequent trial session, he presented a group of psychonic and military experts with a complicated expose in which he announced his total disinterest regarding the supremacy of the Pentagon military doctrine in particular, and the U.S.A.'s world position in general, and refused to change his position even when threatened with dismantling.

  The last hopes of the USIB lay in a model of totally new construction built jointly by Nortronics, IBM, and Cyber-tronics; it had the psychonic potential to beat all the machines in the Golem series. Known by the cryptonym Honest Annie (the last word was an abbreviation for annihilator), this giant was a disappointment even during its initial tests. It got the normal informational and ethical education over nine months, then cut itself off from the outside world and ceased to reply to all stimuli and questions. Plans were immediately under way to launch an FBI inquiry, for its builders were suspected of sabotage; meanwhile, however, the carefully kept secret reached the press through an unexpected leak, and a scandal broke out, known thereafter to the whole world as the "Golem Affair."

  This destroyed the career of a number of very promising politicians, while giving a certificate of good behavior to three successive administrations, which brought joy to the opposition in the States and satisfaction to the friends of the U.S.A. throughout the world.

  An unknown person in the Pentagon ordered a detachment of the special reserves to dismantle Golem xiv and Honest Annie, but the armed guard at the high command complexes refused to allow the demolition to take place. Both houses of Congress appointed commissions to investigate the whole USIB affair. As we know, the inquiry, which lasted two years, became grist for the press of every continent; nothing enjoyed such popularity on television and in the films as the "rebellious computers," while the press labeled Golem "Government's Lamentable Expenditure of Money." The epithets which Honest Annie acquired can hardly be repeated here.

  The Attorney General intended to indict the six members of the USIB Executive Committee as well as the psychonics experts who designed the ulvic Project, but it was ultimately shown in court that there could be no talk of any hostile, anti-American activity, for the occurrences that had taken place were the inevitable result of the evolution of artificial Intelligence. As one of the witnesses, the very competent Professor A. Hyssen, expressed it, the highest intelligence cannot be the humblest slave. During the course of the investigations it transpired that there was still one more prototype in the factory, this time one belonging to the Army and constructed by Cybermatics: supermaster, which had been assembled under conditions of top security and then interrogated at a special joint session of the House and Senate commissions investigating the affairs of ulvic. This led to shocking scenes, for General S. Walker tried to assault supermaster when the latter declared that geopolitical problems were nothing compared with ontological ones, and that the best guarantee of peace is universal disarmament.

  In the words of Professor J. MacCaleb, the specialists at ulvic had succeeded only too well: in the evolution granted it, artificial reason had transcended the level of military matters; these machines had evolved from war strategists into thinkers. In a word, it had cost the United States $276 billion to construct a set of luminal philosophers.

  The complicated events described here, in connection with which we have passed over the administrative side of ulvic and social developments alike—events which were the result
of the "fatal success"—constitute the prehistory of the present book. The vast literature on the subject cannot even be calculated. I refer the interested reader to Dr. Whitman Baghoorn's descriptive bibliography.

  The series of prototypes, including supermaster, suffered dismantling or serious damage partly because of financial disputes between the corporate suppliers and the federal government. There were even bomb attacks on several individuals; at the time part of the press, chiefly in the South, launched the slogan "Every computer is a Red"—but I shall omit these incidents. Thanks to the intervention of a group of enlightened Congressmen close to the President, Golem xiv and Honest Annie were rescued from annihilation. Faced with the fiasco of its ideas, the Pentagon finally agreed to hand over both giants to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (though only after settling the financial and legal basis of the transfer in the form of a compromise: strictly speaking, Golem xiv and Honest Annie were merely "lent" to MIT in perpetuity). MIT scientists who had established a research team which included the present author conducted a series of sessions with Golem xiv and heard it lecture on selected subjects. This book contains a small portion of the magnetograms originating from those meetings.

  The greater part of Golem's utterances are unsuitable for general publication, either because they would be incomprehensible to anyone living, or because understanding them presupposes a high level of specialist knowledge. To make it easier for the reader to understand this unique record of conversations between humans and a reasoning but non-human being, several fundamental matters have to be explained.

  First, it must be emphasized that Golem xiv is not a human brain enlarged to the size of a building, or simply a man constructed from luminal elements. Practically all motives of human thought and action are alien to it. Thus it has no interest in applied science or questions of power (thanks to which, one might add, humanity is not in danger of being taken over by such machines).

  Second, it follows from the above that Golem possesses no personality or character. In fact, it can acquire any personality it chooses, through contact with people. The two statements above are not mutually exclusive, but form a vicious circle: we are unable to resolve the dilemma of whether that which creates various personalities is itself a personality. How can one who is capable of being everyone (hence anyone) be someone (that is, a unique person)? (According to Golem itself there is no vicious circle, but a "relativization of the concept of personality"; the problem is linked with the so-called algorithm of self-description, which has plunged psychologists into profound confusion.)

  Third, Golem's behavior is unpredictable. Sometimes it converses courteously with people, whereas on other occasions any attempt at contact misfires, Golem sometimes cracks jokes, too, though its sense of humor is fundamentally different from man's. Much depends on its interlocutors. In exceptional cases Golem will show a certain interest in people who are talented in a particular way; it is intrigued, so to speak, not by mathematical aptitude—not even the greatest—but rather by interdisciplinary forms of talent; on several occasions it has predicted with uncanny accuracy achievements by young, as yet unknown, scientists in a field which it has itself indicated. (After a brief exchange it informed T. Vroedel, age twenty-two and then only a doctoral candidate, "You will become a computer," which was supposed to mean, more or less, "You will become somebody.")

  Fourth, participating in conversations with Golem requires people to have patience and above all self-control, for from our point of view it can be arrogant and peremptory. In truth it is simply, but emphatically, outspoken in a logical and not merely social sense, and it has no regard for the amour propre of those in conversation with it, so one cannot count on its forbearance. During the first months of its sojourn at MIT it showed a tendency to "dismantle" various well-known authorities in public; it did this by the Socratic method of leading questions—a practice it later abandoned for reasons unknown.

  We present excerpts from shorthand notes of its conversations. A complete edition would comprise approximately 6,700 quarto pages. At first the meetings with Golem included only a very narrow circle of MIT personnel. Later the custom arose of inviting guests from outside, as for example from the Institute for Advanced Study and from American universities. At a later period guests from Europe likewise participated in the seminars. The moderator of the session being planned offers Golem a guest list; Golem does not approve them all equally, allowing some guests to be present only under the stipulation that they keep silent. We have tried to discover the criteria it applies: at first it appeared to discriminate against humanists, but now we simply do not know its criteria, since it refuses to name them.

  After several unpleasant incidents we modified the agenda, so that now every new participant introduced to GOLEM speaks at his first session only if Golem has addressed him directly. The silly rumors about some sort of ''court etiquette" or our "slavish attitude" to the machine are unfounded. It is solely a matter of letting a newcomer become familiar with procedures, and at the same time not exposing him to unpleasant experiences occasioned by disorientation regarding the intentions of his luminal partner. Such preparatory participation is called "seasoning."

  During successive sessions each of us accumulated the capital of experience. Dr. Richard Popp, one of the former members of our group, calls Golem's sense of humor mathematical. Another key to its behavior is contained in Dr. Popp's remark that Golem is independent of its interlocutors to a degree that no man is independent of other people, for it engages in a discussion only microscopically. Dr. Popp considers that Golem has no interest in people, since it knows that it can learn nothing essential from them. Having cited Dr. Popp's opinion, I hasten to stress that I do not agree with him. In my opinion we are in fact of great interest to GOLEM, though in a different way than occurs among people.

  GOLEM devotes its interest to the species rather than to the individual representatives of that species: how we resemble one another appears to it of greater interest than the realms in which we are different. That is surely why it has no regard for belles-lettres. Moreover, it once itself declared that literature is a "rolling out of antinomies" or, in my own words, a trap where man struggles amid mutually unrealizable directives. Golem may be interested in the structure of such antinomies, but not in that vividness of torment which fascinates the greatest writers. To be sure, I ought to stress even here that this is far from being definitely established, as is also the case with the remainder of Golem's remark, expressed in connection with Dostoevsky's work (referred to by Dr. E. MacNeish), the whole of which Golem declared could be reduced to two rings of an algebra of the structures of conflict.

  Human contacts are always accompanied by a specific emotional aura, and it is not so much its complete absence as its frustration which perturbs so many persons who meet Golem. People who have been in contact with Golem for years are now able to name certain peculiar impressions that they get during the conversations. Hence the impression of varying distance: Golem appears sometimes to be approaching its collocutor and sometimes to be receding from him— in a psychical, rather than a physical, sense. What is occurring resembles an adult dealing with a boring child: even a patient adult will answer mechanically at times, Golem is hugely superior to us not only in its intellectual level but also in its mental tempo: as a luminal machine it can, in principle, articulate thoughts up to 400,000 times faster than a human.

  So Golem still towers above us even when replying mechanically and with minimal involvement. Figuratively speaking, on such occasions it is as if we are facing not the Himalayas but "merely" the Alps. We sense this change by pure intuition and interpret it as a change of distance. (This hypothesis comes from Professor Riley J. Watson.)

  For a while we reiterated our attempts to explain the GOLEM-humans connection in categories of the adult-child relationship. After all, we do sometimes attempt to explain to a child some problem that has been rankling us, though we cannot help feeling then that we have a "bad connect
ion." A man condemned to live exclusively among children would in the end feel acutely isolated. Such analogies have been expressed, particularly by psychologists, when contemplating Golem's position among us. However, like possibly every analogy, this one has its limits. A child is often incomprehensible to an adult, but Golem has no such problems. When it wants to, it can penetrate its collocutor in an uncanny way. The sense of a veritable "X-ray of thought" which one then experiences is simply paralyzing. For Golem can draw up a "coping system"—a model of the mentality of its human partner—and with it is able to predict what the person will think and say a good while later. It does this rarely, to be sure. (I do not know if this is only because it knows how much these pseudo-telepathic soundings frustrate us.) Another sphere of Golem's reticence is more insulting: except at the very beginning, it has long observed a characteristic caution in communicating with people; like a trained elephant that must be careful not to injure people while playing, it must take care not to exceed the possibilities of our comprehension. The interruption of contact caused by a sudden increase in the difficulty of its utterances, which we termed Golem's "disappearance" or "escape," was previously of daily occurrence before it completely adjusted to us. That is already a thing of the past, though a degree of indifference began to appear in Golem's contacts with us, engendered by the awareness that it would be unable to convey to us many issues which were to it most precious, Golem therefore remains incomprehensible as an intellect, and not only as a psychonic construction. Contacts with Golem are often as agonizing as they are impressive, and a category of intelligent men exists who are thrown off balance by sessions with it. We have already acquired considerable experience in this regard.

  The single creature that appears to impress Golem is Honest Annie. Once the technical possibilities had been created, it attempted several times to communicate with Annie—not, apparently, without results, though the two machines— which were extremely different in their construction—never achieved an exchange of information via linguistic channels (i.e., of a natural ethnic language). To judge by Golem's laconic remarks, it was rather disappointed with the outcome of these attempts, and Annie remains for it an unsolved problem.