PATRICK CIRILLO Click to download full chapter LORA Artificial Intelligence Just Got Real... And She’s Lovely “By far, the greatest danger in Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”  Eliezer Yudkowsky  CHAPTER 1  The Redud  Kenton Bean was a Redud. He was a redundant worker, or a + 67%, to be more specific. For the last eight years, he taught Religious History at Wesleyan University. It was one of a handful of courses not taught at all by an Artificial Intelligence avatar because the teaching of religion was off-limits to AI, also known as The Big Brain. AI had to leave something for the humans to do, and teaching religion seemed right since there was such a diversity of thought on the subject and little objective certainty. What was accepted as fact by some was blasphemy to others. Things like that were disturbing to AI.  Kenton’s classes were taught on university grounds, like in the old days before AI had changed everything, and people started learning in their bedrooms or at coffee houses instead of in the classroom. His courses weren’t part of any significant major curriculum, so no one emphasized them. They were viewed more for their social and historical value than their academic value, so they were graded pass/fail, and no one ever failed. This was not a recommendation or a repudiation of Kenton’s quality as a teacher.  He was mediocre. Kenton was a quiet man of average height and build who liked his job and the students and the extras the additional pay bought above his GBPS, which was the basic living stipend paid to all American citizens ever since, well, AI changed everything. Kenton had grown up very wealthy, in an immense home with a dozen human servants and a continuum of AI servants that moved in and out as they were replaced by new servants (both human and AI) whenever they became old, tired, obsolete, or broken. He was average-looking with brown eyes and hair and no outstanding features, either positive or negative. He was so average-looking, in fact, that there would be no way for some future biographer to describe his looks in a way that could make him seem at all distinct. His plainness put him in a unique position. If he was self- confident, most people would have described him as a good- looking, energetic guy. Unfortunately, he was insecure about his looks and almost everything else, leaving him more shy and socially awkward than he should have been. He was an introvert who just didn’t know how to talk to people.  No one could possibly have imagined that Kenton would soon become the beating heart of the integration between humanity and AI. They certainly couldn’t have anticipated the threat of an apocalyptic revolution between the two forms, that the futures of humanity and AI both hung in the balance of the choices he made, that his life would be in peril, or that he was about to become the single most important human being in the history of the world. If they had known, they might have found that interesting, but at this point in time, even Kenton didn’t know it. In fact, if someone had suggested it to him, he would have laughed in their face. But it was true. In the entire history of the world, no one had been, or would ever be, as vital to the future of mankind as Kenton Bean.  At the moment, however, he was still rather average. He had forgotten how to talk to his wife, Grace, and so she had an affair with a colleague named Reggie from the accounting firm where they both worked as Reduds. Kenton had met Reggie many times at office parties and dinner parties. Reggie was so remarkably handsome, with jet-black hair, a strong chin, and straight teeth, that Kenton never suspected he was having an affair with his wife. He simply couldn’t imagine that Grace could attract him.   Grace was as plain as he was, but she could pass for attractive when her makeup was done just right, which was seldom. Still, she had more self-confidence than he did and generally fared better in matters of love.  Kenton was taken completely by surprise when she told him that she was having the affair and then announced that she was leaving him for a trial separation and was moving in with Reggie. He was shocked, numb, and sad when he saw the living room furniture being loaded onto the moving truck and taken away from his house. Out came box after box of Grace’s shoes. The woman nearly lived for shoes, and Kenton wouldn’t miss them one bit. Harder to accept was the loss of the bedroom furniture. It wasn’t that it made for great memories of his sex life with Grace. They were inhibited and uncreative lovers. No, seeing the bedroom furniture being taken away bothered him most because sleeping was his favorite thing to do. He looked forward to going to sleep so much that if he was tired and discovered it was only 8:30, he felt disappointed.  As the furniture movers carried the bed past him, he looked closely at the tag on the mattress so he could buy himself the same one later that day. He wasn’t one to take chances, especially when it came to sleep.  At first, he wondered why Grace was taking all of the family furniture. As a Redud +57%, Reggie must have furnished his house in a decent style. Kenton then realized that she had picked their furnishings herself, and she was the one moving to a new environment, so it made sense that she made the transition as comfortable for herself as possible. So, he didn’t begrudge her choice to take it with her.  “You know, Reggie is no good,” Kenton whispered to Grace as she passed carrying the mahogany jewelry box he bought her for her thirty-second birthday. “I don’t know what it is about him, but something tells me you’re going to regret your choice.”  This was a bold statement for Kenton because he lived under the assumption that almost everyone was better and more interesting than he was.  “Maybe,” she answered.  Kenton was encouraged by that. It meant their relationship wasn’t necessarily over. He knew he didn’t have any better options than Grace and couldn’t imagine a future where he would. “I just want you to know that if you realize you made a mistake, I will take you back.”  “That’s sweet of you, Kenton.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Easy with my girl, there, fella,” Reggie said as he emerged from the house carrying a box full of party liquor that Kenton never drank because it was reserved for the parties that they never had.   “I’m sorry, I was just—” Kenton stopped himself, realizing he had no reason to apologize to the man who had just stolen his wife. Besides, Reggie was probably joking.  “I’m glad you’re taking this so well,” Reggie said. “Nothing personal, you know.”  Kenton forced a smile and a nod and knew that losing a wife to another man was about as personal as something could get. Still, he didn’t hate Reggie. He didn’t know him well enough for that. He knew him well enough not to like him and to distrust him, which he did. There was something in Reggie’s mouth, and it hung at a sideways angle while agape, which seemed unnatural and gave him an evil countenance. It was as if one side of his face had come loose. Or perhaps what made Reggie seem evil was his habit of twirling the ends of his black mustache like the villains in the old silent movies.  In the end, Kenton knew the breakup was his fault. Some- thing was missing in his relationship with Grace that caused her to look elsewhere for companionship.  He took inventory of what it might be.  Romance. Fail. Kenton had never been the romantic type. He never brought her flowers or tickets to the theater unexpectedly. When he bought her candy, he would eat most of it himself. He had a sweet tooth. He didn’t take her to romantic restaurants anymore. They just didn’t have much to say to each other, and the thought of sitting through a long meal without a TV or some other form of distraction was terrifying to him. One Valentine’s Day, he surprised her by taking her to an expensive hotel where they ordered room service, and he planned to make love to her, but the caviar had turned bad, and they spent the night fighting for space to kneel in front of the toilet. He never again made the mistake of having romantic ambition or buying discount caviar. Trust. She could trust him with other women because he wasn’t clever or charming enough to attract them, and he wasn’t so good-looking that they would seduce him. He was also a terrible liar and even got nervous and betrayed himself while telling little white lies about how much he liked her new shoes. She could trust him because she always knew when he was lying. She also knew he never lied about important matters because he was about as honest as a man could get.  Companionship. That went away with the conversation. They had stopped taking vacations together. They liked different sorts of movies and had very different hobbies. There was nothing she could say about accounting that could interest him, and there was nothing he could say about the classroom that would interest her. Their conversations tended to be rather mundane exchanges about the weather, what to put on the shopping list, what to take off the shopping list, or what to defrost for the next day’s meal. Security. She could feel secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t cheat on her, but he wasn’t a rugged man’s man. It wasn’t likely he could defend her from something she couldn’t handle herself. So, if anyone broke into their home to rape and/or mutilate Grace, Kenton was unlikely to stop him. That said, the crime rate was very low, and there weren’t many raper/mutilators out there. If she got very sick, she knew she could count on him to bring her a pill and a glass of water to wash it down, but nobody got very sick anymore. Not since AI had taken medicine by storm. Everyone had financial security, so that didn’t matter, and the extra money he made as a Redud was helpful but not a game-changer. He provided no real security in any aspect.  When Kenton finished his inventory, he was surprised she hadn’t left him sooner.  Kenton waved goodbye as the truck drove away and then stared out forlornly as it disappeared around the corner, and the front yard fell to silence. Grace had left him the televisions and two patio chairs that sat out on the front porch. He picked one up and brought it into the house. He set it down in the living room, looked at it, moved it a few feet to the right, which seemed a more satisfying location, and then stepped back to look at it again. Yes, it seemed well placed, but he couldn’t be certain until the other chair was inside.  Jerry Treacher, his next-door neighbor, entered carrying the other chair and two bottles of beer. He had a bit of a beer belly while somehow being rail thin everywhere else and wore a loud Hawaiian shirt to cover it.  “Sad day, huh?” Jerry asked. He held out a beer, and Kenton took it. He didn’t much like beer or drinking, but he didn’t feel like being alone at the moment, and he knew Jerry would stay for at least the time it took to finish the drink.  “So, she finally ran off with Reggie, huh?” “You know Reggie?” “Yeah. He’s been over a lot lately, mostly in the daytime when you’re at work. Grace introduced us. Nice guy and very handsome.”  “You knew he and Grace were having an affair, and you didn’t tell me?” Kenton asked disbelievingly.  “Grace was our friend, too. Tough call.”  “I suppose,” Kenton said, then realized that Jerry knew exactly what was happening, perhaps in advance of himself. “Wait a second. Did she tell you she was leaving me before she told me?”  “Yeah. Allory and I helped her find the words. ‘You’re a wonderful man, but I thought it was time for me to take a hard look at myself from inside this marriage.’ Did she use that one?”  “Yes,” Kenton said coldly. “She led with it.”  “That was mine,” Jerry said proudly. “I figured it was a way of getting at the old, it’s not you, it’s me thing without being too obvious, you know.”  “I just can’t believe you didn’t warn me this was coming,” Kenton said.  “Not really my place,” Jerry said, with shrugged shoulders and then added a sympathetic, sideways head tilt.  The more Kenton thought about it, the more he realized that it was indeed a tough call. The truth was that Jerry and his wife Allory liked Grace a lot more than they liked him. Most people did. He wouldn’t have said a word if he was in the same position and knew Allory was cheating on Jerry and he was the cuckold instead of him.  They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment then Jerry downed the last of his beer in a single gulp. “So, I guess I’ll see you around.”  “Tell Allory I said hello.” “I will.” Kenton got on his computer and ordered a new mattress  and bedframe from Amazon. An hour later, the furniture was delivered by an AI-driven delivery vehicle and two hapless furniture movers who assisted their AI boss. The rush delivery was an extravagance that more than tripled the purchase cost, but Kenton didn’t want to take a chance on not having a comfortable bed for the night. Without a good night’s sleep, the following day would be ruined, and he couldn’t have that.  He thought he might watch a movie, but there were so many choices that he couldn’t focus on any in particular. He wanted to get drunk, but he always felt self-conscious in bars when he went by himself. He wasn’t able to make connections with people and didn’t drink very much anyway. He didn’t want to get drunk alone because he bored even himself, and he had to work the next day, so a hangover was out of the question. He’d had a hangover once and vowed to never have one again. To this point, he’d made good on that vow.  Instead, he lay back on the new bed and began flipping through the channels and websites randomly, catching a moment of this, a moment of that, a man who had watermelons dropped on his head from ever higher locations, a video of people tripping and falling, a dog trying to get a giant stick through a doorway and not knowing to turn the stick sideways or drag it in. Dogs were so stupid he had to laugh, and for a moment, he forgot his own problems until the dog figured it out and dragged the giant stick inside. The dog had solved its problem while Kenton’s problem remained.  Then, he saw an attractive model in a beer advertisement. He zoomed in on her and looked at her more closely. He checked for an ID and discovered she was Aubrey Winters, who had done many commercials. He looked at several of those, then located her website for a more intimate view of her. She had a nice, wholesome appearance and looked good in jeans or a bathing suit. He expected her to be a computer-generated avatar, but when he discovered she wasn’t, it was a pleasant surprise to him. It meant that she was out there in the world somewhere and that it was possible they would one day meet. If they met, they could fall in love. However unlikely, Kenton was comforted by the fact that it wasn’t entirely hopeless.  He tried to find her address, figuring that if she lived locally, he could hang around the markets where she might shop and see her in person. He understood that by actually meeting her, he could increase the odds of them falling in love from zero to near zero. Unfortunately, she lived in Santa Monica, CA, and he realized that if he traveled across the country for her, it would appear to be more of a stalking than the chance meeting of two neighbors reaching for the same cantaloupe.  Kenton began looking at nude models because he was male, newly alone, and couldn’t help himself. The models were exclusively AI avatars and had been since the use of human beings in pornography had been made illegal in 2029. The pornographers were up in arms about the new law at first, but necessity always triumphed over idealism (such as idealism existed in the smut industry), so the pornographers gradually accepted this reality and adapted. The new generation of adult stars was designed by computer coders rather than by cosmetic surgeons.  Kenton was attracted to each of the AI models. They were all so much fitter and more attractive than real women, which created an impossible standard that few women could meet. This, in turn, left many men, including Kenton, disappointed by reality. He hated reality, but not enough to leave it or give up on it through drugs, alcohol, or a full-time retreat into some virtual life.  The male avatars were also beyond perfect, yet for unknown reasons, women did a much better job of recognizing and accepting the difference between their fantasy lives and reality.  So, Kenton was lost in a sea of grand and unfulfilled expectations. He knew extraordinary women existed. He saw them crossing the streets, or at the health club when he spied through the window, or in bars when he dared to enter. They were out there. They just weren’t out there for him, he concluded.  Then, he saw the most lovely woman he had ever seen in his life. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and large eyes that were the color of the afternoon sky. There was the slightest outline of freckles beneath those eyes. Her lips were exactly right, not overly pouty, but not thin either. He imagined himself kissing this woman and wondered why anyone would ever stop kissing her. She smiled, and her teeth were perfect and white.  “You may think I’m a computer-generated image,” she said in a soft, sexy voice, “but you’d be mistaken. You might also think that I’m a professional model, remote and unattainable. You’d be wrong again. My name is Lita, and I’m the most advanced cybernetic quantum android ever built. I can do anything she can do, but I’ll do it for you. I’m here, and I’m waiting.”  Kenton hit the link and was immediately propelled to the Turing Systems website. On the cover page was Lita. She smiled and walked across the room where there were a dozen other androids who stood staring out. Eight of them were female, and four were male. All of them were young and physically perfect.  “I’m glad you decided to join me and my friends,” Lita said. “You’re in for a wonderful surprise. Now, I know what you’re thinking. We’re all just mobile, fully articulated androids, or love dolls—I hate that phrase—and the voice you’re hearing is  simultaneous AI. Well, you’re partially right. I am an android, but unlike one you’ve ever seen or touched before. There has never been one with skin as soft and indistinguishable from human skin as mine. There has never been one that moved so much like a real person you couldn’t tell which one was the real thing. Go ahead. Try.”  The image on the screen changed to two male figures dressed in form-fitting tracksuits. One was red and the other blue. They each took a standing jump straight toward the camera and landed in perfect balance. Their physiques were both also exemplary. Lita walked past them, looked at both admiringly, then turned back to the screen.  “One of them is human and works out six hours a day to keep that physique. The other will have it forever. Which one is which? I can’t tell. Can you?”  “Yeah, get them to talk. Then we’ll be able to tell in about two seconds which one’s the bot,” Kenton called to the screen. “Do you think so?” Lita said as she turned and looked directly at Kenton. “Sorry, I didn’t know I was in “convo” mode,” Kenton said. “It’s all right,” Lita said. “Go ahead and ask them anything.” “Okay. Um, you in the blue tell me something about the Sumerian religion.” The man in blue looked at him and shrugged. “You got me.” “Red suit, same question,” Kenton said. “I don’t know either. I’m a new build with a lot to learn.” “So, what do you think?” Lita asked. “I think it’s very interesting,” Kenton said, “But I am guessing you and your friends are way out of my price range.” “Well, that could be,” Lita said, “But the great thing about technology is that it’s the only industry where the prices continually come down.” Kenton’s phone rang. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.” Kenton smiled and then shut off the television and picked up his phone. It was his sister calling, and she gave him the worst news of his life. Or perhaps it was the best news of his life. He wasn’t quite sure.