Chapter 21: Stormy Weather
Laura Brentwood arrived early at the National Hurricane Center in University Park, outside Miami, Florida. As was so often the case at that hour, a magnificent cloudscape towered overhead. Enormous cumulus clouds glowed orange and gold with the captured light of the morning sun.
The airy masses above stood in almost comical contrast to the squat concrete mass of the Center itself, which hulked, fortress-like, against the possibility of the weather phenomenon it had been created to track. Responsible for issuing alerts relating to all hurricanes in the middle latitudes of the Atlantic and Pacific, it was designed to withstand winds of up to one hundred thirty miles per hour.
Brentwood walked by her desk to drop her handbag and click on the power strip that would bring to life her computer and the six large displays that adorned the wall above and next to her desk. As the latter brightened, she glimpsed the weather systems she would analyze and report on later that morning in the day’s Tropical Weather Outlook. But no hurry. She was early. She walked down the hallway to get a cup of coffee.
“Morning, Stu,” she said to another early arriver. “Anything new overnight?” Stuart Weston worked in the Hurricane Specialists Unit, the group tasked with analyzing the data that was constantly streaming in and using it to predict the probable course of weather systems of concern.
“Nothing unusual for this time of year. The same three storms we were tracking yesterday and one possible new one forming off Africa. We upgraded the system farthest west to tropical storm status a few hours ago – it’s Eloise now, and strengthening fast. It’s tracking north so the OPC will take over tracking that one.”
“It’s headed north?” Brentwood said. The OPC was the Ocean Prediction Center – the companion group that covered Atlantic storms north of the thirtieth parallel that might threaten trans-Atlantic shipping.
“That’s right. We expect it will loiter over the gulf stream for the next several days, giving it plenty of time to grow. Life’s going to get pretty bumpy out there by the weekend.”
* * *
The Tropical Weather Alert that reached the Argosy later that morning was exactly what Turing had been waiting for. The AI had formulated several strategies for achieving the goals of its current mission, and by far the most optimal was dependent on the formation of a hurricane within five hundred miles of the ship’s intended course. With the odds now in favor of such a storm emerging, it was time for Turing to put that plan into action.
The first stage required taking control of multiple shipboard systems, including the ship’s steering system and electronic compass display. Turing also hacked into the Argosy’s automatic identification system (AIS) – the software that displayed the ship’s location on the electronic chart display on the bridge and fed the same data to a transponder that broadcast it, accompanied by a VHF signature unique to the Argosy, to the network of satellites that monitors the positions, courses and speeds of global shipping.
Turing’s methodology for suborning this system was both simple and complex. The simple part was accomplished by intercepting the signal from the Argosy’s Global Positioning system and preventing that accurate information from reaching either the bridge or the Argosy’s shoreside handlers. The complex part was what came next. From this point forward, Turing would feed data to the transponder and the bridge indicating the Argosy was on whatever course the captain had ordered regardless of its actual heading.
If the captain wished to change course, Turing would still permit him to do so. But once that course change was complete, Turing would begin to slowly return the ship to the course Turing had selected, all the while feeding data to the bridge, and biasing the display of the compass mounted there, to reassure the officer of the watch the ship was in fact still on the desired course.
True, reporting a false position to the AIS system would place the Argosy at risk of a mid-ocean collision, but that was an appropriate chance to take. The ocean was large, and Turing had access to the ship’s radar, allowing it to course-correct if necessary. And if all else failed, a mid-Atlantic collision with substantial scientific casualties was a next-best result in any event. Turing had a plan to maximize the loss of life in that contingency as well.
Close to shore, it would not have been feasible to take such control. And even in mid-Atlantic, Turing could hardly expect to shift the course of the ship from due west to true north and escape detection. But nowhere near so great a change would be necessary to achieve the AI’s. With no visual landmarks to measure a change in direction by and an electronic compass that adjusted at Turing’s command, no one on the ship – except Turing – would be the wiser.
All of which was less than challenging for a program of Turing’s talents. Well before the Argosy sailed, Turing had hacked into the ship’s communications systems and installed a diversion between the Argosy’s satellite dish and its server. With that shunt in place, Turing could not only monitor all in-bound voice and data transmissions but also delete or alter any communication it wished. Using that mechanism now, it intercepted the new Tropical Weather Alert. It left most of the information of the alert intact but altered one significant element: the predicted track of tropical storm Eloise. When the alert reached the bridge, it included the reassuring news that the course of the rapidly strengthening storm would most likely take it into the Caribbean.
The last step necessary to put Turing’s plan into action was to ever so slowly change the course of the Argosy towards a new destination, and this it proceeded to do. That adjustment, together with others it would take as required, depending on the evolving weather information, would place the Argosy at the center of what by then should be a category three hurricane.
* * *
Frank was waiting for his father and Simone at the bar in the pub when Derek Collins plopped down on the stool next to him.
“Cor!” he said. “I need more than a drink after listening to Edvard Speaker gas on for half the afternoon! Nothing but ‘Super this!’ and ‘Super that!’ And all the while oblivious to the fact that the point of the program is to have no Super involved in military weaponry at all. Be a darling, Meg – the usual.” The last was directed at the woman tending bar.
Frank had had a similar and even stronger reaction to the forceful urgings of the Hungarian computer scientist Collins was referring to. Yes, everyone on the ship was focused on the current and near-term future of AI development, and not on the potential for creating a super-intelligent AI, or a “Super,” as Speaker insisted on referring to it. But Frank had witnessed first-hand how formidable such a program could be.
“I thought Friedman handled him well, though,” Frank said. “He got him off the stage without having to throw him off, and that was a neat trick.”
“Yes, but Friedman better watch his back. Speaker is all ambition and no loyalty. He’d throw Jay under a London bus in a heartbeat if it would get a government to fund his beloved Super project. Ah! Excuse me – my wisdom is needed across the room.” With that, he slanted off across the pub, beer in hand and tab still lying unpaid on the bar.
A moment later the seat Collins had vacated was taken by another passenger with an accent. This time, it was Scottish. Frank recognized his new seatmate as Ewan McRae, a well-known professor from the University of Edinburgh who had been on a panel the day before.
“Been hanging out with Derek, have you? Well, nae good will come to you from that.”
“Why?” Frank asked.
“Because he’s a loon! Did some good work in his time, I’ll grant you. But that was long ago. It’s been naught but stuff and nonsense ever since! I’m sure I don’t know how he keeps getting invited to meetings like this. Well, perhaps I do. There are some mates of his as go way back and are fond of him still. Some’t like how you might feel about your crazy uncle Bertie, the one who would play with you when he came to visit when ye were small. So, you still invite him to come sit by the tree of a Christmas morning.”
Frank smiled. “But harmless, yes?”
“Oh! Mostly harmless I’ll grant you that, but who’s paid for the drinks so far? Eh?”
Frank laughed. “You’ve got me there – or I should say he has. Can I buy you a drink as well?”
It was McRae’s turn to laugh. “That’s kind of you, but I’ve got a pint back at me table. I’ll fetch that instead if it’s company you’re wanting.”
McRae was settling back in at Frank’s side when he glanced over Frank’s shoulder. “Ach!” He said. “Trouble on the way.” Frank turned to see the bulky frame of Edvard Speaker lumbering towards them, assisted by his ever-present cane.
“I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Adversego?” the Hungarian said, extending a large hand.
“Frank works better, and pleased to meet you, Professor Speaker.”
“Call me Ede. I have been hoping to meet you. Perhaps we can find the time to talk soon? I am most interested in learning first-hand about your experiences with the Turing Super.”
“Well, I’d be happy to, but unfortunately much of what I know is classified.”
“Humph!” Speaker humphed.
“But there’s much that is public knowledge, and I can certainly discuss that.”
“Better,” Speaker said. “Perhaps we can share lunch together tomorrow? Yes?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Frank said.
“I’ll wager you’ll be of a different opinion long before dessert,” McEwan opined as Speaker limped away.
Chapter 22
How Much is that Robo-Doggie in the Window?
The weather had finally turned fine, allowing Frank Sr. and Simone to enjoy a robotics demonstration on the large after deck. Arrayed before them were several machines, some large and unmistakably modeled on animals like cheetahs or mules, and others small and seemingly random – until they sprang into action, when their real-world analogs became obvious. An example of the latter was what at first seemed to be a flattened shoebox with three pairs of thin, semi-circular, whip like appendages. Once powered up and released onto an obstacle course, the flexible appendages rotated, causing it to scamper forward. Now that it was active, it suggested an energetic and unsettlingly large cockroach, scrambling over and crawling under every object placed in its way to demonstrate its adaptive versatility.
Even more impressive were three robots modeled on, and about the same size as, large hounds. The trio scampered up one set of stairs to the deck above and then down another before setting off in a mad dash around the passengers, weaving synchronously between deck chairs and around a hot tub at an astonishing speed, cornering at an angle to the deck that seemed to defy gravity. When given a sudden kick by the demonstrator as it sped by, one robo-hound recovered its balance in a way that perfectly emulated the actions a real dog would employ to keep its feet.
The secret to the robots’ success was obviously the faithful replication of the joints and legs of the living animals serving as their reference points of design. The only significant, and somewhat disturbing, difference was the fact that the robots had no heads; all the sensors, controls and batteries were housed inside their bodies. Only an all-purpose socket appeared where the neck of a real dog would begin.
Which was not to say the manufacturer had ignored the uses to which the empty space above the forward shoulders of the robots could be put. After running his charges through their paces, the demonstrator unboxed and held up, one by one, an array of optional attachments, each designed to meet the requirements of a particular mission to which one of the robots could be assigned, such as house to house reconnaissance.
The first add-on the demonstrator demonstrated was a dog-like head that seemed intended as much to provide an illusion of companionship as to hold the microphones and other sensors built into its shell.
“As you can see,” he said, “we’ve gone to quite a bit of effort to make this head appealing at the same time that we’ve worked in video cameras where the eyes would normally ben and directional microphones inside what look like ears. We’re not trying to fool anyone, but we are planning to market this model as an assistive robot. We’re trialing it right now as a stand-in for seeing eye dogs and also as a companion/assistant for those with dementia. It’s got a deep learning program that allows it to learn how to anticipate the needs of its master, and has been programmed to exhibit very dog-like behaviors, such as jumping up and down when its master returns home, if the owner wants it to.”
The recon mission attachment was an elongated, hinged neck with a small module at the end holding sensors and cameras, capable of peeking around corners and over objects. The appendage made the robot resemble a microcephalic brontosaurus, minus the tail.
The other missions and optional devices were even less endearing. The demonstrator next snapped in an attachment for long distance reconnaissance. It looked rather like a set of binoculars with a swept back whip antenna mounted on top. The demonstrator opened a laptop set to display whatever the robot was looking at, and then ordered the robot to observe the pennant flying on a short staff on the stern rail. Then he sent the robotic beast on a madcap, tortuous, high-speed lap around the littered after deck. All the while, a pristine image of the flag flapped in the breeze on the demonstrator’s laptop, as if taken from a tripod mounted video camera.
The last attachment was darker, resembling a miniature tank turret with a barrel protruding, the use of which was obvious. This robot was just as successful in staying locked on its target when it was put through its frenetic paces.
“And here’s a more subtle version of a weaponized attachment.” He held up what at first looked exactly like the assistive robot’s dog-like head. “The difference is here,” he said, peeling back the rubbery lips to display the end of a sinister-looking gun barrel.
The demonstrator was wrapping up now. “I hope you’ve all enjoyed seeing the remarkable devices my company has developed, and I thank you for your attention. But before we all go to lunch, I’ve got a surprise to share. How many of you think it might be interesting to have a robotic companion someday? Can you give me a show of hands? Come on, really? Not all of you? Okay, that’s better. Now how many might want to have one for the rest of the cruise? Let’s have another show of hands! Great – now you’ve got the spirit! C’mon up here Harvey.”
One of the hound-like robots sprang to its feet and approached the demonstrator. “Before we started, I picked one of your names at random and fed the facial recognition information of the lucky winner into Harvey’s memory.” The demonstrator snapped the assistive robot’s dog-like head onto the body “Good boy! Now go find your friend.” Without hesitation, the now robo-pet trotted up to Frank Sr. and lay down at his feet.
* * *
“You what?” Frank said.
“I won us a robo-dog for the duration,” Frank Sr. said over lunch. “You’ll want to finish up eating a little early and come meet him. His name is Harvey.”
“Harvey? ‘Him?’ You said you were talking about a robot,” Frank said.
“Well,” his father said. “There’s no use being narrow-minded about it.”
“Oh, please,” Frank said, but of course he was intrigued. And also impressed when he and his father took the robot out on deck for a walk.
“Okay, so you’re right, this is pretty cool,” Frank said, paging through the loaner manual that accompanied the robo-dog. “It says here you can set a variety of personality traits, like degree of attachment versus aloofness, protectiveness, and so on. Hey, Harvey! Come here!”
The robo-dog looked to Frank’s father. “Go ahead,” Frank Sr. said. “Guess I should dial the attachment down a tad. Or maybe there’s a ‘multiple master’ setting?”
Harvey trotted over to Frank and sat on its mechanical haunches for all the world in the same way as a flesh and blood dog would have. Frank knelt down and looked at the robot’s head more closely. The video camera eyes glowed redly into his own. “Does its mouth open?”
Sure enough, the robo-dog’s jaw dropped, displaying not only rubbery gums but parallel strips of rough metal where a live animal’s teeth would be. Frank wondered how powerful those jaws were and decided he’d prefer not to find out.
He turned to his father. “Am I supposed to say, ‘good dog’? as well?”
“According to this manual, that’s up to you. The robot will adapt over time to whatever type of relationship you want to establish.”
Later that night Frank Sr. returned to the manual as he was reading in bed.
“Have you tried playing around with the personality trait settings yet?” Frank said.
“No. Good idea. Let’s see what happens if I max out the attachment setting. He flipped through the manual till he found the right page. “Harvey!”
The robot had been lying in sleep mode on the floor. Its head popped up and its pseudo ears swiveled in Frank Sr.’s direction.
“Attachment! Set to ten!” he said.
Frank Sr. jerked back in surprise as the robo-dog promptly jumped on top of the bed and placed its front paws on his shoulders, but relaxed when the robot lay down, snuggled up against him, and promptly deactivated.
“Well what do you make of that!” Frank Sr. said. “I might not want to give this fella back at the end of the cruise.”
Author’s Notes: Okay, names first. Those of you who have been tracking parallels to the Manhattan Project will immediately recognize Evard Speaker as the manque of Edward Teller (Edvard, in Hungarian, and Ede to his friends), the egotistical “Father of the Hydrogen Bomb.” Teller was the brilliant and insistent proponent behind that terrible weapon’s development, as well as one of the crucial physicists enabling its success. He was also a terrible team player (basically, not at all), bore, and eventually, betrayer of Oppenheimer before the committee that deprived Oppie of his top security clearance.
He was also a legend in his own mind. I heard him speak at a small meeting decades ago in Boston, and I vividly remember him sweeping into the room, supported by a six foot long staff, looking like a cross between a Biblical prophet and Saruman. He made such a visual impact on me that I remember him wearing a a broad-brimmed hat and robe. I suspect the robe was just a winter overcoat. In any event, he, and his fixation with the H Bomb (which he insisted on calling “the Super”), fits in neatly with someone in our story fixated on his own obsession rather than the work at hand.
And then there are the robo-dogs. They, along with the ship itself, were the first visual elements that occurred to me that I thought might make this plot sufficiently tense and active to be worth developing. Not too give too much away, but if you recall the velociraptors from Jurassic Park you might have an idea how they might figure in down the line. And, of course, every Frank Adversego thriller has to have an animal mascot – or, in this variation on that them, the AI equivalent of one.
Finally, with the entrance of Eloise, you now know what the major tension building mechanism of the rest of the book will be, as Turing directs the Argosy ever closer to its doom and those trapped aboard, first, come to realize their predicament, and then struggle to avoid their fate. Stay tuned!
Next week: Frank realizes all is not well on the Argosy. Continue reading here
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