The Autobiography of Devon Miles

In reviewing the KR episodes, especially about the development of KARR and then KITT, I found the timelines to be too unlikely for reality. Also, in "Trust Don't Rust", Bonnie tells Michael that she had only been with the Foundation for the last six months of KITT's development. I've taken the liberty of changing the amount of time it took to develop the first AI and have Bonnie enter the story at a different point. I hope you will excuse these changes.

California, Conflict and KARR

As before, I ran to take this opportunity to chart a new course in my life. I packed up my Blaupunkt radio, my Deutsche Grammophon records, my books and left Austria behind. My brothers and sisters-in-law were concerned about my sudden decision; I had begun to develop a reputation both with in the family and without of being "stodgy". While my enthusiasm was seen as a good turn of events after my last few years of quiet depression, Arthur in particular was concerned that I was running away from my problems. We had several conversations by phone at the time that are painful to recall. He merely wanted me to consider the offer that Wilton had given me a bit more closely, instead of jumping at it as if it was a life-saver tossed to a drowning man. What neither of us really could admit to ourselves or each other, was that it was indeed exactly that. Plodding along in the service of the FCO until retirement was killing my soul. I felt that after I had finally tracked down my old nemesis Wilhelm Busch, the best days of my life were behind me. I had wagered my life in defense of my country and its allies, seen the worst of humanity and the best and had trusted my life to people who were at least as close to my heart as my own family. After all that, I realized that my life was just marking time waiting for my death.

My disagreement with Arthur was resolved when he visited me in California six months after I settled there and seen the changes in me. I had visited the state before, but actually living in Los Angeles was a revelation. First of course, was the light: brilliantly white and seemingly constant, with any shadows somehow artificial. It took quite a while to acclimate to the southern California sun for someone from the British Isles. Even the sun of the Mediterranean and Africa was softer, gentler than that in my new home. And there was the near constant warmth, the overwhelming greenery, and the youth of the place. I felt that Wilton and I must be the only two males for miles around that actually had gray hair. The only exception must have been Lorne Greene!

But I think it was the sun that, hand-in-hand with the project at Knight Industries, saved me. It was suddenly a delight to be out of doors all year 'round. I explored the parks and the beaches, the towns up and down the coast, Las Vegas and the desert and the mix of cultures. The newness refreshed my mind, and the climate rejuvenated my body.

I assumed that when I arrived in Los Angeles, my first order of business would be to find a place to live, but Knight Industries provided its top people with suites and apartments either in Wilton's mansion or on its grounds. I was surprised and pleased with the arrangement. Of course, it meant that I was essentially on-call 24-hours.

I was hardly settled in before Wilton began the process of introducing me to his project, which was code-named "K1-AIC" and pronounced "Kayak". As I have previously mentioned, he had long desired to produce something that would reduce the lethality of military and policing measures. At first he looked at light-weight armor and protective coatings to develop shielding that could prevent penetration by projectiles, both large and small. Since at least the 30's, some American police departments had utilized chain-mail reinforced flak-jacket types of vests, which even to this day can still be found in use. Wilton sought to bring to the market a chest-protector that was light, adaptable to all sorts of body shapes and impervious to even the most dynamic projectiles. Unfortunately for the world, Kevlar, steel mesh and heavy armor were cheaper and available much sooner than anything he was working on.

Wilton was also prescient in knowing that if a human-substitute could be put into harm's way instead of a live soldier or policeman, it would be much safer for all concerned. It was therefore his desire to develop a robotic intelligence that could take the place of a human being in such a situation. Combining a robot with protective shielding was his goal. At first he thought to design a humanoid-looking device, but quickly discovered that it was limited in speed and stability by its bi-pedal design. An automobile-based design overcame those limitations and also had much more room for the processing unit and weaponry. What it lacked was the dexterity, rudimentary though it was, of a humanoid design. He felt that it was something that could be overcome later with the addition of peripheral devices.

And so I learned my very first day on the job that K1-AIC stood for "Knight One-Artificial Intelligence Car".

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I don't believe that the term, "Artificial Intelligence" had been thought of by anyone else as early as 1971, but that is exactly what made KAYAK so impressive. Considering how crude computer technology was at the time, Wilton's vision was almost laughable. The first desktop computer was unveiled by the Olivetti company in 1964 at the New York World's Fair and Hewlett Packard's 9100A, considered the first commercially available desktop computer, became available only in 1968. However, in November of 1971, Intel announced its first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. With that, my friend was able to build his own computer to design yet a faster and more capable computer, and so on, until he had a machine capable of the research needed to develop an AI. Quite obviously, an artificial intelligence would need unheard -of processing power yet be small enough to be mobile. At first we hoped that we would be able to create something the size of a tractor-trailer, even though we knew that it was unsuitable for pursuit and off-road assignments. Just having an AI in any vehicle would be an achievement.

At the same time, another team was working on the light-weight protective coating for the vehicle. Many concepts were developed from interlocking and overlapping "scales" made of titanium to a reverse-attraction system that would deflect anything away from the automobile. The "scale" idea seemed to be the best at the time. Titanium and its alloys are light-weight and extremely strong. Titanium is also quite abundant. Unfortunately, it does react with oxygen, causing an oxidative coating to form on its surface but this also protects the underlying metal from corrosion. While this coating is quite thin, measuring only in nano-meters, the oxidation is a continuing process. Titanium, however, is corroded by concentrated acids, a major drawback. Titanium nitrate does not have this issue and is also extremely hard. It is used in much of wiring of the AI/automobile interface because of its durability and its excellent electrical conductivity, but that conductivity made it unsuitable for the protective coating.

Wilton was also very anxious to prepare the way for the organization that would use and support the mobile AI. He was concerned with the corruption that he had seen, the ability to sway entire groups of people into false beliefs, the willingness of many to bend rules so that their needs and desires were met despite the needs of the community. He had seen it happen in Nazi Germany, in the Jim Crow South and in the person of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He recognized the need for police and armed forces but felt that they were too unlikely to be able to move against those that placed themselves "above the law" both because of their forces' size, organization, and their funding needs. It was his belief that one person would be more likely to stand up to those forces if they had the right resources and were not subject to the politics of keeping a government agency funded, staffed and functional. I believe his original intent was to be that person, utilizing whatever developed out of the KAYAK project as a long-distance weapon in that fight. One of my major tasks, therefore, was to lay the groundwork for the organization that would support this crusade in the years and decades to come. Right from the start, Wilton knew that there had to be checks and balances within the organization to prevent the development of its own corruption. One of my earliest tasks became the evolution of the advisory group that would oversee what is now known as "The Foundation for Law and Government", or "FLAG".

It was Wilton, of course, who came up with the name. He was insistent that the words, "government" and "law" be prominent so as to signal a belief in a set of democratically-derived rules. He also wanted it made clear (eventually, with some "encouragement" from me), that although this was his vision, and his wealth behind it, the organization was not his playground to live out some crime-fighting fantasy of his. He was in deadly earnest that the project was to work as an extension of existing law enforcement agencies, to be able to go into areas (physically and jurisdictionally) where they could not. Still, it took me a while to convince him that he, himself, could not be the operative agent. At that point, we had not yet determined how independent the AI could and would be. The idea of Wilton as an "un-caped crusader" was quite ludicrous, considering his age and the need to keep him at the head of Research and Design, but I suppose, he was living out a mid-life fantasy.

By the latter half of 1972, Knight Industries had developed a computer powerful enough that could be the basis of the Artificial Intelligence. Wilton could have made additional millions of dollars if he had wished to sell it as a commercial product, but he feared the uses such a powerful device could be put to. In fact, very few of the computer scientists working on the project had a complete knowledge of the chipset design, so that it could not be easily reproduced. Size remained a large problem and part of the computer team were assigned to nothing but creating smaller and smaller chips and other components. The other part of the team began to work on how to actually program intelligence, learning and self-awareness into an AI.

I was naturally quite skeptical of ever seeing anything as advanced as Wilton envisioned come to fruition. The idea of an electronic device becoming self-aware seemed to me to be beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, I fervently hoped it would be impossible, because I feared the god-like nature of what we were doing. My friend and I discussed and even argued over the possibility for years. Many, many gallons of beer, wine and spirits were consumed while we talked about the possibilities of what such a "thing" could become and what impact that would have on human development. I argued that unless there were a way to program "morality" into an AI, all that we would have done was create a Frankenstein's monster. Wilton believed that by "raising" the AI in the company of moral and good humans would be sufficient guidance to insure its purity of purpose. I didn't mention it at the time, although I should have; Wilton's own son was proof that outside influence was not the sole determinant of how a personality would develop. And our AI would undoubtedly, inevitably, have a personality.

One reason that I didn't broach the subject of Garthe was because of the pain he was causing his father. By now a young man, Garthe remained as difficult and self-centered as previously. He had learned to control his angry impulses when it suited his purposes, but he was no more likely to listen to anyone else than he had as a child. It was quite a shame, really. He had inherited his father's engineering abilities and although he refused to be "incarcerated" in a university where his talents could have been developed and enhanced, he was quite interested in the KAYAK project and worked on it (on and off) for several years during this period, absorbing knowledge about both the computational and the protective coating aspects of it. He was quite skilled in manipulating people to get the information he wanted from them and when it suited his needs, he would delve into textbooks and extract the needed knowledge like an anteater suctioning the insects out of an anthill. All Wilton saw at the time, though, was his son finally interested in something he was working on. By 1973 his son was eligible for the draft, but Wilton would repeatedly pull strings through Knight Industries if there were even the slightest suggestion that the young man would be drafted. Essentially, Wilton would claim that as a member of the Engineering Group working on the top-secret KAYAK project, Garthe was engaged in an exempt field. Once it was clear that he had nothing to worry from the draft, Garthe would disappear for a while every few months and then return, knowing that his father would welcome him back, no questions asked. If Elizabeth knew what was happening with the boy and where he went, she never admitted it. I believe that she was much more concerned with her own life to worry much about her son. She had moved to Las Vegas after the divorce and was alternately looking for a rich man to marry and for a business opportunity in the growing playground atmosphere of the city. She would eventually become part-owner of a large and showy casino, and I must give her credit for being able to handle herself in the still mob-controlled gambling industry of the 1970's. Also to her credit, her presence in the city made it a much more attractive venue for those entrepreneurs and entertainers who wished to provide more "family-oriented" shows. Thus, as well-to-do as Elizabeth was after her divorce settlement, even after settling the debts and tax problems left behind by her father, her casino holdings eventually made her a very, very wealthy woman in her own right.

While the computer hardware part of the KAYAK project continued to evolve throughout the rest of the decade, the AI aspect developed more slowly, and the armoring work essentially came to a complete halt. There was a time about 1976 or 1977 when Wilton thought he would never be able to deploy anything of value and I was the one now trying to "buck-up" my friend during his dark time.

Therefore, the developments of 1978 were all the more important, although we didn't realize it at the time. The first, and the most pleasant one was the hiring of a young Ph.D. in computer programming specializing in Artificial Intelligences and with a secondary interest in processor design. This, of course, was Bonnie Barstow. At first, she was a shy young woman who seemed to hide anytime Wilton, or I were in the vicinity of her workspace. My friend once asked me after she had been on staff for about a year, what "this Dr. Barstow looked like"! I soon discovered that she was an intense worker and could often be found at her desk late into the night. I made it my habit to stop by once or twice a week, often offering to share a sandwich with her because the medical department reported that she often skipped meals, forgetting to eat while she was engaged in her work. Indeed, there was a point where she looked like skin and bones and there was serious concern about her condition. The tipping point came very late one night, long after I had retired to my apartment. Garthe had returned to the compound from one of his disappearances, but he was not to stay for long. He was about to leave for Africa where he had discovered some sort of business deal that he claimed would be very lucrative. We all know how that turned out, but that was all in the future on this night. Prowling the grounds, looking for something to amuse himself with, he saw the light on in Bonnie's office and proceeded to make her acquaintance.

To say that Garthe Knight is not the type of man that Bonnie Barstow would have any interest in is an understatement. Add to that the fact that he was interrupting her work and she had no idea who this very tall stranger was, and you can imagine that she was not at all welcoming to him. I do think that meeting Garthe first colored her perception of Michael for quite a long time, although she's never said anything about it, at least to me. At any rate, Garthe took her rejection as an invitation to try harder with her. As far as I can tell, push literally came to shove when he grabbed Bonnie by the wrist and pulled her out of her chair and began to paw at her.

We had long before installed silent alarms throughout the laboratories and garages, and Bonnie managed to activate the one at her desk. The violent motion of being unexpectedly pulled out of her chair into an upright position caused her to semi-faint from hypostatic orthotension. Wilton and I came running with a trio of guards, just in time to see Garthe pick up her limp form. The doctors later reported that she was seriously anemic. She also was quite bruised where Garthe had grabbed her, more than would normally be expected, even from someone of his strength and size, all due to that anemia. Garthe was banished from his father's world for what very likely could have turned into a rape, although he was already planning to leave for his mother's casino that morning on the first leg of his trip to the west coast of Africa. Bonnie was put on two weeks medical leave, pumped full of vitamins, and told to eat! When she returned to her desk, she was not quite the shy young woman she had been previously. Although she has always been sweet and pleasant with me and many others in Knight Industries and FLAG, she developed the ability to stand up for herself (and KITT) and she's never hidden from anyone since. She also dove back into work and began to make real progress in developing the basics of the AI programming.

Wilton had also found several Ph.D.'s in Chemistry and a Chemical Engineer to revitalize the search for the protective layer for the AI's shell. After all the previous years' discussions on scales, repulsive energy, titanium vs. alloys and whatnot, Wilton finally insisted that a molecular bonding that could be applied to metal, glass and rubber absolutely had to be developed and no other solution would be acceptable. His studies in nano-coating had convinced him that was possible and even practical at that point and he had some ideas that would jump-start that part of the project again.

Before his banishment/business trip, Garthe had been actively involved in discussions about the AI's primary programming. It was his contention that in order to be effective and have a useable life-span, the AI would need to be programmed for self-preservation. He correctly pointed out that the sorts of people and organizations that it would be used against would quickly develop defensive and offensive measures against it. It would be a spectacular waste of resources to lose the AI after only a few months of deployment if it could not protect itself as well as adapt to new threats. Garthe was quite convincing and correct about the need for the AI to protect itself as well as to evolve and those concepts, as we all know, did make it into the prototype. At the time, it also became clear to Wilton that although he hoped to deploy the AI as an independent agent, there would definitely be times when a human "team leader" would be needed for a variety of reasons. Garthe lobbied for the job and had his father convinced to use him before he announced that he was leaving Knight Industries to chart his own way in Africa. I've discussed this history at length with both Wilton and Bonnie and I could swear that somehow some of Garthe's personality made it into the prototype.

Along with the work on the AI, the computer team was making good progress in shrinking the size of all the components. Wilton began to consider what car body we were going to put the AI into. He wanted an automobile that had stability, agility, and power. It had to have good structural integrity characteristics and a frame capable of the increased weight projected. One of the unexpected benefits of bonded shell was that it could be utilized in the production of a turbine engine. Chrysler had been able to produce a few test cars in 1963 but found that they were not reliable enough for mass production and required quite a lot of tinkering to be kept in a safe running condition and the drivers had to be trained in how to drive the car so as not to cause fracturing of the turbine's blades. The heat produced by the turbine was a major factor in this lack of reliability, but the Knight Industries' bonding allowed the manufacture of safe, sturdy, and lightweight components for the engine that were heat resistant. By installing a turbine engine into the KAYAK project, Wilton was able to achieve a vehicle that could produce unprecedented speeds. An electrical engine was added for what we would in the future call "Stealth Mode". At first, displacement of the turbine's heat caused pavements to melt, but Wilton found a way to capture that heat and utilize it for a variety of things, including super-heating liquids for defensive capabilities and storing thermodynamic energy in the car's power packs through an alternative use of a heat-pump.

At first Wilton considered using a Chevrolet Camaro/Chevelle, a Dodge Hemi, a Ford Mustang, a Plymouth Barracuda, or a Pontiac GTO, but then Pontiac developed it's Trans Am. Sleeker than any of the others, it had no pretensions of being a stock car and for our purposes didn't require the heaviness of that type of body for protection. Its hatchback style really didn't waste space by attempting to also be capable of hauling significant amounts of junk and when the manufacturer eventually announced that they were developing a T-Top version, Wilton immediately saw the utility of an alternative means of egress. Of course, by the time we were ready for a body, several years had passed. The Trans Am only got better looking over the years, which KITT is quite aware of, I dare say.

After so many years of work and toil, suddenly, everything came together; the Chemistry Department had been able to develop the nano-based molecular bonded shell that protected the vehicle, the vehicle itself had been obtained as a pre-production model through the good graces of a friend of a friend of mine and modified accordingly and the AI programming had been completed. There were only two things, or actually people, that gave me pause.

The first was Bonnie. No, she was not in any trouble and of course didn't cause any trouble (although she had been very, very glad to eventually hear of Garthe's incarceration). Over the many months of working with the AI, I could see that she was troubled by something. Late one afternoon shortly before the installation of the AI processor into the car body, she came to see me, and we talked for several hours. She felt that, coming to know the "personality" of the AI while working on it, it was, as she put it, "too one sided". What she meant was that the AI was always going to protect itself before all others and she predicted it would become difficult, if not impossible to control. She implored me to convince Wilton not to use it. In point of fact, she had been working on some ideas to develop another AI who's primary mission would put human life above its own. After her experience with the KAYAK project, it would not take long to build the second AI. If Wilton were only willing to wait a month or two, it would be ready.

Wilton would not be deterred, however, wanting the prototype on the streets as soon as possible. I wondered why, after all the patient work of the last decade, he was so insistent on rushing things now? I soon began to suspect his reasons. I noticed as the days passed that he looked more and more tired. His skin took on an ashy, dry aspect and his limp seemed worse than I had ever seen it. The night before the project was to be unveiled to the Knight Industries staff, we had a celebratory dinner together. I tried one last time to get him to listen to Bonnie's concerns and to delay until the second AI could be utilized. We had had this conversation daily since Bonnie had come to me and Wilton had always just simply said, "No", but on this night, he finally elaborated.

It had been his hope that Garthe would finally mature and settle into his inheritance of his father's dreams. When his son finally left for good (or ill, as it actually was), Wilton was crushed. Despite never being able to develop a positive paternal relationship with him, Wilton never stopped hoping, and never stopped blaming himself for what Garthe Knight had become. As I write this, I am so glad that my friend never lived to see what the younger man eventually devolved into. Instead, Wilton turned all his energies into the finalization of the KAYAK project. He wasn't as blind to the AI's quirks as Bonnie and I thought. He had already realized that without a human driver, the AI could become uncontrollable and was about to approach a candidate, someone the AI could bond with and who would be a strong enough personality to control it, while allowing it enough independence to keep it satisfied.

The reason for the rush, just as everything was coming to fruition, was Wilton's health. He had been a smoker (who hadn't?) for many years, and while we both were able to kick the habit, it took Wilton somewhat longer. I don't know if the extra months of smoking were the cause, or something in his genetic make-up, but he had developed an aggressive form of lung cancer. He knew he had only months left. He also knew that the project would need tweaking. By bringing it online now, he could plan and supervise those modifications, while working with the driver.

He spent the last few hours before the morning's unveiling tinkering with the assembled car/AI combo. At 9 a.m. on the dot, he walked out of the door leading to the garage to greet all the members of the various teams who had worked on KAYAK and the Board of Directors of The Foundation for Law and Government. Stepping up to a microphone, he acknowledged many of us by name, talked about his dream and how he hoped it would become his legacy. In his hand he held a remote control and as he held it up, Wilton Knight announced, "And now, I give you the fruits of this project, the Knight Automated Robotic Rover, or KARR!"

The door to the garage rolled up, revealing the black Trans Am with its yellow scanner light swishing back and forth. It moved forward and stopped about a meter from the edge of the crowd. From its voice synthesizer, it spoke: "Greetings! I am the Knight Automated Robotic Rover, or KARR, if you will." Bonnie, standing next to me grabbed my arm in alarm. This was not the voice she had programmed weeks before. It was the voice of Garthe Knight made mechanical.