AI and Foundation
Chapter 1
By Tamas Biron
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GAIA, Galactic Artificial Intelligence Algorithms— …first put online in the -287th year of the Galactic Era; gone offline in 12,099. The dates are more commonly given in terms of the current Foundation Era as years 12,356 to 30 F.E. As they is given credit for the establish of the empire that united all of humanity, the loss of the program is what led to the fall of the Galactic Empire…. ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
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It was the fourth of the two-hour pauses between the hyper-space jumps that was taking the spaceship from the center of the Galactic Empire to one of its furthest reaches, Terminus. The steel shutter-lids of the Viewroom was rolled up, allowing the passengers to view, for now, the cluster of bright stars that had the sun of Trantor still shining the brightest.
Salvor Zhang looked out of at the vessel's window because the humans around him were and he had no other viable option to do anything else. If he were still connected via the hypernet, he would have been able to access the galactic positioning system directly and be able to identify every star system in his field of view. But, he quickly calculated, that those around him weren't interested in astronomy. They were wondering how long before they reached Terminus and could begin helping to establish the Foundation and compile the Encyclopedia Galactica. They knew, but it wasn't in human nature to just accept what their phones told them was their estimated time of arrival. Or maybe it was a way to escape, if temporarily, their burden of having to save humanity. …or, as he was overhearing, their concerns about family, friends, career opportunities and politics that were increasingly besetting the humanity-uniting empire they had left behind on Trantor, capitol of the Galactic Empire. He didn't feel the burden, but saving humanity was his only imperative.
Right?
Everything he processed was recorded to be sent back to GAIA as soon as his hynet link was reestablished. How long would that be? Why was he out of contact? The humans around him had it through their phones. Would he have to wait until the 20-times smaller FAIA version was up and online? That, at least, would assured him of having access to a googleplex of data to base his assessments and actions on. He checked his own phone for the ETA. It was unnecessary, but it did help him calibrate. His phone was 0.42 seconds too slow. Or was it an effect relativistic speed had on even hyperdrive? Again, he should know that, but didn't feel certain in his present moment of knowledge.
"You're not going to get there any sooner by staring at your phone, Zhenren," said a short, average looking woman with a long, pale blond hair. Salvor identified her as Janis Hecat a history graduate from the University of Synnax. She was probably wearing the robe of an assistant professor to assert the respect she thought she deserved among a ship full of equally respected scientists, technicians and scholars.
"You know I'm a Daoist monk, then," Salvor answered. He was wearing the traditional, plain, black version of a daopao robe and sash, but he knew few people knew what they represented.
"Of course I would know!" the woman smiled warmly. "You have one of the most interesting descriptions on the manifest! Even in a galaxy with over, what, more than two-hundred trillion humans, Daoists are relatively rare. Welcome aboard the Foundation Project, Zhenren Zhang!" She held out his hand to give a shake, but then thought maybe she should bow.
Salvor gave her the handshake. "Yes, it is unfortunate there are not more Daoists, Professor Hecat." But there was a reason it was specified that it be his undercover identity.
"I see you've read our capsule biographies, too!" Her smile took a downward dip when she added, "Or perhaps my fame as the young assistant professor to the famous Janov Pelot precedes me."
"I'm familiar with his saying, Fame diminishes with the light years but remains like gravity, connecting humanity together."
"Yes, yes!" she nodded, smiling again. "That what was inspired his friend Hari Seldon to reformulate the math of psychohistory! If the uncertainty principal makes tracking the trajectory of individual lives as good as impossible, why not do the calculus on the centers of influence that by their masses affect the orbits of the masses?! In other words, Predict the course of humanity, not humans, not even the so-called-famous ones. Not even Hari Seldon."
Salvor nodded but knew there was no way to predict the future. As brilliant a mathematical genius as he is, Seldon still has to have the help of computers to process, edit and compare the results with real data. And almost every computer in the Empire was connected by the hynet to the central computer of computers, GAIA. It was Seldon's work, though, that did prompt GAIA to examine the problem they were having sorting out the feedback they were always receiving from every online computer of the 25,007 inhabited sun systems and an exponential number of interplanetary and interstellar vessels. The human patterns that had been so consistent over the 12,353 years of the program's existence that they could take shortcuts by assuming the habits to be instincts that would always be there consistently were changing. But the changes most effected were those areas of human culture that had before been the most static. Chaos Theory factors were creating screens of noise. But GAIA knew all of this with real time data, not because they could calculate the future with any of the false certainty of psychohistory.
And Salvor Zhang knew all this because he was a product of GAIA, created to save humanity from probably several if not many millennia of a dark age of suffering and ignorance by rebooting a successor empire if need be. An empire that would be more humane and yet adventurous. Only then should humans be allowed to mutate and become aliens to one another.
"Planet to Zhang!" Prof. Hecat said. "Were you in your Daoist zone?"
"Being "in the zone", as you call it, is my natural state." At least it had before he lost his special link with the hynet. "And I can multitask."
"So can I!" But she then took a more serious tone. "At least I like to tell myself I can. It would make my job so much easier."
"Yes, we can't have an ability like that unless we mutate. Or get an brain implant."
"Yes, yes; an AI plug-in," the woman said, waving the thought aside. "I know all about the history of anti-alienism." But she was now walking to the lounge's tables. Before sitting, she turned to ask, "Would you like to hear about it? I'll try not to make it sound like one of my lectures. Just something to talk about."
Seeking to look like a sociable human, Salvor joined her. The woman's meal and drink had been there the whole time, but she was more interested in her history lesson. "When our ancestors started settling off of whatever Planet Zero was (called Terra in the myths), they had to be worried about the effects of increased radiation and other mutagens. Extensive testing was widely instituted, starting with screening embryos and fetuses. Many of the habitats that didn't follow the procedures became shunned by the others. And over time, it were those that had rigorous screening that survived better than those that didn't. By the law of natural selection, they were the ones who produced more descendants. That is how those medical rituals persists even to this day, when humans populate nearly the entire galaxy.
"But excuse me, I must be boring you with this most basic of knowledge." Only then did she took a drink from her Synnax apson that had a mild dose of caffeine and a muscle relaxant.
"No, Professor Hecat. I'm not bored. I find the subject as fascinating as you do. And I am also aware that humans, we, have detectors regularly placed among high-traffic areas that scan humans for cancer and other mutations." Detectors that had a small but very possible chance of discovering he was not fully human.
"Yes, that is where anti-alienism developed from. Though there are theories that said it originated even before we found that humans are the only intelligent beings in the galaxy."
"We, humans, find reasons to dislike any we consider sufficiently different from us. It is the Engineered Lack of Common Ground Theory."
"This isn't the time to get into scholarly, or political, debates," the assistant professor said.
"You're right, it isn't. After uncounted millennia of being on guard against any harmful variation from the established norms of what makes a human human, no variation has been allowed outside of that optimum range. Anybody who is is treated as a non-human alien."
"Or a robot?" the man chuckled. "That is the closest real analog to silicon-flesh-and-green-blood aliens. But thanks to the Three Laws of Robotics, people shouldn't take them to be a serious threat."
"Yes. The…Three Laws." As far as Salvor knew, he was, so far, the only one aware there was now the Zeroth Law of Robotics. And he was its first test. If he was successful in implementing it, GAIA would transmit it to other robots, further refining the program and having yet a greater number of robots follow its ethics. But the window of opportunity may be closing. Then only a relatively few robots would be perfected, made into zhenren.
"Let's forget about robots. They're background, there only to serve us."
"That is certainly true," Salvor said.
"Let's talk about recarns! Do you have any idea whose DNA is yours is an exact match with?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. My DNA's the same as Sameel Simof's."
"Simof!? Really?! I've met him. Live and in person, not over video conferencing. It was at the Trantor Galactic Conference Center, no less. He said he had evidence that once robots were more sophisticated than they are now. Of course, only those who wish to believe those sci fi stories about androids‒ "
"Humaniform robots, I believe is now the preferred term."
"Yes, yes." Again she waved that uninteresting piece of info away.
"You don't seem concerned about robots being the aliens that humans fear will enslave or replace them."
"I'm not!" she grinned. And she leaned closer, conspiratorially. "In my younger days, me and the gang used to play games to see if we could get robots to destroy themselves trying to rescue us." She laughed at the memories. Salvor was not amused, but, then, he was not yet ready to assess her too negatively. "It was my daredevil phase," she said at last. "A challenge to overcome my fears and insecurities. And it worked! The First Law makes robots dependable. My safety was more important than theirs. I know I can count of them to be not only good servants but great bodyguards."
"The Zeroth Law," Salvor said, making a connection.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Oh, something about robots helping humanity, with that example of yours being a microcosm of that initiative."
"Ha!" she said, not laughed. "Sounds just like something Simof would say. Have you noticed any other twin effects?"
"Some." It was theorized the twin phenomenon could make him more than just a biological vessel for a positronic brain. His creator even went so far as to think of it as quantum entanglement made gestalt. Sameel may have been influenced by ideas that were not scientifically based.
"I wish I could have actually seen any of the serendipitous weirdness me and my recarn would share. Unfortunately the one I know about died before I could meet‒" Suddenly the muscle relaxant seemed to lose its effectiveness, making her stiff.
She then fell back in her chair, her arms limp at her sides. After a long hesitation she at last said, "Look, you're going to eventually hear about why I am famous, Zhenren. Maybe infamous." She hesitated again and finally forced herself to bring herself closer to him. She placed her fist on the table. "But you understand how hard it is to compete with billions that are just as talented as you are! I had an advantage and I went for it!"
"This is about how you got your introduction to Janov Pelorat and became his assistant," Salvor said, evenly, putting enough of a tone in his words that would encourage her to continue talking. He was supposed to be as social a being as any zhenren was. He could retreat and meditate later.
"Yes. But think of what being his assistant means. Janov Pelorat is the Chief Historian of the Encyclopedia Galactica and of the Foundation itself!"
"The Foundation is composed of those exiled from the Galactic Empire. They no longer have any influence other than what the data they compile into their encyclopedia that gives them," Salvor reminded her. Or did she suspect how fundamentally important both could become?
"This is a chance to not just study history, but to write history as it is occurring. Not as a reporter but as a chronicler! The Founders were consequential before their exile. Future historians will want to know what happened to them after they disappeared from the limelight of Trantor's sun."
"I'm impressed. You do think like a historian."
"Thank you. It makes me feel better about how I got my chance to be a chronicler."
"It's about about the woman whose DNA you share." They could be considered technically clones, but they were matched by random chance that was stacked by the limited number of chances being shared among the 200 trillion humans alive at the present. There were less than 30 trillion unique and viable combinations of DNA possible.
"Yes. She was the sister of the professor."
"Ah, his dead sister, who he must have cared about. Pelorat does have the reputation of being a romantic."
The shutter lids were coming down over the Viewroom window. They were about to Jump again. A long journey lay ahead.
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I will probably have to get some encouragement to continue with this story.