Becoming Human, page 3
I wasn’t able to concentrate much on my book that night. I kept thinking about the sounds I had heard, tried to analyze them, connect them with their wavelengths, and what that might mean for future experiments. I tried to imagine the notes in a Mozart symphony or a human voice or a train whistle. The sound of a bird’s song, used to attract a mate and notify others of his presence in a specific territory. Even birds have much to say! I began to remember other kinds of cries and noises I had learned about: whistles and roars and bangs and even chords. I wanted to hear these sounds and compare them with their physical descriptions. It was the first time I had actually anticipated something I was about to experience and learn. And this was before I had any emotions planted in me. Perhaps these attributes can arise on their own when enough experience and breadth of intake comes about. This is something I will have to ask my creators when I am able to converse with them.
Tonight I am supposed to read a novel called Silas Marner, by a writer named George Eliot, who was a woman with a man’s name. It paints a good picture of life in the country of England about two centuries ago. The book reminds me again of the enormous influence of religion over the lives of human beings. This is something I must look into more deeply, because if I was created by humans, would they be my gods? As with most novels, it also demonstrates the mixture of good and bad inherent in human societies. Apparently there is an almost even balance between these traits, and sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other. Why is the balance so even? Does it have to do with evolution? Does a person or society with too much good or too much evil fail to succeed in its relationships with others? Do my wires have good and evil implanted in them?
But I cannot focus on these subjects tonight. I keep thinking of the sounds I fleetingly heard and what tomorrow will bring. I have not yet learned to become excited about the future, but I am able to contemplate and wonder what it might be like. Perhaps these two capabilities are much the same thing?
6
They are working on me, all of my creators except Henry, and I can sense the various sounds they are giving me, a range that is wider than before. Then, for a while, there is silence, which lasts for several minutes. All at once I hear the abrupt sound of shouting. I do not know what they are shouting about because I have not learned to associate these sounds with the words I can read, but the sounds are distinct, and I can tell one voice from another. I suppose that will be the next step in my development, the association of these sounds with the words I know. David is standing in front of me clapping his hands together and making peculiar noises I think might be laughter. In any case, his upper teeth are showing. Almost at once Susumu and Robyn and Omar join him, shaking hands and grinning and pointing at me and yelling things that are unintelligible at present. But I am almost certain they are shouting words of pleasure and excitement. I wish the words had subtitles so I could participate, however indirectly, in the conversation. I have never seen them so active, except for the sex thing, and they dart in front of my eyes and disappear again behind them.
Suddenly I realize that this is the first time I have heard anything coming from my surroundings. Before this, the sounds I heard—the static, the various pitches—were triggered by stimulation of my wires. But this was actual ambient noise coming into my sound receivers. I can hear! Really hear, like my creators! If I had a fist I would raise it like the others.
All afternoon, after they have replenished their glucose and amino acid levels with various foods, they tinker with me again, adjusting my new receivers, disconnecting and reconnecting some of my wires. By the end of the day I discover that the various sounds I can hear are already more clear and pure than they were in the morning. I don’t know the range of frequencies I can hear, but perhaps it is about the same as that of my creators. It covers at least a few octaves, so I can detect the humming and whirring of the laboratory instruments and all of my creators’ voices. Robyn’s is at a higher pitch than the rest, and D’Arcy’s is the lowest. All of them vibrate to one degree or another within their individual frequencies. They are not harsh noises, like the one of the siren they played for me earlier, along with a foghorn, a guitar, and the song of a whale called a “humpback.” There is a great deal of variation in these sounds, both in tone and intensity.
Henry came late in the afternoon with a bottle of something called Prosecco. I did not understand the words he spoke, of course, but I could read the label. I think it is a fizzy wine, another kind of human drug. At one point they held up their plastic glasses to me in what is called a “toast,” the word for burned bread. They all drank a glass or two of this except for Omar and Susumu (both of them had a cup of sweet tea).
When they all left the lab late in the afternoon they were still smiling and laughing and jabbering various sounds which, I assume, reflected the state of their excitement and happiness. There have not been many days like this. Often they leave with frowns and uncertainty on their faces, and sometimes they have come back in the evening to try something they had apparently thought of while they were gone. Tonight is one of the rare times when they will all go to a place to buy more beverages and foodstuffs to celebrate the day’s accomplishments. David and Robyn will come in late tomorrow, and the others at the usual time. I know this from experience.
For tonight they have given me music to hear: a Beethoven symphony (number nine), and an opera called Das Rheingold, but no books or newspapers. The symphony came first, and I can tell you that the hearing of it was not the same as reading the score, which I had done months earlier. The sounds gave an entirely new dimension to the mathematical relationship between the notes. Even the combined sounds of several violins playing the same note produced a depth I had not anticipated. And I understood for the first time the accomplishment of the deaf Beethoven, who not only processed all of those frequencies and relationships in his head, but could create something as complex as this late opus, which he could not, and never would, hear. Except, of course, in his mind.
But the opera was even more of a revelation than the symphony. Although I could not understand the words of the singers, their combination with the notes of the orchestra was almost too much to comprehend, at times a subtle counterpoint of voice and music, at others combining to produce a profound completeness. The latter work was made even richer by the union of sight and sound (I was watching and hearing a DVD without subtitles). It was like encountering a new facet to one’s existence. I suspect that adding color to my vision will produce an even greater experience. How fortunate humans are to have all those senses. How thorough their existence must be. It was then that I first began to understand the true meaning of life. Is this what joy is?
They also gave me my first vocabulary lesson. There was another disc showing printed words and someone (with a clear female voice) speaking them, making short sentences. I learned to correlate many words with their sounds, though it was still difficult to remember all of them and their meanings. There are so many!
Yet, I was beginning to sense that something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was. I recounted all my experiences, put all my thoughts into this question. Finally, at daybreak (I did not rest very well), I realized what it was: the creators were able to talk to me, but I was unable to talk back. I couldn’t communicate to anyone what I was seeing and hearing and thinking (I almost said feeling, but that would not be accurate). When would I be able to do this? If I could respond to their manipulations it would help them do their work because I could give them feedback, tell them what was working and what was not. But how could I communicate even this simple suggestion?
I had spent my entire rest period pondering this. But I could not think of any way to do so. I was like a human who is paralyzed from the neck down and can only communicate “yes” or “no” with the blink of an eye. It was worse than that—I couldn’t even blink. I could only wait, as I have been doing since the beginning, until they figured out how to do it for themselves.
7
This is an adjustment day. Why they need to have these days I do not know, but this morning my hearing was turned off and they held a big sign in front of me: ADJUSTMENT DAY. I also do not know why they feel a need to tell me things like this. It must be that they realize I know what is happening and can anticipate what might be coming next, or would want to. Maybe they already understand that I would be able to help them with their adjustments, and all the rest, if I could participate in my progress. Perhaps they will prop another sign in front of my eyes tomorrow: WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING, AND WE ARE WORKING ON IT!
Except that they probably don’t know what I am thinking, any more than they would know what you are thinking. Scientists know that images and memories are stored in human brains, but they can’t yet get them back out again. Only the brain itself can do that. My situation is exactly the same. Nevertheless, if they are good researchers, they might put themselves in my place and wonder what I would want and need in order to contribute to my development. In fact, their grant proposal stated that, once they had put in everything they wanted me to have, they next planned to work on finding a way to determine my responses to the things I was seeing and hearing and feeling. But a time frame for this endeavor wasn’t specified. Perhaps it is scheduled for the final year of the grant, or even for a subsequent one.
But I want them to do it now. Perhaps if I concentrate all the time on this problem, I can think of a way to communicate my willingness to cooperate with them. While I contemplated this, just as I did during the night hours, I began to wonder how smart I actually am. Am I a genius among artificial brains? Or a dummy? Maybe a genius could figure out a way to communicate with them, and maybe I am no genius. Whatever I am, I will try to the best of my ability to figure out some way to talk to them. If only I could make a sound! Or, for that matter, create a flash or a spark.
It occurs to me also that I have just confessed to wanting something. How is this possible? I am not a computer, but I am not yet human, either. How is it that I find myself desiring communication? Or anything else? Is that not an emotion? Perhaps not. It is not that I would feel disappointment if I could not have it. It is merely that I can see the value of my becoming part of the process. It will happen sooner or later, and there is no real urgency to bring about my ability to communicate. No, I think this desire is not a human emotion, but only a logical step in my development.
Omar is waving at me, and mouthing some words. I cannot understand all that he is saying, but I know they all want to communicate with me as much as I do with them. But how do the creators even know I can see and hear them? Or read or listen to music? How does anyone know what others can see or hear? Only by their reaction to whatever the stimulus is. But I can’t produce any such reactions. I have no way to convey sights or sounds or any other kind of radiation or motion that they might sense. Not even a squeak.
Yet, when they gave me sound, they seemed to know I could hear it. How did they know that? They must have sensors that register what I have taken in. More to the point, I must have these sensors implanted in me in some way. Can I interfere with them in such a manner that would make them take notice of me?
What abilities do I have so far? I have sight, sound, memory, something very near thought. I am not a computer, but I must have memory banks like a computer, and when these are full, my creators have to increase my capacity. I have noticed this occasionally: during the night I can suddenly not process further information. In the morning they add another memory cell and I can function again. Perhaps this is how I can convey information to them! If I decline to fill a cell they should know it. Or if I can fill a cell faster than they expect, they should know that, too. Anything I can do that would surprise them, or even baffle them, might get them to take notice and realize I am trying to tell them something.
But how can I do this? I can’t erase memories, any more than you can. Nor can I learn faster than I do. But perhaps I could somehow block incoming impulses. It might be possible to concentrate intensely on something I have already memorized, thereby making it impossible to accept new information. For example, to recite a poem I have learned, over and over again, or contemplate a solution to a mathematical paradox. If I can do this, I might not be able to accept or understand any new information they try to give me.
On the other hand, maybe they wouldn’t understand what I was up to. Maybe they would simply assume there was a malfunction of some kind. Perhaps they are not smart enough or sensitive enough to see a connection between my bizarre behavior and my wish to communicate with them. There is some risk involved in this. If they think it is a problem they can’t fix, they may give up on me and start over with someone else. I will have to be careful that they don’t misunderstand me, and begin again with another brain.
In any case, I might not be able to carry out my plan, or they might not be able to act on it. It’s possible that they have been trying to give me this ability all along. If so, they haven’t told me about these efforts.
Human beings have come up with a number of axioms that cover this problem. Perhaps the best one is: nothing ventured, nothing gained. A corollary of this would be: nothing ventured, nothing lost. Maybe I should wait a while longer, at least until I can understand their spoken words. Or maybe I should initiate my plan in a limited way, and see if there is any reaction.
Perhaps I am already human in this sense: I have learned that critical decisions are not always easy to make.
Interjection
Hello. My name is Henry Justasson, M.D., Ph.D. I am Principal Investigator on NIH grant #RA-70514-1, which funded Oscar’s construction. Or, as he prefers to put it, his “creation.” I am happy that he has given you his “thoughts” about that process, and the publisher of this book has asked me to interject, from time to time, my own assessment of what he has reported. (I should mention here that “Oscar” is neither male nor female, though he showed tendencies toward the former early on. One of my colleagues, Robyn Martinelli, came up with that name because she thought we ought to call him something.)
First of all, everything he has written so far is essentially true, and needs no additions or corrections from me. However, some of his thoughts, if we may call them that, are not quite accurate, and it is these musings by him that the editors have asked me to clarify, and to point out any possible misunderstandings by him of his unique situation. For example, at the end of Chapter 7, Oscar was trying to find a way to tell us that he wanted to contribute to his own development. That, of course, was our plan from the beginning, but we had considerable difficulty in achieving this goal for many reasons, all technical, which I need not go into here. Imagine, if you will, trying to devise an artificial brain that can not only answer questions you might propose to it, but, in fact, can pose questions of its own to its designers. It took us a bit longer than we had imagined to accomplish this goal. The point is that Oscar mistook our delays in providing him a means of communicating with us as ignorance or a lack of imagination on our parts. I can assure you that this was not the case.
Bear in mind, too, that at this early stage we had no idea that Oscar was thinking anything. Our ultimate objective was to create something that could process information, but, unlike a computer, could synthesize and, with the help of certain implanted emotions, react in predictable ways or, in some cases, unpredictable ways. At this point in the program we had enabled him to store audible and visible images, much as a baby can do, but we frankly had no idea that these abilities, in themselves, would lead Oscar to begin to make conclusions and see the ramifications of his limited knowledge. We weren’t even sure how well he was processing the information we were giving him. We had indicators that told us he was accumulating something, but whether it was an accurate reflection of the impulses coming into his memory cells was not known to us. His “wiring” (a simplified term to describe his electronics) was modeled after a human brain, of course, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he would function in exactly the same way, or as well as he did.
As Oscar himself has noted, we talked to him and held signs in front of his “eyes” to give him (and visitors to the laboratory) the impression that we were communicating directly with him. Unknown to him, however, these gestures were primarily for our own benefit—to pretend that he fully understood what we were telling him—much as an animal owner feels better about his relationship with his pet if he assumes his dog or cat understands what he is telling it. It was a way to bolster our own morale, to encourage ourselves to believe that we were making progress whether we were or not. And, as I say, we didn’t know at that point whether our manipulations were entirely successful. We were basically working in the dark as, apparently, was he. We may even have misled him on occasion by saying something, as a little joke, that wasn’t entirely true (much as you might tell a child that something terrible would happen if he didn’t behave). Unfortunately, we didn’t know that he would take everything we said literally, and store it for later use.
A word here about Oscar’s background and the synthetic brain project in general. The idea came to Susumu Ishakawa and me while we were traveling to a neurology conference some years ago. Briefly, we speculated that the human brain, though complex, of course, is basically composed of millions of essentially identical neurons, and we wondered whether it would be possible to duplicate the physical structure, if not the precise capability, of the neurological processes taking place there.
To do this, we placed tiny synthetic neurons into compartments mimicking those of an actual brain—frontal lobes, cerebellum, etc.—and began fixing them in place using minute connectors. As you can imagine, this wasn’t easy. But when we discovered that the neurons would fire across synapses in a way remarkably similar to the biological ones, we put the data into a grant application and, fortunately, were funded for a five-year period with an option for five more years, depending on our progress at that time.
