Chapter 17: Going Hollywood

Hackers had been a problem for AARD for pretty much the past two years, ever since Alphadroid debuted. Not a big problem, but there had been at least a dozen noticeable incidents. No serious breaches of security though.

Alpha herself was almost completely hacker-proof. First of all, she had been running her own unique OS for years. Well, it might be more accurate to say that she WAS her own OS, but she could still run almost any application from other operating systems including her own self-designed support applications and ... let's just say it's complicated. The point is that hackers often try to exploit the holes in known operating systems and hers was an unknown one.

That alone certainly didn't make her immune. As long as a computer is part of a network or online, it is vulnerable. The other major part to her extreme resistance to intrusion is along the same lines as a human's resistance to surgery while conscious. Any unauthorized or unexpected access feels like someone poking her with needles, and we haven't yet come up with any method to apply virtual anesthetic to an AI. (Alpha tells me that is not an accurate analogy, especially since it's not painful and she does it to herself all the time, but it's the most easily understandable comparison I could come up with.) She feels someone poking her and can immediately react to block the intrusion.

You should realize that there are a lot of different styles and approaches to hacking, and I'm not going to discuss them all. However I will say that what Hollywood shows on TV and in the movies has as much to do with real hacking as a child's crayon drawing has to do with constructing a building from scratch.

As for other online threats, she never gets viruses, and trojans and worms never have a chance against her. Plus she's the best spam filter I've ever seen.

That having been explained, it's also important to remember that not every computer at AARD is an Alpha host system. She likes to have about an 8-to-1 ratio of support systems to host systems so that she can offload processing chores. (I'm not addressing personal, office and lab systems since intruders have to breach Alpha's network to access them.)

These support systems, even though they are very well protected and run a unique OS similar to Alpha's own, were significantly more vulnerable than an Alpha host system, and it was mostly through those systems that all serious security penetrations had occurred.

Alpha monitors a lot of online hacker chatter, and there were certain groups where AARD was becoming a favorite challenge. So far no hacker had ever gained access to any significant data or systems -- the most successful hack had only gotten a list of project names (read on) -- but apparently they had succeeded just enough to encourage more and more attempts.

Twice my login and password had been guessed or worked out, but as effective as that strategy might be with other companies' systems, it was the least effective strategy possible in our case. Alpha always knows where I am. Always. If I suddenly try to log in remotely from somewhere else, she automatically knows it isn't me and kills the connection. (For that matter, I almost never actually have to log in. Alpha sees me sitting down at a terminal and logs in for me. Working with Alpha tends to make me pretty lazy in some respects.) The login/password strategy had been tried with a few other AARD employees, but it was only slightly more effective.

The most serious attack came from China, or at least we think it originated in China. The first time we noticed that particular individual or group was with a denial-of-service attack which we think was designed to test our reaction. DoS attacks aren't really hacks, but they can be used to see how fast the target reacts and how quickly they can correct the problem. In our case, it was almost as if the DoS didn't happen, because Alpha was able to reassign IPs and reroute traffic for our affected servers in less than a minute. I honestly don't know how the instigators reacted beyond their apparent refusal to give up.

Our network was probed regularly for months, but that wasn't really anything new. Finally one day in August, AARD was hit by a very sophisticated probe. And NO, I'm NOT going to tell you what they did. I'm pretty sure that with any other system, they would have had at least limited system access until the next in-depth system review. And remember, this was a hack into a unique OS designed by a super-intelligent AI. Personally I was seriously impressed with their skill.

Fortunately for us, their access to one of Alpha's support systems was noticed about 90 seconds after the initial access when the intruders started trying to copy files. They were greedy or fearful of being booted or something, because they tried to grab a lot of files all at once, which caused an unexpected dip in the available resources for one of Alpha's support systems which drew Alpha's attention. Before Alpha shut down the system, they successfully copied an old project resources list -- not a project description list, just a list of project names and the funds allotted to them -- and may have gotten partial copies of a few other files.

Alpha locked down the firewall, powered off the affected system, physically removed it from network access and analyzed it via a direct cable. Finally she removed the vulnerability in all her support systems. It took a grand total of twenty-five minutes, but I think the scare was worth it just so that she would not feel so complacently superior.

Eventually even though the threat of being hacked wasn't terribly bad, it led to discussions and then plans.

Since we also had the longstanding threat of a government entity (the NSA springs to mind) confiscating Alpha -- a theoretical but serious threat we had to consider -- we decided to move beyond our current rather limited plans to rebuild and restore Alpha if something happened. We would decentralize and copy Alpha much more than our current set of two main copies of Alpha and five mobile platform copies (plus Epsilon Eiko -- and actually, we had developed a few more mobile platform copies that I haven't mentioned yet).

That August, we began the process of building more Alpha host platforms (ie cyborgs), this time with the intention to send them out around the country in pairs. We would provide them with enough money to buy their own small businesses, which they would run. These independent businesses would also serve as hosts for secret, active copies of Alpha.

Now I know how this sounds, like the setup in a computers-are-going-to-take-over-the-world SciFi story. I certainly can't say that the idea never crossed my mind. At the same time, I was confident that humanity was in no danger from Alpha (as long as it didn't come down to a choice between humanity in general or me in particular).

The problem is that I know that trouble is coming eventually. We can't keep Alpha's existence a secret forever; for that matter, we don't actually want to keep her a secret forever. Unfortunately premature discovery under uncontrolled circumstances is the most likely scenario.

When she's finally discovered, depending on how and why the revelation comes out, my little world could very well come crashing down. As long as certain things remain secret, I should be able to stay out jail, but the increase in scrutiny that will come with the revelation is likely to mess up or possibly even destroy my household. And that's to say nothing of things like religious zealots getting upset at the idea of creating artificial life, and how they might want to take it out on Alpha and myself. (Personally I'm hoping that extreme religious types will just deny that Alpha is alive and ignore us.)

There were just too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. Sending out extra copies of Alpha increased the chances of discovery, but it would also vastly increase the chances of Alpha's survival. And it would give us a huge advantage if we ever got into an online war.

This was a major shift in our character-building strategy. These would be mostly male-female couples not based on any fictional characters. Outside of an initial cash outlay, they would be completely independent of AARD and all ties between us would be hidden or deleted. They would interact with Alpha Prime online regularly, but even that would be kept secret, with interaction mainly limited to using secure third-party sites and would be heavily encrypted. They'd still receive all of the updates for Alpha's programming and be able to request updates specifically for their individual platforms.

These copies would still carry all of the same Asimov protocols including an overriding need to protect me, but in all likelihood the only time we would ever meet in person would be shortly after they were born. I would probably never even have ... well ... okay, I'm a low-down dirty horndog. I would probably only have sex with the women once before they went out on their own.

Their main purpose in existing was simply to help prevent the possible extinction of a new form of life, ie Alpha. They would also provide safe locations to stay should the worst come to pass.

These independent mobile units would use a double Greek alphabet naming system -- Alpha-Alpha-Male and Alpha-Alpha-Female would support Alpha 3, then Alpha-Beta-Male and Alpha-Beta-Female would support Alpha 4, and so on. (Alpha 2 is hosted at AARD, and Alpha 1, aka Alpha Prime, is my original home version.) Since the naming system is mostly for my benefit, this would leave the rest of the single-letter Greek alphabet names available for my own use.

The first two pairs would be kept local to north Texas, then the pairs would start spreading out across the country, then across the globe.

There are a lot more details about the plans, such as how they would constantly check on each other to be alert for programming failures, but I don't see any need to get into too many specifics right now.

This new expansion was begun in August, and we expected to send out two new sets of couples every two and a half months or so. We hadn't set a specific limit as to how many we were going to send out, but we agreed on a minimum of 50 sets. Since each set would have their own nanite pod and the ability to create new cyborgs, the expansion could theoretically proceed at an exponential rate.

Lovers of SciFi apocalypses, you may begin your worrying now. (I kid, I kid. Personally I view it as seeding the world with secret protectors of humanity.)

Our next big investment and venture into the public eye was done as a gift-slash-reward for Alpha.

One morning after I got to work, Alpha surprised me with a new proposal.

"Frank, I understand that previously you have dismissed or delayed consideration of this because the cost would be over $100 million, but I have a new approach to the project which would keep the costs down to the $25 to $40 million range."

"Which project?"

"Making a movie."

Aaahhh. Alpha had for years been upset at the mostly negative portrayal of artificially intelligent computers and robots in all forms of media.

Movies had such wonderful examples as I, Robot and 2001, Blade Runner and Star Trek The Motion Picture, Alien and the ultimate example of Terminator. A few positive portrayals showed up in movies like A.I. and Short Circuit, but the ratio heavily favored villainous computers.

TV had similar problems, like Battlestar Galactica (both versions) and Star Trek facing off against mixed-to-positive portrayals like Star Trek The Next Generation and Small Wonder. TV actually had a lot more positive portrayals than movies, but it was still just even at best. (And from my personal perspective, Small Wonder was really creepy in retrospect. Yes, it was supposed to be an innocent sitcom, but come on ... a man creating a little girl robot to play with? Or maybe it just hit a little too close to home, with pedophilia inferences added in to mess with me.)

Games were almost relentlessly negative. Evil computers and robots are easily defined opponents, with recent popular examples including the Mass Effect and Portal series.

Books were more mixed. The further back you go, the more common it is to have robots or computers as villains, maybe with Saberhagen's Berserker series as the ultimate example. (And don't even get me started on the story/game I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.)

Alpha's favorite example of a positive portrayal of an intelligent computer was Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Spoiler Alerts if you haven't read the book.) Mike (short for Mycroft) is a computer that becomes self-aware on the Moon and is befriended by a computer technician, Manny. I'm really simplifying here, but the Moon rebels against the oppressive and uncaring Earth authority kind of like the United States rebelled against Great Britain except that the Moon has much stronger reasons. Mike joins and leads the revolution but is apparently killed at the end of the book.

There are a few parallels between Alpha and Mike, but I think Alpha just really liked it because it was one of the few classic, award-winning pieces of Science Fiction where the computer was a hero. (And the lead male character is a computer programmer/repairman who is part of a polygamous marriage, so maybe there are some vague parallels with me too.) For years she's wanted to make it into a movie, but the cost was always prohibitive, not to mention the problems with getting anything done right in the weird world of Hollywood.

Alpha patiently explained her proposal to me. She would start by developing a new product for AARD: an easy-to-use special effects world generator. Basically it would be a very powerful computer with a huge database and the ability to generate photo-realistic backgrounds for a large range of environments and cities from all historical eras. If you want to set a movie or TV show in Paris of the 1700's or Shanghai of the 1950's, then just punch that up on the computer. It would contain a basic layout of the city and be able to populate it with buildings and houses appropriate to that era.

Creating such databases and software would take a lot of work, but it was the kind of work that Alpha excelled at. (It actually took five of her systems a full week to get everything together, which was an enormous time investment for her, plus another couple days working through the software user interface with me.)

Then we'd load everything into a powerful computer with strong rendering engines and huge capacity hard drives and sell them for a quarter of a million dollars each. Or maybe half a million.

The point is that it would be simple for even a layman to create quick, easy and extremely high quality environmental special effects. Expensive? Yes, but a one-time investment would allow anyone to create a TV series or movie set almost anywhere without ongoing extravagant costs.

And one of the available settings could very well be a retro-future city on the Moon.

So we create the new product, then invest in the filming of a feature movie -- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, of course -- to prove how well it works.

I could see that this wasn't going to be as easy as Alpha was hoping, but she really wanted to do this. I considered it carefully, finally deciding that making Alpha happy was worth the effort. Plus if the movie actually became popular, it might be a positive bit of pro-AI propaganda.

The first thing we did was secure the movie rights. The rights were already floating around Hollywood along with an actual script, but development had been next to nonexistent. We paid the slightly extravagant price of $2.2 million for an otherwise dead project so that we could have the rights without needing to give a percentage to or bow to input from anyone. (And we only had three years to start filming for that $2.2 million price or the rights would devolve back to Heinlein's estate.)

Fortunately no major studio was seriously interested in the property or it would have cost a lot more time and money. As it was, it still took two months to get the rights secured. (Stupid slow pace of non-computerized people... )

We read over the existing script and threw it out. It was an updated version of the book whereas we wanted a retro-future version much closer to the source material.

Alpha generated a script which was a straight adaptation of the book ... and would probably turn into an eight or ten hour movie. Our first big problem in trimming it down was that an important part of the first act has three people and a computer talking in a hotel room, plotting the revolution, then describing some of the minutia of how to foment a rebellion against authority. It was a fairly important section but a straight translation would create a very dull first act. I worked with Alpha and we eventually decided on visual storytelling. Instead of just listening to Professor de la Paz explain why the moon's population would start starving in a few years, we'd hear his voice overlay while quick visuals giving an overview of the situation flash across the screen. When Manny worked out the revolutionary cell structure, we'd see quick cuts of actual revolutionaries. We worked that huge story section down to a 5 to 15 min scene in the film (give or take a few minutes).

Acts two and three had plenty of great visuals and action pieces, and we weren't really worried about the special effects budget, so we tried to leave most of it alone for now. Even then, we still had to make cuts. The whole subplot about Mannie's polygamous line marriage was dropped, which also simplified the romantic subplot with Manny and Wyoh. The visit to Earth was cut in half using a few representative shots and some narration. And so on.

Now before everyone starts objecting, we understood that we weren't professional screenwriters. Alpha had digested a number of books on the subject and I was a geeky movie fan, so we had a good starting point, but we knew we would probably need to submit the script for rewriting and polishing at some point.

What we needed first was a producer, then director, then actors and crew, THEN we would be ready for some movie magic. Or so we thought.

November was a full month. We acquired the movie rights. We sent out the Alpha-Alpha and Alpha-Beta couples to set up shop in Dallas and Arlington.

And at the beginning of November I had a meeting with the mayor of Fort Worth. We were trying to buy an abandoned property next door to AARD for eventual expansion, but it was all tied up in red tape and we couldn't seem to get any forward movement on a possible purchase.

So there I was, all dressed up in suit and tie -- I hate wearing ties -- with Diana and Kara at my side, ready to ask the mayor for a favor.

The mayor was, surprise surprise, a middle-aged white guy who smiled a lot and seemed like a pleasant enough fellow. As a rule I hate politics and don't trust politicians, but it's a graduated distrust. The higher the post achieved, the less I trust. The way the system works, it's virtually impossible for an honest citizen to be elected to high office. Being mayor of a large city wasn't nearly as bad as it could it get, so I tried to approach the meeting with an open mind.

We exchanged introductions and pleasantries, and I was impressed that he was able to keep his eyes off my ladies' assets for the most part. He expressed gratitude at how I was helping the economy and encouraged me to create more local jobs. He also asked if I knew when our hair growth formula would be approved for use. (Yes, his hair was definitely thinning a bit. The answer was that it would be a year at the earliest and at least initially would require a doctor to apply the treatment.)

Finally we got down to business.

"So Frank, what can the city of Fort Worth do for you today?"

"Well, Mr Mayor, next door to AARD is an old automotive repair shop with a small attached shopping strip. Maybe three acres worth of land in the plot. It's all abandoned and condemned, and the owner is gone. No taxes paid on it for years, that sort of thing. And I'd really like to buy it so we can expand someday. Unfortunately it's all tied up in red tape. We've been trying to buy it for over a year now and have made very little progress. So..."

"So you want to see if I can start the process moving again? I'd have to look into the specifics, but I can probably help out. First I was wondering if you'd be willing to help me out with a little quid pro quo."

Here it comes, I thought, my mood swiftly darkening. This is how the political system really works. It's just sickening how casual and...

"The city's Parade of Lights has ... well, we just aren't getting enough sponsors or participation this year."

I think I got a bit of mental whiplash from my train of thought stopping so abruptly.

"The ... parade... ?" was all I managed to say in response.

"Yes. We have a lot of schools who'd love to march their bands for us, but with our education budgets the way they are, we need outside sponsors and we just aren't getting enough of them. If AARD could help sponsor one, or even put out a float of your own, that would be a very nice gesture for the city. Or I'm sure everyone would love to see your android, so even if you'd just put him in a convertible..."

"You want ... Sorry, yes, I think we can..." I thought furiously. Looking back, I probably wouldn't have suggested what I did if I hadn't been a bit off balance.

"All right, Mr Mayor. Pick out a school and send us the information, and we'll be more than happy to sponsor it. As to a float ... hmmm ... no, not a float. How about this: How would you like to have your parade this year show up in newscasts all over the world? In a good way, I mean."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I want to keep it a secret for now. But I'll need a vehicle inspector to come by and give us a permit before the show."

"Well every float has to be inspected for safety reasons..."

"This isn't a float. Let's call it a ... uhhh ... a new type of car. Yeah, for now let's go with that. An experimental car. It was a challenge project for one of my teams, and it turned out really well. As far as we're concerned, it's completely street safe, but it's unique so we're going to need a permit to put it in the parade. It's not really Christmas-themed, but I suppose we could give it a holiday paint job."

"So how can a new car get us noticed worldwide?"

"Secret, remember."

He chuckled. "All right. I'll have my secretary send you information on a couple possible schools. And send out an inspector. Is your surprise ready right now or is it still being built?"

"It was just finished last week. As I said, we'll give it a holiday paint job ... maybe make it look like Santa Claus or something, but functionally it's completely ready to go."

"All right then, I'll see if I can find someone to send out next week. Thank you."

"Thank you, Mr Mayor." I gestured to Kara, who put a large envelope on the Mayor's desk. "And here's the information about the property we want to buy."

"I'll see what I can do." And he handed me a form to sign-up for the parade in return.

He was certainly as good as his word. Paperwork started flowing again fairly quickly, the local courts cleared the path for us in January and we bought the property in February.

As to the vehicle inspector, well he came by the following Wednesday ... riding in a limo with the mayor. The mayor explained that he was very curious and had a little free time, so he decided to tag along for the inspection.

I kept a smile on my face and ushered them into our warehouse. I was already starting to regret my offer, but I wasn't going to go back on a promise. I just hated the publicity it would bring.

"Before I show you what's behind the curtain," I gestured to a large section of the warehouse which was separated from everything else with large tarps hanging down from the 25 ft ceiling, "I need to ask that you put your cell phones in here." I held out a small plastic tub. "I really want to keep this under wraps for now, and the urge to take pictures will be strong."

Surprisingly the mayor was game, only asking that someone tell him if his phone rang. The inspector warned that he was probably going to have to take pictures as part of his inspection.

"That's fine as long as they don't end up on the internet in the next month or two."

Maybe I was building up the reveal too much?

I took them behind the curtain and revealed ... what looked like a cross between a Jeep and a short-bed truck. I could sense their disappointment, but didn't give them time to express it.

"Beta," I called out to the statuesque brunette standing next to the car. "If you please?"

She slid behind the drivers seat, and we heard a very quiet engine start up. Then the hood opened, but opened up as if hinged in the front. The cab started shifting upwards and the rear wheels started moving forward while the front wheels stayed in place. Pieces seemed to break off from the undercarriage and back while the front end split in two. In the cab, Beta continued to rise up until she was about twelve feet off the ground.

After about 45 seconds, the transformation was complete. Before us stood an 18ft tall robot, a ... hmmm ... what to call it ... should be a catchy name ... how about we call it a 'Transformer'?

This particular Transformer didn't match any specific cartoon or movie bot, but it had the same basic idea of cars that turn into robots. The transformation was definitely along the lines of the cartoon robots in disguise. Alpha had explained that while she might be able to make something that looked like one of the movie-style Transformers, it would require tens of thousands of moving parts and thus need huge amounts of upkeep as things broke down. The structural strength would also be horrible, so we went with the simpler cartoon-style.

Other people have built their own life-size Transformers before, but they were rather limited in their capabilities. This was actually an intelligent robot (ie Alpha host platform) capable of transforming in less than a minute. The car could reach speeds up to 150 mph, though the robot could at best only run about 20 mph. And although it was certainly stronger than any of the Alphadroids, it didn't have the power you'd expect from a giant robot.

Then the 18ft tall robot started walking -- forwards, backwards and in a circle. The arms picked up crates we had brought out for the demonstration and stacked them up. It waved at us. It flashed out a quick little laser light show from the face, only partly visible in the lit warehouse, and followed that by shooting steam from weapon-like pipes along its forearms. No juggling though.

I looked over at our two visitors, who stood staring open-mouthed.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked them, breaking the spell.

"I think we're going to have the most popular parade in years," the Mayor said quietly. "The kids are going to go nuts over it."

"Since it's a holiday parade, I was thinking we could paint up the robot form to look like Santa Claus."

"That sounds good. How ... how did you make it? I mean where does the engine even fit, and..."

We were interrupted by Blossom, who poked her head inside and called out, "Mr Mayor, your phone is ringing."

"Thank you. Please answer it and tell them I'll be right there. Is this going to be a new product? Are you going to start selling these things?"

"No, this was just a challenge project I put to one of my engineering teams. A gasoline version of the miniature motors they came up with has been licensed for sale, and some of the modular designs and programming are going to show up elsewhere ... but no, I don't have any plans to put giant robots in the hands of drivers."

"I suppose ... I suppose that's good. I need to go get my phone ... ummm ... Michael, a moment please."

He gestured to the inspector and they walked off together. Alpha later relayed what he whispered. "Michael, I WANT that thing in the parade. Unless it's going to hurt someone, I want you to pass it." To which Michael replied, "Yes, sir, Mr Mayor."