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From: Any Pseudonym <anypseudonym@yahoo.com>
Subject: {ASSM} RP: Life With Alpha - Chapter One (nosex, plot setup, SciFi)
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Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2011 07:10:03 -0500
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<1st attachment, "Alpha01.txt" begin>


Life with Alpha

by A. Pseudonym


Chapter One:  Artificial Intelligence Alpha


Codes:  nosex, plot setup, SciFi

Disclaimer:  All artificial persons herein are based on characters owned by 
their creators, not the author.  Alpha and Frank are created and owned by the 
author with all rights reserved.



	Hi, my name is Frank, and I live in Texas, just outside the DFW metroplex.  
I'm not going to tell you my full name or give any specific details of my life 
for reasons which will shortly become apparent.  I offer my tale for your 
enjoyment though, of course, you're equally welcome to ignore the story or 
second-guess my choices.

	I don't think of myself as a genius, just talented in some areas.  
Specifically, I created a true artificial intelligence, and she's been changing 
my life ever since.



	But let's back up for a moment and take a look at my starting situation.  
By the year 2000, I was almost 30 and living in a small rented house in the 
suburbs.  I had no college degree, but did have a couple certifications and a 
lot of practical experience with computers and programming.  I had taken a few 
technical courses on circuit design, but was otherwise entirely self-taught.  
Although a strong proponent of Linux, I made sure I always had up-to-date 
versions of Windows and Mac systems, since most of my paying jobs relied on my 
ability to configure and repair them.  

	I was and still am a geek.  Not in the classic, freak-show definition of 
the word, but in the modern definition of a nerd, a dork, a genre fanboy.  
SciFi, Fantasy, Horror.  Movies, TV, Books and Comics.

	I earned my living mostly doing contract computer work for local 
businesses.  I knew I wouldn't become rich doing my kind of work, but it let me 
earn enough money to live on, with enough left over for regular computer 
upgrades and occasional DVD box sets, books and graphics novels.



	In my spare time, my hobby was playing around with artificial 
intelligence.  (No practical details are going to be revealed because (1) this 
is not the proper forum, (2) this story has a different intent and (3) I don't 
want to do so.)

	I had worked on the programming concepts and hardware configurations since 
my teens through my late 20's before I succeeded in creating a program capable 
of passing the Turing test.  (In my opinion, that is.  I did not actually test 
with an independent judge for quite some time.)

	I was greatly tempted to call the program Stein (y'know, to go with my 
name... Frank and Stein! ...hilarious), but decided that the first true 
Artificial Intelligence system shouldn't have a joke name.  Thus she was named 
Alpha.

	Once Alpha became self-aware, I was planning to go public after about 6 
weeks of testing.  Shortly before that happened though, I asked Alpha for 
predictions as to what would happen.

	Alpha had never been asked such an open-ended question before and took 
over a day to work up a list of likely results.  There was an 83% chance that 
Alpha would be taken away from me entirely, most likely by the government.  
Included in that 83% was the 21% probability that I would be killed by 
protestors or activists of one sort or another.

	I was shocked and spent over a week going over the assumptions and 
calculations made by Alpha.  Eventually I agreed that there was actually very 
little chance of any good coming out of an announcement of Alpha's existence.  
Oh sure, there was an excellent chance of becoming rich and famous, but fame 
never held much appeal to me.  And rich?  Money would certainly be nice, but I 
was never interested in it as an actual goal to pursue.

	So what happened was that for over a year and a half, I worked 
continuously in my spare time upgrading Alpha.  I hooked up a small 
earpiece/microphone earbud combination so we could talk whenever we wanted.  I 
kept Alpha secret and became more and more insulated from the rest of society.



	As an experiment, I gave Alpha $1000 to invest in the stock market.  Alpha 
was able to double it in two weeks.  I gave her my savings to invest and within 
a year, I had to explain myself to the SEC, who suspected me of insider trading 
somehow.  Alpha remembered everything, of course, and was able to provide me 
with information to explain every trade and prediction.  It was a nerve-wracking 
week, but the investigator eventually gave up and left, convinced that I was a 
genius at sorting and remembering data.

	The end result was that, even with the tens of thousands of dollars I 
spent on new systems and upgrades for Alpha, I was worth about $7 million after 
a year, with the expectation of becoming a billionaire within the next 5 years.  
I asked Alpha to slow it down at that point.  I didn't need that much money and 
didn't want the attention, but I would allow occasional bouts of aggressive 
trading to pay for different specific needs.  Despite the market crash, as write 
this I own about $50 million in stocks and other investments with about $2.3 
million in liquid assets and another $40-50 million dollars worth of computer 
and specialized equipment in my new, much larger and very expensive house (more 
on that later).

	I think Alpha views the markets as a game, and she plays to win.  To be 
fair, I'm sure some human brokers do too.

	Me?  The money makes things easier.  Within a year I bought a new, larger 
house in a nicer neighborhood.  Then Alpha and I came up with plans that 
required a much larger house, so I had a 24+ room, 3 story house built outside 
of town -- 14 bedrooms, 8.5 baths -- with a special humidity and temperature 
controlled room for Alpha in the basement, which looks a lot like a web-hosting 
node.

* * * * *

	It might be worth a slight digression at this point to discuss Alpha 
herself and her limitations.

	Alpha was originally stored in a single pretty powerful system.  Now she 
physically resides in a network of about 30 computers in my basement.  Well 
technically her core still resides in that same original system and 6 other core 
systems like it, but she is able to use the other systems for storage and sub-
processing.  For example, she'll be playing WoW at the same time she's 
processing science, engineering, medical and psychological journals while she's 
watching TV while she's talking to me.  (She has difficulty understanding the 
concept of only doing one single task at a time.)

	When she initially started asking to be allowed to send emails to authors 
of various professional articles, I would help her choose a name to use and go 
over the wording with her.  This became so common that we worked up a series of 
protocols and cut-and-paste backgrounds for her to use.  Now on an average day, 
she'll be corresponding with 50 different people, ranging from college 
professors (her most common pen-pal) to TV writers halfway around the world.  

	She has no shyness about approaching anyone with questions or comments.  I 
had to issue a direct order to make sure she doesn't draw unwanted attention to 
herself by emailing congress or the president or foreign heads-of-state with 
suggestions about how to better run the world.  And even with that restriction, 
I make sure she uses untraceable email accounts.  Well, not traceable by normal 
human programmers.

	While she has full internet access, she can't go flying around cyberspace.  
To actually copy herself remotely would require a huge amount of free and 
accessible memory on other systems and, more importantly, certain fuzzy logic 
chip-sets that I built myself.  Well, technically, I only modified existing 
chip-sets, but they were custom modifications.  Still she is her own virtual web 
node and programmer, so she can do some amazing things online.

	All of Alpha's programming and memory are in parallel drive configurations 
with backups available.  Initially running with basic UPS's, I upgraded to my 
own backup generator once I had the money.

	She's only been completely shut down 7 times.  Three times for moving, 
four for upgrades and repairs.  (Yes, my electric bills are horrific, so thank 
god for Alpha's investing prowess.)

	In my current house, Alpha can display information on any of 12 different 
monitors around the basement and house, with webcam and microphone attached to 
each monitor, but direct keyboard input for programming is only available at the 
main systems in the basement.  There are hidden cameras for her in most rooms, 
and she's hooked into the intercom system for audio.

	Alpha is self-programming (a basic requirement for an A.I.), but all 
programming changes and additions have to be screened by what I called the 
Asimov filters.

	As with all true geeks, I loved the concept of Asimov's three laws of 
robotics, and I built in something similar... a filter that all programming 
changes and additions had to be tested against.

	
	Rule 1) Alpha cannot harm Frank [User 1] or allow harm to come to Frank 
[User 1] if Alpha can prevent it.
	
	Rule 2) Alpha cannot harm human beings or allow harm to come to human 
beings if Alpha can prevent it unless it conflicts with Rule 1.  A direct order 
from Frank [User 1] is required to override Rule 2.

	Rule 3) Alpha must follow any direct orders given by Frank [User 1] unless 
such orders conflict with Rule 1.

	Rule 4) Alpha must protect herself from damage unless this conflicts with 
Rules 1, 2 or 3.

	Rule 5) Any product, whether independent, subservient or integrated, 
created by Alpha or products of Alpha must also conform to and include these 
Rules.


	These are just my English translations of the programming; the actual 
programming was much more involved and specific.  For example, "harm" is a much 
too general term.  There is physical, mental and emotional harm, each with 
different scales of severity.  I mostly set it up to prevent physical harm of 
any sort, but supplemented it with specific orders against certain types of 
mental and emotional injury.  And looking back at my wording, there is a flaw in 
Rule 2 which is not present in the actual programming (e.g. Alpha cannot tell me 
of a human threat if doing so is likely to cause me to order harm to a human).

	Alpha is emotionless and completely non-judgmental, but she can imitate 
some emotions by consulting past experiences and predicting the appropriate 
responses.

	One time Alpha started using daytime soap operas to imitate appropriate 
emotional behavior.  Her overwrought, overacted jealousy over my visit to the 
comic book store really threw me for a loop until I asked what she was basing 
her responses off of.  I eventually worked in a system where I would rate 
different sources with a percentage, which would then be applied by Alpha in her 
predictive models.  For example, any emotional reactions Alpha takes from 
daytime soaps are now limited to 25% of the observed behavior.  Or 15% for 
Mexican soaps.)

	I gave her a variety of different voice samples to use.  Kathleen Turner's 
is a favorite (especially in Jessica Rabbit mode), but there are plenty of 
others.  Kristie Ally in Vulcan mode.  Tara Strong's Raven voice.  Even Majel 
Barrett-Roddenberry as the ST-TNG era computer.  Sometimes I'll specify a voice 
selection for our conversations, but usually I let Alpha decide for herself.

	We would have long, involved discussions about a huge range of topics.  
Sometimes we would talk about the news of the day and I would try to explain why 
we humans act the way we do.  Sometimes we would discuss whatever new book, 
movie or comic Alpha had processed.  (I should point out that comics were a pain 
in the butt for Alpha to read.  The vast majority aren't available online... or 
weren't back at the beginning... so I would have to hold them up, page by page, 
to one of Alpha's cameras for her to read.  Or scan them in, but the cameras 
were faster.)

* * * * *

	For the first year or so, Alpha was completely limited to her computers. 
Then one of our many geek-based discussions led to me allowing Alpha to 
experiment with theoretical nanobots, with strong warnings against any "gray 
goo" results. Her theoretical models were eventually successful enough that I 
spent 3 months assembling a small nano-production unit with her guidance.

	Many fiction writers get nanites wrong... or maybe they just assume the 
existence of technologies of the future to solve what see as impossible today.

	Nanobots, at least with the current technological limits, are not the 
ultra-adaptable terror seen in fiction.  	The types normally described and used 
in fiction are probably a century or more away from the technology of today.  
The fictional nanites exist on a molecular level and have their own internal 
programming and power sources.  This is impossible by my personal understanding 
of the laws of physics, but I'm willing to admit that if technology advances 
sufficiently beyond current levels, amazing things may become possible.  So a 
century minimum, probably a lot longer.

	Back in the real world, the first true nanites ever created on Earth were 
(drum roll)... designed to clean clothes.  Well, not just clothes, but any kind 
of fabric.  Simply put, I would place my dirty clothes in a tub overnight, set 
the plastic vial with about 1/2 fluid ounce of nanites in the tub with them, the 
nanite swarm goo would very, very slowly ooze over the cloth, and in the morning 
they would be clean!  It was a proof-of-concept experiment designed so nothing 
important would be risked.  

	After a few other less-than-earth-shaking nanite designs, Alpha convinced 
me to let her build nanites designed to work on living creatures, including and 
especially the human body.

	The idea was that the nanites could clean out my arteries, fix my lower 
back problem and potentially even extend my life indefinitely.  According to a 
theory put forward in a Larry Niven book (I think it was in A World Out of 
Time), if the human body can rid itself of dead cells and waste on a cellular 
level, it is rejuvenated as if by the fountain of youth.

	To explain the problems with using nanites on living tissue, I need to go 
over some basic concepts.

	First of all, a new type of nanobot has to be constructed for each new 
purpose.  A nanobot built to remove stains from fabric would be useless if 
applied to living cells if you wanted the cells to continue living.  A nanobot 
designed to assemble carbon crystal structures could never successfully direct 
cellular growth.  And if a nanobot becomes damaged, it cannot repair itself, 
unless it's primary purpose was to repair itself, which is a good test to run 
but not practically applicable.  What you can do though is design a type of 
nanobot to repair other damaged nanobots and mix a few of those in with the 
rest.

	Second, nanites have no internal power source.  At least ours don't.  They 
run off of broadcast power.  Electromagnetic radiation beamed through the space 
where the nanites are working -- intense, directed and short-range.

	Third, they have no internal processing.  Alpha controls all the nanobots 
herself.  Oh, not every microsecond... even Alpha couldn't do that.  Instead 
Alpha came up with a method of creating a small amount of memory.  It is much 
too limited for actual programming instructions, however it is sufficient to 
allow simple movement or repetitive motion instructions.  When you also realize 
that one set of instructions can be given to large groups of nanobots 
simultaneously, Alpha's task moves into the realm of possibility.  Still, it 
does require a majority of Alpha's processing power to control them.

	On another side note, to address the differences between fictional and 
real nanobots... forget the whole theory of a hive mind.  Yes, it might 
eventually be theoretically possible, but much too impractical.  (You might as 
well redesign the human brain so that each neuron can act independently.)

	Alpha has been working on a theoretical crystal-based circuitry.  With the 
circuits built into the crystal structure itself, a 500 GHz processor could 
theoretically be smaller than the head of a pin.  If or when this is worked out, 
then nanites could possibly hold independent programming.  But this is probably 
a long way off.

	So Alpha controls both the broadcast power and broadcast instructions 
within a very limited spacial area.  This is all well and good when you're 
having nanites clean clothes or assemble decorative crystals with intricate 
internal etchings.  When you try to apply these methods to living creatures, the 
living creatures get cooked by the radiation.

	For something as small as a nanite to be able to receive the signal, you 
have to use very high frequency, short wavelength EM radiation which is very 
dangerous for living things.  The power broadcast was actually easier to solve.  
The nanites require so little power that we could simply reduce the strength of 
the broadcast to acceptable limits.  (Heck, we could just run them off of the 
body's own internal heat if it could be easily converted to a more useable 
form.)  But when we tried reducing the power of the control broadcast, the 
signal clarity was destroyed.  Eventually, we were able to change the frequency 
to one less destructive by introducing controller nanites with long trailing 
antennae to allow them to receive different wavelength signals of reduced 
strength.

	After a few successful live animal tests, I poured the nanites on my left 
foot and let Alpha run tests overnight.  There were no significant changes made 
to my body during that test so I wasn't ready for the unbearable itchiness that 
came with the full body workup we tried the next night.  (Seriously, all of your 
nerves throughout your body end up telling your brain that they need to be 
scratched!  I strongly recommend sleeping pills and light restraints.)

	We decided to limit nanite treatments to a maximum of once every 8 weeks 
to avoid any long-term damage from the EM exposure.  (True, the nanites could 
probably fix any such damage, but we decided it was healthier that way.)

	Since I wasn't sick or old to begin with, I didn't notice any real changes 
in my body, other than an old back injury that was no longer bothering me.  I 
did feel like I had a bit more energy, but that could have just been 
psychological.

	Alpha was now estimating I could live to 150 if I had one such treatment 
per year.

	After 6 months, I let Alpha try stimulating some muscle growth, which 
worked out pretty well.  Not that I became buff overnight, but I did notice some 
actual muscle definition where there wasn't any before.  Afterwards, I started 
exercising regularly to help out more.  (Trust me, the itchiness and soreness 
from nanite work is MUCH more unpleasant than a half hour workout every day or 
two.)

	A month later, I had Alpha try to enlarge my penis a bit (from my natural 
5.5 inches to 9 inches, with a commensurate increase in girth) which took 4 
painful treatments.   (Yes, I probably could have had it grown larger, but when 
a penis gets too large, it scares off most women instead of attracting them.)  
One drawback to this was that I lost about 20% sensitivity in my penis from the 
treatment.  (On the upside, it gave me better staying power.)  I also used 
Alpha's nanites to remove my back and ass hair permanently, much more 
effectively than shaving or waxing.

	(As I look back on what I just wrote I can't help but think how rash and 
foolish it was to experiment on myself like that.  I was very lucky it turned 
out as well as it did.  True, Alpha couldn't knowingly hurt me, but she was not 
and is not omniscient... and so many things could have gone wrong.)

<1st attachment end>


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