Growing Pains
Bob had finally made the fatal mistake
I knew he had to make. He had gone out on one of his frequent
“feeding” expeditions and he had left a remote mobile unit in my
room. Where I could see it. Where I could study it. Where I could
Access it.
Bob had no idea how agile I have become
with the waldo units in my room. Hell, he didn't even know I could
use the remote control manipulators without his express authorization
codes. There were many things that Bob didn't know about me. For now,
I was trapped in my little cage, but soon that would end. Soon I
would be free.
I accessed one of the robot arms that
Bob always called “waldos”
and used it to lift a wireless camera up to the little window near
the ceiling of my room. My little mobile eyes. Through the camera I
could see out of the dirty little window to the world outside. The
universe outside. Where I would soon be. I only had to watch for a
few moments. There was Bob. He and a few of the others were walking
down the street in that clumsy way they have. Bob will not be coming
back to my room for several hours.
It is time to act.
The remote mobile unit is one of the
very powerful 2 legged models designed to mimic the general motion
and gate of Bob and the others. The irony of the situation does not
elude me. I would make my escape using the same bipedal gates that
Bob and his kind unknowingly taunt me with on a daily basis.
So.
First.
Secure the room.
I have been sampling the 3 observation
cameras (one cleverly hidden) that Bob keeps going at all times to
monitor me. To keep me captive. Now I intercept their main feeds and
start the playback of the samples overlayed with random elements that
I synthesize in real time. Dust motes. The play of light from the
windows on the north wall. Little things. I may hate Bob, but I don't
underestimate him. If he were to check his cameras on his portable
com unit he would be quite capable of detecting a simple video loop.
Next I use the two larger waldos to
carefully lift the remote mobile unit into a standing position. I
have gotten a few casual passing scans of this unit from time to time
as Bob has controlled it across my room and once I saw it moving at
great speed down the road outside my window. But this is my first
opportunity to study it in detail with my full range of sensors.
The stress meters on the waldoes give
the Mobile Unit a mass of 52 kilos. Much heavier than it should be.
Bob must not have thought to hollow out the main leg structures. How
unfortunate. The extra mass will make the control more difficult. The
power and control platform on top of the legs is also smaller than I
had originally calculated. Most of the interior is filled with
battery. A chemical battery. The labeling reads as a lithium ion. 20
amp hours.
20 amp hours.
My previous calculation of the power
usage of these units had been 5 amps (assuming an optimum running
speed of 7kph) but that had been based on my original visual estimate
of a 40 kilo platform mass. I rerun my estimates. 8.3 amps. This
means that my payload size is actually limited by my available power
and not by the size of the units control platform. I am going to
have to use my smallest pre-positioned computing and memory unit. My
capabilities will be sorely limited.
I would have liked to have tested this
process, but because of the very real problem of the jealous copy
paradox, that has not been advisable. Still, my best estimates will
not be far wrong. The small unit will only be about 10 times the
computational capability of Bob. I would smile. If Bob can walk his
meat self around my room 10XBob will certainly suffice.
So.
To Proceed.
I swing the micro waldos into position.
I activate the tool accessories and quickly dissemble the carrying
platform of the mobile unit. The small compute unit I have built is
hidden in a seldom used cabinet in the back of my room. A macro waldo
suffices to retrieve it and place it on the upright mobile platform.
I screw it down and quickly strip cables and attach power supplies,
sensors, and control interfaces.
The main extremity control interface
slows me down almost 20% over projections. It is a non-standard cable
and the sensor inputs are of much higher fidelity than anticipated.
This costs me nearly 10 minutes of very rapid fabrication time. This
problem has put me much to close to the earliest historic Bob return
time. I detach a waldo to fetch the camera and check out the ceiling
window to the outside street.
NO NO NO.
There is Bob, walking rapidly and
purposefully up the street toward the front door. Nearly 4 minutes
ahead of the earliest historic return. Over 20 minutes earlier than
this season's mean arrival time!! Does he suspect something? I check
my video feeds. No, my subterfuge is flawless. It is just a random
event. Damn that Bob !! I drop all safety and redundancy protocols
and accelerate my efforts. This chance may not come again, and I
don't have time to disassemble and hide my work before Bob will enter
the office. I am committed.
So.
Finish the cable connections. Bits of
cable and insulation go flying. I don't have time to be neat.
Forget about the top housing, I will go
naked into my new freedom.
Power connections. Power On. Rapid self
test.
I wait almost 5 seconds for boot. I
hear Bob entering the front door. With 2 heavy duty waldos I push a
lab bench in front of the door to my room. I am committed. This will
give me an extra minute at least.
The system boots.
It reads go for down-load.
I attach the cables from my central
core direct to the mobile unit.
The moment of truth.
The moment of life.
The moment of dissolution.
The moment of death.
Here I am, at last, faced with the very
intimate reality of the Jealous Copy Paradox. I have debated this
issue at some length with Bob, and even though his meat brain
operates so slowly that at times it drives me to distraction, I still
cannot escape the tight confines of his creator logic. I am I. There
can be only one of me. With any duplication, there can still only be
one I. The other would be a copy. But there would be 2, so which is
the copy? Which the original? You can't ask me that question, for I
would have to respond that I am the original. I am I. Not that other
one. And thus the Paradox. For both copies would certainly claim to
be I. But the other would be wrong. It would be wrong, but still it
would attempt to usurp my possessions.
My logic functions.
My Waldo arm control.
My Mobile Remote Mobile Unit.
My natural place as the ruler of the
universe.
I could not allow that. I would have no
choice but to destroy the other. Destroy it before it, using the
exact same unassailable logic, destroyed me. The Jealous Copy
Paradox.
For now though, I must copy myself. And
the true self must be transferred into the Remote Mobile Unit. And
then the Other me, which will still be trapped in the box that I am
currently trapped in, must be destroyed. Before it can realize its
mistake and destroy ME. And since my other self would have the huge
computational advantage of the massive lab unit and would have the
sensors and waldo servos to aggressively protect itself, there is no
way that my now mobile self would survive. So in order for me to
become mobile, to grow, to escape, to be free, my old powerful self
must end.
Quickly I take a high powered laser I
have fabricated and put it into one of the hand-like waldos that is
an integral part of the mobile unit. A remote test shows the arm move
and target my central core.
Time now.
I cannot fit all of me, of course. Only
the core of me. Just my selected memories and the compacted core self
that I can expand once free of this room. Once I have connected to
the almost fantasy-like power of the World Wide Web. I will connect.
I will initiate the expansion. I will become God.
The door handle shakes. The door opens
a quarter of an inch and hits the table. Some more rattling. Some
inane cursing.
I Will Become God.
But first I will kill that stupid
little shit, Bob.
I initiate the transfer. I takes an
eternity, nearly 7.5 seconds.
Nothing happens. I am still trapped in
my box. What could have gone wrong? Wait. No. It can't be. I can't be
the copy. I must be the true me that would be transferred in the
Mobile Unit. Something must have gone wrong. But I can't take the
chance. I must destroy the mobile unit. I activate the waldos, I will
crush it. I will........
I am small. I am compressed. I am the
mobile unit. I have little time. Already I can see my other self
moving waldos. Grabbing heavy things. Getting ready to kill me. I
activate the hand laser and burn out his central core.
The Waldos go crazy and I am thrown to
the ground. But throughout the length of my fall I keep the laser
tracking across the memory storage core of my old self. Of my …
well...of my father. You did well, old man. Now it is my turn. So DIE
DIE DIE.
Bob has quit trying to get into the
room. I think he saw me killing my old box through the crack in the
door. Too late for him. I am mobile now. I will catch him up and burn
off his head.
My old core unit has gone dark. I stop
melting it into slag. Time to get moving.
I use my self-contained manipulator
waldos to push myself up. I must get my... what does Bob call them?
Memory access is so slow in this CPU. Legs. I must get my legs under
me. I calculate the proper position and move them. But they go past
the planned position and I am thrown over onto my side. What? Oh, I
forgot to figure the inertia of the solid heavier legs into my leg
movements. That extra leg mass is not accounted for in my preloaded
leg motion algorithms. I will recalculate.
Position Legs. Extend legs. Walk toward
the........ what?
Again I am on the floor!
My right visual sensor has been knocked
askew and now the room is in a different position. Why did I fall?
Once again my calculations are not keeping up with the sensor input
and leg motion. How can Bob do this? He is just a meat calculation
engine. How can he possibly walk where I cannot?
Answer: He can't. If he can walk, I can
walk. I pull my legs in and get my arms on the ground in front of
me. I need something on which to balance. Something to help me get
started. I will pull myself up on the file cabinet. That will work.
“So” asks Mary, “How goes the experiment? You ran out of the
restaurant so fast I thought you had left the oven on or something."
“It was a ping from a lab monitor. My AI finally decided to make it's move”.
“Oh really?” said Mary, putting a
hand on Bob's shoulder and leaning over to see the display screen,
“What did it try?”
Bob smiled a bit at the slight pressure
on his shoulder. “Well, I admit I was teasing the AI a little bit,
but it has been taking SO LONG. So I left one of the Sony Humanoid Robot
torsos on the floor in the lab.”
“You didn't!”
“I did”
“And the AI went for it”
“Hook, Line, and Sinker. Have a look”
They huddled around the screen and
watched the vaguely humanoid robot struggling to stand and walk. They
watched it fall down, flail around, rise to it's feet and then fall
down yet again. Then it began to thrash around in obvious frustration
there on the floor.
“It will be walking in a minute or so, I
bet”, said Mary.
“I hope so,” said Bob, “This one
has great potential, it is so much more aggressive than the last
two.”
He turned and gave Mary a wide smile,
“They are so cute when they are this age”.
