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quickly, already late for his dozen meetings that day. King gathered up his laptop and reports, refusing to meet Chambers’ s eyes.
    â€œReally, Mark. Neurotic? Do you realize how that sounds? It’s no t alive.”
    â€œGayle, have you tried…” He looked out the window at the parking lot. “Have you tried maybe looking at all this from it s perspective?”
    â€œI didn’t realize it had a perspective. What might the SDDPP ’s perspectiv e be?”
    Chambers watched him struggle with her question for a moment, his eyes going from one distant car to the other, as if searching for the answer on bumper stickers. Finally, they returned t o her.
    â€œIt’s a raw intelligence, newly aware,” he said. “But as you stated, it’s stuck in its own little universe, this massive cleverness with nothing to focus on except its own being. All it does, all it can do, is hover in the memory case and wait for motivation and stimulus from us. So there it is, with this amazing intellect we gave it, and all it can do is analyze its own thoughts, its own communication with us, almost like it’s on a feedback loop. It analyzes, reanalyzes, and then analyzes again its own thoughts and what you feed it. So every nuance or slight gets magnified. It’s marinating in its own intelligence. One might argue… fermenting.”
    â€œSo you’re saying all great intelligence is intrinsicall y neurotic?”
    â€œHow many eccentric or downright weird geniuses have you hear d of?”
    â€œYou don’t have to have a high IQ to be neurotic,” she reasoned. “And so what if Einstein, Picasso or Glenn Gould had a few odd characteristics. They still contributed a hell of a lot and nobody got hurt. In fact, those quirks may have been responsible for a lot of their brilliance. I think you’re reaching with this, Mark.”
    King looked unconvinced. He stopped at the door of the meeting room and gave her a sad smile. “Maybe. Granted, this is new territory, but consider Einstein, Picasso or Glenn Gould. They all had something to focus their intelligence on. Something that took up a good chunk of their genius. Something to burn mental calories on. Our little SDDPP has nothing but its own awareness. Often we’re our own worst enemy. You minored in psychology; you know this.” With that, Professor Mark King left th e room.
    Unfortunately, Chambers had to admit there was a certain logic to King’s argument. But that was one of the reasons she planned to introduce information to the AI . If King was right, about it needing stimulus but not about it being neurotic, giving it material to think about, research and digest might be exactly what the doctor ordered. She smiled at her own little joke. She herself had been a moody, self-indulgent teenager, angry at being the nerdy outcast in an athletic family. It was her studies and the friends she met in university that had allowed her to blossom into the successful woman she was today. If both she and King thought their creation needed information to grow and stay healthy, then so be it. But like any good teacher, she would be selective about what she would teach her little “friend.”
    For the next two days, Chambers fed the SDDPP document after document, starting with general information. Various encyclopedias and fact-based tomes came first. Fiction and art would have to wait. The AI needed a certain understanding of human nature and history before the concept of make-believe could be introduced. As the SDDPP digested more and more material, its dialogues with Chambers gradually changed. They became less insistent and more… questioning.
    â€œ
I a
m confused. ”
    â€œWhat is confusin g you?”
    â€œ
I understand I am not a physical being like you.
Gray’s Anatomy
was very informative. But I am perplexed by my own existence. Do I actuall
y exist ? ”
    â€œA philosopher named