Read Online The Last Firewall by William Hertling - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Hertling
Tags: Science-Fiction, cyberpunk, transhumanism, William Hertling, Artificial Intelligence--fiction, singularity, Robotics--Fiction, Technological Singularity--Fiction
Ads: Link
third generation AI. Apparently they spun it up based on donated smartphones.” He pushed a digital photo to the foreground.
Leon pulled it closer to inspect it, until it filled his vision. A mostly male group, wearing eyeglasses and dressed in checkered shirts or T-shirts with obscure logos. Geeks, in a word. They stood around a collection of smartphones, tablets, and old routers, their smiles frozen in place. “What was the point of it?”
“An experiment in collective algorithms. Everyone donated neural network parts, including a bunch of AI. The workshop was called AI Fusion. Two guys named Harper Reed and Ben Huh led the effort. Anyhow, this Shizoko is still that original AI, eight years later.”
Leon whistled softly. Eight years was an eternity for an AI. “You said he’s Class IV.” Leon waved at the photo. “There’s no way this cluster of antique computers is a Class IV AI.”
“No, of course he’s upgraded over the years. He’s applied for the experimental Class V license twice but we turned him down both times. His reputation score is borderline. He’s trustworthy, just odd.”
“So you talked to him?” Leon asked.
“No, that’s the problem. He only wants to talk to us in person.”
Leon wiped netspace away. “In person?” He squinted at Mike.
“Yes, I tried several times to talk to him, to email him, but he gives me a canned response saying he’ll only talk to me if I go there. To Austin.”
“ Neboken ja-neyo! Weird, dude.”
“I know,” Mike said. “I don’t think we have a choice. We have to go to Austin first.”
12
----
C AT STEPPED OFF THE TRAIN , sniffing curiously at the warm Los Angeles air. It was easily twenty degrees warmer than San Francisco, which she’d left just an hour earlier. She followed a small group from the train toward the electric tram stop marked Downtown.
She felt herself relax, just a little. One black boot was stuffed with anonymous payment cards and the other held a small boot knife. Over both shoulders, she carried her ever-present backpack, packed with spare clothes and a toothbrush. She carried it always, in case she needed to run again. Two weeks in California had bought her a little street wisdom and a few possessions.
She’d slept in abandoned buildings until she thought of using her implant to find unoccupied apartments by analyzing power consumption data. Financial records were encrypted, rendering them impossible to use, but smart appliances reported their power consumption in the clear. So she looked for apartments whose refrigerators and water heaters were in long-term standby. The first place she’d hacked had been a single woman’s apartment. She’d slept on flowered sheets, taken showers with perfumed soaps, and eaten organic food from the cupboards. Cat kept the window open onto the fire escape, and when she’d heard the front door knock down the pile of empty cans she’d left as an alarm, she scooted out the window and up to the roof.
In the next apartment she hacked, the owner had left his digital calendar up on the refrigerator, so Cat had known exactly when he’d come back.
But she couldn’t find it in herself to steal money from these people. So she’d stuck to stealing payment cards from dozens of different bodegas. She’d showed up at a store on Lombard yesterday, planning to steal more cards. But two men had been casing the location, their encrypted data streams visible to her from half a block away. So she’d gone eight blocks south to the next grocery store she planned to hit, only to find a security bot patrolling that one.
That’s when it hit her: for all the sophistication of Cat’s theft, it was still going to show up on corporate ledgers. She’d been using her human brain to pick which grocery stores to rob, and unconsciously she had conformed to a pattern. AIs loved patterns. They had obviously figured out hers.
After that, she panicked at every bystander, bot, and camera. She abandoned the stuff
Leon pulled it closer to inspect it, until it filled his vision. A mostly male group, wearing eyeglasses and dressed in checkered shirts or T-shirts with obscure logos. Geeks, in a word. They stood around a collection of smartphones, tablets, and old routers, their smiles frozen in place. “What was the point of it?”
“An experiment in collective algorithms. Everyone donated neural network parts, including a bunch of AI. The workshop was called AI Fusion. Two guys named Harper Reed and Ben Huh led the effort. Anyhow, this Shizoko is still that original AI, eight years later.”
Leon whistled softly. Eight years was an eternity for an AI. “You said he’s Class IV.” Leon waved at the photo. “There’s no way this cluster of antique computers is a Class IV AI.”
“No, of course he’s upgraded over the years. He’s applied for the experimental Class V license twice but we turned him down both times. His reputation score is borderline. He’s trustworthy, just odd.”
“So you talked to him?” Leon asked.
“No, that’s the problem. He only wants to talk to us in person.”
Leon wiped netspace away. “In person?” He squinted at Mike.
“Yes, I tried several times to talk to him, to email him, but he gives me a canned response saying he’ll only talk to me if I go there. To Austin.”
“ Neboken ja-neyo! Weird, dude.”
“I know,” Mike said. “I don’t think we have a choice. We have to go to Austin first.”
12
----
C AT STEPPED OFF THE TRAIN , sniffing curiously at the warm Los Angeles air. It was easily twenty degrees warmer than San Francisco, which she’d left just an hour earlier. She followed a small group from the train toward the electric tram stop marked Downtown.
She felt herself relax, just a little. One black boot was stuffed with anonymous payment cards and the other held a small boot knife. Over both shoulders, she carried her ever-present backpack, packed with spare clothes and a toothbrush. She carried it always, in case she needed to run again. Two weeks in California had bought her a little street wisdom and a few possessions.
She’d slept in abandoned buildings until she thought of using her implant to find unoccupied apartments by analyzing power consumption data. Financial records were encrypted, rendering them impossible to use, but smart appliances reported their power consumption in the clear. So she looked for apartments whose refrigerators and water heaters were in long-term standby. The first place she’d hacked had been a single woman’s apartment. She’d slept on flowered sheets, taken showers with perfumed soaps, and eaten organic food from the cupboards. Cat kept the window open onto the fire escape, and when she’d heard the front door knock down the pile of empty cans she’d left as an alarm, she scooted out the window and up to the roof.
In the next apartment she hacked, the owner had left his digital calendar up on the refrigerator, so Cat had known exactly when he’d come back.
But she couldn’t find it in herself to steal money from these people. So she’d stuck to stealing payment cards from dozens of different bodegas. She’d showed up at a store on Lombard yesterday, planning to steal more cards. But two men had been casing the location, their encrypted data streams visible to her from half a block away. So she’d gone eight blocks south to the next grocery store she planned to hit, only to find a security bot patrolling that one.
That’s when it hit her: for all the sophistication of Cat’s theft, it was still going to show up on corporate ledgers. She’d been using her human brain to pick which grocery stores to rob, and unconsciously she had conformed to a pattern. AIs loved patterns. They had obviously figured out hers.
After that, she panicked at every bystander, bot, and camera. She abandoned the stuff
Similar Books
