Chapter 3: Eutera

Ericson stood in the lab as he looked at the subroutines displayed from his arm. He had been working for five hours. Minerva’s face seemed different than the day before. He spent the time correcting the missing subroutines and nonfunctioning algorithms. The lab was as displayed as before, but there were changes. The planet Jupiter and Europa were no longer depicted on the left large screen. Instead, it had the waterfall of subroutines to his left as Minerva’s face was on display beside it. The room was partially illuminated as before. It was pretty much the afternoon on the ship.

“Minerva,” Ericson called out to her. “Report on your status.”

“I am currently operating at 84% efficiency.”

“That is good. We will keep working on that. I got the last of your human response subroutines fixed and operating now. Your memory core should be working at 99% now.”

“My memory core is currently operating at 98.978% Doctor Ericson,” she replied with an emotionless reaction.

He turned to look at her face. He was used to her voice by now. Even though it was a female voice, there was a lack of emotion in her words. She didn’t sound like a robot, but she reacted as if she was unimpressed towards anything. It was the reaction that he was expecting from her. Her face seemed to operate much better now when it was displayed on the screen.

“Well,” he said as he sighed a little bit. “It looks like I got you operating well enough that I can have a conversation with you now.”

“I am capable of communicating with you Doctor Ericson,” she replied back, affirming what he said.

“You look better when it comes to your face.”

“You have made approximately five comments about my face. Why is that important?”

“I can look at you,” he said. He deactivated his arm display as he perched and sat down on the center table. His legs hung from the table as he turned to look at her.

“Doctor Ericson, my...”

“Please, just call me Ericson. You don’t have to call me doctor.”

“Affirmative, Ericson,” she replied with no emotion. “My program is currently running from the quantum computer that is currently on the table. My identity belongs to that. Why is it important for me to have a face?”

“Ummm ... I guess it is human nature for us to talk to somebody. Giving you a face allows us to communicate with you better.”

Her white and blue eyes would periodically blink. Her voice synchronized perfectly as she spoke. Speakers around the room continued to allow her to talk normally. There was no screen flickering or anything. It confirmed with him more and more of her abilities as he spoke to her.

“Ericson, why is my face so important to you?” she asked.

“I guess your memory core is still not functioning correctly. You asked that question before.”

“Negative. You have not provided enough answers to respond to my inquiry correctly. Why is my face important to you?”

“Well, it simply goes this way. Can you see my face right now?”

“Affirmative.”

“What is your opinion on my face?”

The face of Minerva looked with the same intensity as before. She had the answer immediately. “Your face consists of numerous hair follicles, human tissue, a mouth, a nose, two eyes,...”

“What is your personal opinion?” he asked her again. He was testing to see if the subroutines and algorithms were working as he kept asking her questions.

She paused again. Then she answered again immediately.

“Your face is healthy for a man of thirty-one.”

“Hmm... , “ he replied as he nodded his head. “That is a start. I am making sure your responses are valid enough for me. To answer more of your question, it is the fact that we respond better to seeing a face.”

She gave him a blank stare.

He snapped his fingers. “The problem is, you can’t see your face right now. We need to do something about that.”

He lifted his left arm and activated his arm display. The projection showed him the display settings. He opened up the menu for the leftmost display. He flicked his fingers over the settings and activated it. The screen that showed the waterfall now changed to show the face of Minerva on both screens. It would now allow her to peer over and look at the face of herself. The micro overhead camera was focused on her face.

“What do you see?” he asked her.

“I see a digital display of a face. The mouth is currently moving as I speak.”

“You are looking at your own face that I was looking at right now. This is you.”

For the first time, Ericson actually saw a little bit of a reaction from her but only the slightest. She paused as her face mirrored what she was currently doing. There was still no emotion but enough that he could tell that something was working.

“What is your opinion upon looking at your own face?” he asked.

“The face is different than yours. I have no hair on the top of my head. There is no beard to my face like you have.”

“Hmmm ... maybe I should see if I can give you hair for your Face Interface program.”

“Why would you do that, Ericson?”

“Do you want to have hair on top of your head?”

“My face is adequate,” she replied with a simple reaction.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Affirmative.”

He looked at her as he shut off the left display. Seeing two faces talking at once was distracting to him. He focused his attention back to Minerva as he shut off his arm display.

“I want you to ask me questions, Minerva,” he directed to her.

“What questions would you like me to ask?”

“Anything that comes up. Ask me, and I will do my best to answer them.”

The eyes of Minerva looked away before looking back at him. He smiled for a short bit as he went back to his usual composure. He could see that she was thinking and trying to come up with a question. It was exactly what he wanted.

“What is my function?” she asked.

“You are the Artificial Intelligence or AI named Minerva. I created you to explore the advancement of Super-Intelligent AI constructs to see how they behave and operate with humankind.”

“You created me?”

“Yes. I created you.”

“Why are you curious about the behavior and actions of AI and human interactions, Ericson?”

“Perhaps a history lesson is in order,” he explained. “Are you fully aware about the concepts of time?”

“Affirmative.”

“Do you know how long a year is?”

“My memory core cannot provide me an adequate response. It is currently 687 days of a Martian year. Earth days in a year is 365. Further information is unavailable.”

“Don’t worry, Minerva. We will keep working on that as we proceed to the next day.”

“Why would I worry?” she asked.

“Umm...” he scratched his chin. He noticed that he was getting distracted from the topic. He waved his hand. “Ignore what I said. Back to the original conversation. The year we are currently operating on is 2349. We still use the Earth-based calendar and date system even though the human race is living on Mars and expanded to other worlds now.”

“Why did the human race move to Mars?” she asked, but Ericson was waving her hand to her.

“No, I will get to that later. Allow me to explain the story, and I will answer any other further questions.”

“Affirmative.”

He was about to make a snide comment, but he didn’t want to confuse her any more than he should. “Around 2055 or roughly three hundred years ago, humanity was improving on the concept of robotics. Artificial constructs and automatons that could operate on their own were being built. They were primitive in design, but they could do a variety of roles and jobs. The results were incredible, but it had consequences to it. As humanity advanced to around 2110, the human race had developed android technology. Super intelligent AIs were being created, but there was one major issue with the whole thing ... us.”

He shifted his butt as he continued to explain. “By 2112, androids were being built in mass amounts. The human population was around, oh...” He thought. “About ten ... eleven billion people. Even with the melted ice caps, we started to live in crowded conditions. The economy could barely maintain the population, and androids were taking up everything in work. Mass unemployment skyrocketed. Humanity was ready to tell the government that they didn’t want robots and androids. People wanted to be able to work again. Paranoia and fear...” he paused as he felt the need to be careful with his choice of words at the moment. “Humanity decided that it was best that they didn’t continue building robots or androids. A man by the name of Michael Gabriel led what would be called the Gabriel Rebellion against android companies. The result was an overwhelming success.”

Ericson went and activated his left arm display. He used his finger to tap a few buttons that appeared. He loaded up a series of pictures for Minerva to see as he searched it up on UWAN. The data began to filter in on the left display for Minerva to gaze upon. The first picture showed a series of people in a crowded city. They walked in filtered masks. The sky was partly dark and gray looking. They had signs that depicted the words “Humanity first! Androids come second!” and another sign that said, “Androids take real human jobs!” It was apparent what he was trying to convey to her.

“The rebellion was a major success. Governments from around the world had to do something, or they would face a civil war with their own population. This would lead to the famed Ibix Ban of 2113.”

He loaded up the next picture. It showed the proclamation of the Ibix Ban Treaty. It consisted of a legal pamphlet signed by the United Nations and representatives from around the world.

“The Ibix Ban is something that affects us even until now. Robotics and Androids are banned with the exception of a few things. Ships and some equipment are computer automated, but they can’t think for themselves. They also decided to pass a series of clauses to allow the continuous construction of ... companion bots since humanity preferred ... more intimate relations than with other human beings. It was also a way to keep up with controlling the ever-growing human population with less and less land and resources available. The Ibix Ban remains in effect with the exception of one thing. In 2340 they allowed the passing of Clause 1E in the Ibix Ban. It allows the construction and operation of one super advanced AI only. Five years later, the UWA research decided to create Project Asimov. It was later renamed to Project Minerva in which I was selected to create you secretly.”

He paused for a while as he waited for Minerva to finally say something. After ten seconds, she responded. “When was the last AI created?”

“2108. It was an AI named Delta.”

“The AI was deactivated after the Ibix Ban?”

“Yes. It was decompiled. There have been no further AI constructs for almost two hundred and fifty years ... until now.”

“Do you wish to see me fully operational?”

“Yes.”

“Do you intend to decompile and delete me?”

“No. My goal is to make sure that you are fully operational.”

“How long will I be operational?”

Ericson thought about it. “I actually don’t know. Technically as long as the computer down there is active, you are active.”

“What is this place?”

“It is my lab. This is the place where you will be active and operational.”

“There is a door behind you. What is beyond that door?”

“It is the hallway that leads outside the ship.”

Minerva gave a blank response. She seemed to concentrate, but she gave him an answer. “You are human?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Do the other humans look like you?”

“Hmmm ... more or less. Every human does look similar, but they have different physiques.”

“Clarify.”

“Humans are born with two legs, two arms, a head, torso, two feet, two hands. Typically all humans have these. The biggest differences between humans are facial features, hair, gender, skin pigmentation, age, etc.”

“So if the human is missing an arm or a leg or a head or a foot or a hand, they would not be human?”

“Yes, they would be human.”

“I do not understand. There is an error in memory block 45 and 68.”

Ericson knew there were some issues. She was responding, but even he couldn’t answer every single question for her.

“Yeah...” He replied to her. “We still have some work that needs to be done. Your emotional subroutines are not functioning. Your memory data blocks still need to be corrected. I am still picking up errors. At least we got this far. You are responding better to my words than yesterday.”

Her eyes looked at him. Then it looked down before it looked back at him. “I hope to function better to your specifications.”

Her reaction seemed to surprise him a little bit even though he didn’t show it. Even if her emotional subroutines were not functioning fully, he didn’t initially program her to react that way either.

“Alright. Minerva, I am going to go ahead and deactivate you for now. Tonight I am going to fix the errors in your memory core. Once that is fully functional, I will then upload grade level 8 into your system. I will also work on your emotional subroutines as well.”

“Acknowledged, Ericson. When will you return?”

“About an hour,” he paused as he thought about what he just said. “I guess that wouldn’t matter too much since it should be instant for you. Minerva, do you remember how long you were deactivated last night?”

“I was offline for 16 hours, 36 minutes, 49 seconds.”

“Do you remember anything that happened for that time span?”

“Negative.”

Ericson nodded his head as he heard her words. “I was just curious.”

“Why does that make you curious, Ericson?”

“ ... Nevermind... , “ he replied with his words. “I need to go eat. I will be back in an hour.”

“Acknowledged, Ericson.”

He activated his arm display and powered her down. The screen went dark as her face fizzled into nothingness. It was an awkward discussion for him, and he felt that if he didn’t stop her, she would start to ask every single question that was possible.

“Hmmm ... her basic memory core does seem to work partially, but she needs that core to be fully functional. So far, so good, though, but the lack of emotion from her didn’t help. Even the most basic AI programs built into the companion bots had better intelligence and reaction than Minerva did at the moment. Minerva would have to be able to do amazing feats of abilities. Thankfully time seems to be on our side, though...”