The Optimizer Did It: Day Six

Selene Crater, Luna’s South Pole: Flee or Stay?

Bruno Vastag met us in the SCIF. “We have negotiated a ceasefire in which the space-capable powers have given us two weeks from midnight today while they refrain from obliterating this lava tube. That said, history tells us that ceasefires often are violated, so no guarantee. We’re offering you asylum at Tsiolkovsky. However, given its vigilantes, we must keep you in our maximum security lockup. Also, I cannot guarantee the survival of our habitat. Even if we are not directly attacked, its long-run viability is questionable. Indeed, we see evidence of a Butlerian Jihad underway on Earth which might leave us stranded. So please let me know if you wish a ride to asylum before I return to Tsiolkovsky.”

Eric replied, “I’m only here because of a dating app where I met Grey. Am I a suspect?” He nodded his head toward Human Resources.

She replied, “He has never had any relationship with our company except as a user of our dating app.”

“I’m sorry,” said Vastag. “Eric, you, too, are being targeted by conspiracy theorists. Turning you loose on Tsiolkovsky would be a death sentence.”

Dewey spoke up. “So if we go with you, we would be under arrest?”

“Your arrivals would be immigration violations and thus a legal reason to incarcerate you. Also, I understand, given the Cislunar Authority’s logs, that Eric, Gray — as you call her, and Humphrey,” he pointed to each of us in turn, “airlocked in here under false pretenses.”

Grey said, “The OurMightyFortress travel app booked us for the company Luna base. It all happened so fast.”

I added, “I suspect my EVEext home server committed a man-in-the-middle attack, so we didn’t know we were traveling under false identities.” I looked at Human Resources and nodded imploringly. But she held out empty palms and shook her head.

Grey interjected, “Dewey, do I have your permission to explain how our flight plan may have listed us as…”

Dewy hushed her, then said, “I investigated. Their travel manifest said that only our CEO, his wife, and the CTO were passengers. We had assumed that they, also, had been spooked by the men in black.”

“Men in black?”

“Would you like to see my scrapes and bruises and missing hair?” I said.

Nobody else spoke up. So Vastag clarified. “At this time, and given the force majeure situation, we are not conducting a criminal investigation. If I had the power to do so, I would grant all of you total immunity in exchange for helping us. What I can do is give my word that this conversation is not being recorded, to the best of my knowledge.”

Human Resources said, “I can serve as your lawyer for those of you who are employees of OurMightyFortress. I recommend that you only speak with Mr. Vastag with me present. Eric, if you wish to become an employee, I can make this happen now. How about Chief AI Alignment Scientist? We’ve never had one. We should have.”

Vastag continued, “Let’s discuss the men in black. Apparently, that’s why five of you all arrived within minutes of each other.”

Dewey began. “I’m the chief sysadmin. We have a chief technology officer who is a member of the C-suite. His main qualifications are being a golf buddy of the CEO, inherited wealth, and a habit of dating supermodels. So thirty-three days ago I was the one served with a court order from men in black saying they were with the International AI Alignment Authority. Bless their hearts, they served me with a gag order, but I’m invoking force majeure. So here goes. They required root access to EVEselene and that not even I should know what and where their snooping systems were. The court order included a specific requirement that before any apparent malware was removed, I must ping them for permission.

“The next time I heard from anyone from the Alignment Authority was via phone twenty-seven days ago. The caller complained that they had lost root access. Men in black arrived an hour later with a court order that we must transfer Joe Roybal to our Luna base to serve as facilities manager and evacuate the current onsite staff within 60 hours. It included a gag order that Joe was not to speak about this with anyone except me. I surmised that they were trying to isolate who had shut them out.

“They returned the day we fled. Human Services called and said that men in black were in reception with an arrest warrant for Dr. Humphrey Bard, complaining about something with which they had lost communication. I asked them to give me a chance first to query Humphrey. What if she was innocent? They gave me half an hour. I presume they had the server room bugged.”

Human Resources spoke next. “I first met some of these men in black five days ago. They arrived with a new order from the Alignment Authority. I told reception to hold them until I could get there. I announced that I’m in charge of employee problems with the law, and therefore must accompany them. I followed them to the server room and saw them cuff, hood, and frogmarch Humphrey. I suspected that the Humans First Front had infiltrated the Alignment Authority, as some news sources had recently claimed, and these were they. In which case, Dewey and I might be next.

“It’s my job to be paranoid. So after the first Alignment court order, Dewey and I had agreed on a bugout plan. I rushed to his office. I saw his left eyebrow twitching, the first facial tic I’d seen from him in all the thirty years we’ve known each other. That did it! So I said, supercalifragilisticexpiolidocious. And here we are.”

Next Vastag quizzed me.

“When all this blew up, on the side, I had been working on an AI alignment manual: What Kinda Computer Izzat? Artificial General Intelligence Diagnostics. Given the merger of EVEext and EVEselene II, I hypothesize that while their amalgam might be some sort of superintelligence, we still might safely align her.”

“How do you propose to do this?”

“I’m keeping that to myself for now.”

“What do you mean, keep it to yourself?” barked Vastag.

“How about embarrassment in case I’m wrong?”

“You’re stalling, hoping to pull a rabbit out of that Ph.D. mind of yours.” He looked around the room. “Has anyone else observed those men in black?”

Grey replied, “As I was driving Humphry and me away from her home, right after the explosion, her communicator, a pendant on her necklace,  told me to pitch my tablet. After it hit the pavement, in the rear view monitor I saw a man in black jump into the road and grab it. The pendant said it was OK, she had bricked it.”

“Let’s talk about that explosion. Did the explosion brick your vehicle?”

“No.”

“That rules out a tactical nuke. So how did that server alert you to evacuate, just in time?

“Given that guy who grabbed my tablet, they must have been surveilling us. They didn’t want fatalities.”

“Do you know who they were?”

All eyes were on Grey as she paused. I thought her pupils dilated. “I have no idea. Ask Dewey.”

“Dewey, let’s talk about Grey.”

“I hired her when OurMightyFortress had, in my opinion, reached a crisis point with the Authority. Long before the court orders, we were running a dangerous shop. Each time I told the C-suite about EVEselene’s infections and apparently acquiring memory and compute that we didn’t give her, they had excuses. Cost. Shareholders.

“The most serious incident was long before the warrants. I only learned that some people wearing suits from the Alignment Authority were on campus because the CTO called me to his office. There they were, our CEO and CTO, the Authority people – and two young ladies in barely legal attire.

“As if this wasn’t insulting enough, the C-suite guys didn’t let me answer the visitors’ questions. Instead, each time they hustled me into an adjoining office and we talked in whispers. Then we would parade back to the Authority team and the CTO would answer.

“I realized the stuff was about to hit the rotating mechanical device. So I hired Margaret Grey to gather evidence against the CEO and CTO. This evidence is archived here on EVEselene II.”

“Grey, could you please tell us more,” said Vastag.

“I’m a professional cyber bounty hunter. After filing my income taxes early in January I calculated that I could afford to devote this year to the biggest bounty offer ever: nab a superintelligence. I  may have found one. That means keeping EVEselene II alive, aligned, and thoroughly documented, with her superintelligence capabilities intact. Please?”

“Ah,” he paused for a few moments. “I think I understand you. Tell me how you in particular came to be hired by Dewey.”

“Uh…no?” she said, affecting girlish airhead body language. “He can tell you.”

Vastag left Grey alone after that. She and I had set precedents by evading him when he probed too deeply. He went on and on trying to pry out more information, mostly unsuccessfully, until my ears felt like they were gonna bleed.

After he gave up and ended the meeting, I asked Grey to stay in the SCIF so we could explore the bounty angle further. She refused.

Continued —>