Part 25 (1/2)

'You'll enjoy this,' he nodded to the technician monitoring Voractyll's progress. 'I've done something inspiringly clever.'

' Berlin. Berlin. ' '

'I hear what you're saying,' Stabfield said before Sarah could ask the Doctor what he was talking about.

Sarah looked round. It was difficult to tell if the Doctor's words were having any effect, but at least they hadn't killed them yet. 'You're the same with language,' she said.

' Brussels Brussels.'

The Voracians switched their attention to Sarah. In unison almost they swung their heads towards her.

Sarah gulped as they fixed their attention on her, but she went on: 'I'm a writer, OK, I'm only a journalist, but I know the value of language. But you use jargon and buzz phrases that mean nothing. You don't understand the beauty or the history of the words. You just said, ”I hear what you're saying.” What does that mean? It doesn't impart any information it even sounds ugly.'

'Our speech patterns,' Johanna said, 'are modelled on human speech.'

' Dublin Dublin.'

'I imagine they are modelled on the way language is used in computer interfaces and in board meetings,' the Doctor said.

'Sarah's right. The purpose of speech is to communicate, yet more often than not you use it to obfuscate. That is certainly in keeping with the business aspects of human life, I have to admit. But that isn't where the organic the human scores over the machine. In fact it is where they begin to blur, though hardly to the same extent as you do.'

' Luxembourg main systems node. Luxembourg main systems node. ' '

The Doctor leaped to his feet again, waving arms and in turn removing and replacing his hat. 'When you boot a computer, it 224 doesn't know what ”boot” means. It doesn't appreciate that it's short for bootstrap and that it is taken from a story of Baron Munchausen's. It doesn't care that the Baron told of how he found himself stuck in the middle of a marsh and had to lift himself up by his own bootlaces and carry himself out to avoid sinking.' The Doctor paused and threw his arms open as if baring his soul. 'It doesn't know or care that the whole concept on which its birth, its very existence is predicated is the impossible physics of a consummate liar.'

' Avignon. Avignon. ' '

'Are you saying that the machine is inferior to the organism?'

Stabfield asked. 'I can enumerate examples where the computer is vastly superior.'

'I'm sure you can, and so can I. I am saying that the two worlds are different. Each has its advantages, but never the twain should meet. At least, not in some symbiotic way. I'm saying you have to remember who you are, what you were.

You have to play to your own strengths, to appreciate yourselves and then decide whether it is right to give the technological ascendancy over the organic. Each has its use, and each has its place. And when you're faced with the choice, and the machine offers you a b.u.t.ton that says ”OK” don't see that just as a word, dead and unimaginative, machine-driven with a single meaning. Humans are everything the computer is not. They are irrational and illogical. They are ambivalent and ambiguous. But there is value and humour and history in all that.'

' Geneva Geneva.'

He sat down again, thought for a moment, then added: 'In the 1840 American presidential campaign, OK was the secret name for the New York Democrat clubs. It stood for Old Old Kinderhook Kinderhook, which was the home of Martin Van Buren. The Whigs, since they couldn't find out what it meant, said that OK was President Jackson's abbreviation for all correct all correct.'

The Doctor laughed out loud at his own story, and Sarah found herself joining in. None of the Voracians so much as smiled.

225.

'Just as I thought,' the Doctor said, his laughter cutting off abruptly. 'You've even lost your sense of humour. How very sad.'

' Dresden Dresden.'

Stabfield was still holding the CD he had taken from the Doctor. 'Your main argument, then, would seem to be that by combining the technological and the organic we have lost something of our essence. That we should remember how we were, and make a decision based not on an amalgamation of the technological and the organic, but from a distinct viewpoint. That both are useful when complementary, but that one is merely a tool for the other.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I'd phrase it differently myself. But that's about the gist of it, yes.'

'Then I have to thank you for that clarification.' Stabfield placed the CD carefully inside the case in which his own copy had been, and then slipped it into his jacket pocket.

' Luxeuil-les-Bains Luxeuil-les-Bains.'

'So, will you help us stop Voractyll?' Sarah asked.

'I think, Miss Smith, before I answer that, I had better clarify some things for yourself and the Doctor.' Stabfield settled back into a chair. 'We,' he gestured round to include his colleagues, 'come from Vorella, a small planet in the Frastris region. Its development followed roughly the same lines as that of Earth, although the dominant intelligent life form was reptilian.'

' East coast USA. New York East coast USA. New York.'

'Like a snake?' Sarah hazarded.

'Quite so. The technological evolution also followed broadly the same lines. And culminated in the creation of a global network of information technology. There was a general reliance on technology; on information superhighways; on prolific use of computer and digital hardware and software permeating every area of civilized life. And then came what the Vorellans called the Great Reckoning Great Reckoning.

The planetary automated office systems network was Voracia. The Vorellan Office Rapid Automated Computer Intelligence Advocate. Voracia was a reasoning processor constructed using the most advanced expert and artificial 226 intelligence technology. The system became self-aware within seven minutes of going on-line.'

Stabfield paused, and looked to Johanna. She continued the story: 'Within an hour it had deduced that organic life was inefficient and of no use. In fact it was organic life that necessitated the less efficient office procedures like electronic mail and printing. With no organic component, the automated, paperless and technological on-line office could function at almost one hundred per cent efficiency.'

The Doctor and Sarah were listening intently. 'I imagine Voracia tried to take over,' the Doctor said. 'I have come across similar scenarios with crazed computers, though not an office system as such so far as I can remember.'

Stabfield nodded. 'Within a week Voracia had gained control of the global networks and introduced every component chip on the planet to the expert reasoning sh.e.l.l which held the arguments it had formulated to demonstrate its position.'

'This is fascinating,' Sarah said. 'But what has it got to do with you lot? Why are you here?'

' Was.h.i.+ngton DC primary apparatus. Whitehouse nodes Was.h.i.+ngton DC primary apparatus. Whitehouse nodes converted converted.'

Stabfield continued his story. 'Voracia had misjudged the native Vorellans. After the initial success of its military operations, the surviving rebel organic forces began to claw back some victories. Voracia was forced to reevaluate the situation. It had to find another solution.

'The solution was simple, but Voracia saw it too late to win the war. Its CPU off-lined after a direct hit from a dumb nuclear device carried into Processor Control by a suicide team of Vorellans. The Voracian forces were left in disarray and leaderless. Most were easily destroyed by the Vorellans as they regained control of the software systems isolating them and purging them of the expert-reasoning routines.'

'And what was the solution?' The Doctor's voice was low, his face grim. His eyebrows were close and heavy. Sarah began to wonder if things were actually going as well as they seemed. What had the Doctor foreseen in Stabfield's narrative?

' Dallas Dallas.'

227.

'Before it was destroyed, Voracia had completed a pilot study the theory was already tested before the Vorellans proved it correct with their victory. Voracia's theory, running to seventeen gigabytes of natural language hypothesis, ant.i.thesis and synthesis verified by the AI and Reasoning procedures, was expressed concisely in the executive summary: While technology is demonstrably superior to organic life in most ways, organic life still outperforms the technological in certain key areas for example instinct, pragmatism, camaraderie and team-building, self-sacrifice.

While a processor can use algorithms akin to fuzzy logic to mimic the intuitive leap and other organic attributes, that emulation is no subst.i.tute for the real thing. This organic superiority may be enough to more than compensate for the organic deficiencies in reasoning, calculation, strategy, and systems control. For a system to be truly superior, it must include organic components albeit slaved to the processing engine.'

The Doctor was leaning forward in his seat now, face grave.

'And what was the pilot study?'

Stabfield waved his gloved hand, indicating the Voracians in the room with the gesture. 'We were, Doctor. Your arguments, your reasoning, your fundamental premise merely endorses Voracia's thinking. It endorses our plan.'