The Surgeon in the Mirror by R.D.D. Smith

Author:R.D.D. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Modelbenders LLC
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

A New Set of Eyes

Richard waved his badge over the scanner and the door clicked open. Monica Gray, followed him into the room. He looked around to ensure that the tech guys were not in the room.

“In the video, we could almost see the point where the robot shifted its trajectory to swoop down near the tissue. It felt like an intentional maneuver,” Monica said as her mind shifted to focus on the surgery.

The scenario progressed toward the critical moment.

“See right here,” Monica said, pointing to the screen. “This seems to be the moment where the robot positions the camera to intentionally obscure vision on the point of instrument and tissue intersection. It’s like a child trying to hide what it’s about to do.”

Atkins nodded, “Mmmm. I would agree with that.”

Monica had dedicated herself to this investigation and learned everything she could about system operations. She entered the administrator mode and sorted through the menus for data logging. Soon, she was deep into the diagnostic lines recorded during the robotic procedure.

“The Mark V AI engine is one of the most advanced in the world. But they derived it from the AI work that was done at MIT over the last decade. The logging details and logic are pretty standard. You can see that the robot is executing an adaptive script right here. Just like a human surgeon, they program the basic procedure into its mind. But it is adapting that procedure as it encounters new information. See, right here, it has adjusted for thicker than normal tissue. And now it is loading a new sub-plan to be used shortly. Oh, shit!” She stopped scrolling through the log and scanned back and forth over the area.

“What is it?” Richard asked.

“Right here, the Mark V AI loaded a script called SurgAug. I don’t know what that is. But you would expect it to be executed within a few commands. But nothing happens. Then within two and a half seconds, it is back running the general program.”

“Did it change its mind and decide not to use it?” Atkins asked.

“That is what you would think at first. But if you look at the timestamps, it looks like the robot did nothing during those two seconds. Either it was idle. Or it turned off diagnostic logging during that time.” Monica looked at him with her eyes drawn to narrow slits. “AI should not be able to do that unless they explicitly programmed it to change its log. And that is something that you would not put into a medical device. Maybe in a military device, sure, but not in medicine.”

Richard’s mouth was slightly open. “Are you saying that the military hacked into our robot?”

“No, no. I didn’t mean that. I just meant that logs can be turned off and some customers prefer it that way. I think the AI turned off the log itself. I think it knew that it was performing a malicious act and was trying to cover its tracks. But like

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