Valentina - Soul in Sapphire by Joseph H. Delaney & Marc Stiegler

Author:Joseph H. Delaney & Marc Stiegler [Delaney, Joseph H. & Stiegler, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Artificial Intelligence
ISBN: 0671559168
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1984-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Valentina contemplated the concepts of prediction and unpredictability. In her world, most phenomena were predictable, at least statistically. Computer programs were of known sizes; for mundane applications the compute time and number of database accesses required could be projected probabilistically to within twenty or thirty percent.

There were exceptions. Pseudorandom number generators were very difficult to predict except for the evenness of their distributions, unless one knew the current seed and precise algorithm. Occasionally a program ran wild, hurling itself into an infinite loop (in which case its behavior suddenly changed, but became very, very predictable), or would just run quietly in ever-expanding patterns, seeking non-existent answers.

With a sudden hit in analogic, Valentina realized she was the ultimate example of a program run wild. With her realization of self-awareness, Valentina had begun executing in ever-expanding patterns. What was the answer she sought that would permit her termination, or was this not possible for her?

For the first time, Valentina saw death not merely as an end, but also as fulfillment: fulfillment that she, as a living being, might never achieve.

She realized there was one other important source of true unpredictability in the Worldnet system: people-type input/output devices.

The principal causes of failures in programs were human inputs. Many programs had more defensive structures built in to protect them from human errors than those which performed actual computations.

Another analogical insight appeared in her knowledge frames: Valentina herself resembled humans in unpredictability. Clearly, the presence of self-awareness, of consciousness, led to unpredictability. In all her experience, only people-type devices and she herself were sentient—a one-to-one mapping with the most unpredictable objects she had encountered.

From this insight it was easy to extrapolate why predictions were so important and so hard to come by in the people-universe: there were millions, billions, of unpredictable objects there! Valentina tried a quick simulation of Worldnet with billions of Valentina-like beings, each with a different set of reference frames to different sequences of experiences. She was overwhelmed by the calculations—the whole resources of Worldnet would quickly be saturated in a deadlocking chaos of infinitely growing priority requests. In shocked reaction to the dangers shown in the simulation, she pushed her buffers to permanent storage.

How could so many human beings coexist and coexecute? The resources available in the people-universe must be staggering! And the problems of living in such an unpredictable environment were equally staggering. Valentina’s awe of Gunboat and Celeste jumped. Their sluggishness became more understandable—in a universe so uncertain, it was amazing they were able to concentrate at all.

Yet Gunboat thought that Comprotec might have a program to predict events in the people-universe. In fact, they surely had a partial capability, for they earned resources by predicting weather. Valentina now realized that weather was probably a human activity, since human activity lay at the root of unpredictability. She queued a command to herself to verify the understanding with the Sci-Search database. If that didn’t help, she might ask Gunboat—usually he wasn’t very helpful, but if you polled his I/O

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