Mind in the Clouds by Bruce M Perrin

Author:Bruce M Perrin [Perrin, Bruce M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bruce M. Perrin
Published: 2016-03-28T23:00:00+00:00

Monday, January 11, 6:33 AM

It had not been a pleasant weekend. On one hand, I had a machine capable of making its own decisions on who is to live and who is to die. On the other, I had trepidations about its pilot who is intoxicated by the power in his hands and has difficulty controlling his impulses to use it. That was the best case. In the worst, that same individual has no control at all and is driven to murder by demons I cannot see. I was not sure where to start to unravel these concerns.

But as murky as my situation was, it was even less clear where I would go with my apprehensions once I determined which of them to pursue. Dr. Marshall was the father of JACC’s offensive capabilities. He would have no interest in my uncertainties about an AI that independently suppressed an enemy by design. It was, after all, by his design that it did so. Similarly, he seemed to condone Drew’s violent inclinations, or at least, ignore them. I anticipated little more than a ‘stay out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat’ dismissal, if I discussed the Deadman’s Gulch simulated attacks with him. I even wondered, when I ventured into the darker corners of my thoughts, whether he perhaps encouraged Drew’s deviant behavior. Maybe I was imagining it, but if he was the kind of single-minded technology activist that Dillon described, it seemed a possibility. If true, I would just be another minor annoyance to his plans.

While I had considered spending some time on Saturday or Sunday in Las Vegas, enjoying the sights, my general funk and eight hours of driving convinced me otherwise. I jogged some, I watched TV some, I wandered some, and that was about it. I did email Nicole, both Friday night and again Sunday afternoon. I said nothing about Drew and his behavior in either note. Sharing information about personnel and their performance to anyone outside a work organization was inappropriate, in my view. If Drew’s chain of command saw nothing amiss in his actions, then it would take clear evidence of illegal or unethical behavior for me to go further. I just hoped that waiting for something that unambiguous was not foolhardy.

As for JACC’s ability to make life-or-death decisions unilaterally, I had only mentioned to Nicole that the Program had given the system more capabilities than I had expected and I was considering the training implications. I valued her opinions and completely trusted her discretion, but trying to cover the issues in an email seemed insurmountable. Besides, this was my problem to solve, not something with which to burden others.

Solving it over the weekend, however, did not happen. If anything, all that happened was that it festered.

Now, it appeared that a resolution, or even clarification, would not happen for a while yet. Both Troy and Drew were occupied until about 10 AM with additional preparations for Thursday’s demonstration. As I had wasted most of the weekend mulling my problems, I needed to do something more proactive.

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