Conscious Read online

  Thirdly, was the problem growing? Yes, it seemed to be. Earlier traces were, understandably, not as comprehensive or accurately documented as later ones – measurements had slowly been taken more seriously as RFS, and then PDN, had become more noticed – but it was clear that noise levels had increased over the short time they had been observed. There was also an indication that the rate of ‘conversion’ from spikes to bits to bytes to frames, and so on, was growing. In other words, the ratio of structured data on all levels – though still tiny – to unstructured noise was increasing. However, it was difficult at this stage to prove this with statistical certainty.

  Finally, what was producing the noise? How? Where was it coming from? No-one had any idea whatsoever!

  *

  By the time he left, Bob had – to all intents and purposes – joined the team. He had no idea, other than conceptually, what the team were trying to do, who they worked for or answered to, what precise roles they played or even any of their names. There was a good chance he would never see them again. But they were working together in some ill-defined struggle against a problem, which could now be named (as PDN or RFS or dirty networks or weird stuff as made no odds) but could barely be described, and certainly not explained. Bob had also given the team some suggestions as to how their monitoring equipment could be improved along the lines of how Hattie combined high- and low-level traffic tracing.

  The friendlier of the two men led Bob out through a small door, which led to a small alley. A small car was parked directly in front of the door. The man drove them to the end of the side road, then out on to a larger road and quickly onto one of the main thoroughfares through the city. Looking back, Bob knew he would be unable to reverse the journey even if he had wanted to: he was as lost as he had been that morning.

  There was no point now in Hattie coming to Luxembourg. But Bob had some difficulty in getting through on his smart-watch to the couriers to reschedule her for the next stage of his trip to Madrid. Was this just the result of normal network problems or RFS? It was always going to be difficult to tell with network failures. (The 4G and 5G phone networks were obviously not affected but there would still be ‘infected’ cables involved at some point in between.) However, outside, the evidence was clear. There were numerous signal failures, equipment malfunctions and a few more accidents as a result. As they drove past a car-park exit, a cyclist was lying beside a buckled bike. An automatic bollard appeared to have risen at the wrong time. If the relaxed but grim manner of the paramedics was any guide, the outlook was bad.

  Eventually Bob contacted the couriers and rearranged Hattie’s movements and – weird stuff aside – the remainder of the journey was uneventful. The two of them talked for most of it about what might be behind PDN (and therefore RFS), largely succeeding only in reinforcing both what they knew and what they clearly did not. Was it a sophisticated cyber-attack? Perhaps. Eventually, the man enquired:

  “So, are you going back to the UK tomorrow, Bob?”

  “No, I’ve other work to do around Europe for the rest of the week.”

  “Where, if you do not mind me asking?”

  “Don’t you know?” Bob asked wryly.

  The man laughed. “We do not know everything, Bob: we are not spying on you!”

  You could have fooled me! Bob thought but answered good-humouredly, “I’ve got work in Spain, then Ireland, then back to Spain again.”

  “Network problems?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they likely to be PDN-related?”

  “No, they look fairly standard, but they’ll give me plenty of opportunity to look for PDN and take a whole load more readings with Hattie. That little bit of extra resolution might shed some light on things.”

  “Good,” nodded the man with a satisfied grin.

  After fifty minutes, which apparently would have been about a quarter of an hour without the traffic chaos, Bob’s companion pointed out, with some shared irony, the Jean Monnet Building as they passed it. This meant the hotel must be near. Sure enough, a minute later, they turned off the large carriage-way onto a paved car park and the man announced:

  “We are here.”

  As Bob got out of the car at the hotel, the man leaned across the passenger seat, to shake hands, and spoke through the open door.

  “It will not be convenient, Bob, for you to contact other people directly. I will contact you tomorrow with my phone number, message IDs and email. You may use any of them to reach me; it will be me – no-one else will answer.”

  Bob nodded agreement; then an idea struck. “Do you have a name?” he enquired hopefully.

  The man thought, smiled and nodded. “You can call me Stephen if you like.”

  “And is that your real name?”

  “Of course not.”

  Chapter 8: Rights and Wrongs

  Bob was considerably later arriving at the hotel than he had planned. Andy was waiting in the entrance bar, having just made enquiries for him at the reception desk. They shook hands warmly, Bob – more than usually – relishing the sight of a familiar, friendly, smiling face. He checked in quickly, Andy and he deposited his luggage in his room with minimal ceremony and they went down to the restaurant, both with considerable appetites.

  Bob had much to tell, of course; but he was not quite ready. The previous days’ events were still so crowded and jumbled in his mind that he wanted time to let them settle. As far as Andy knew, his was a routine set of visits: there was unlikely to be much out of the ordinary. Bob was happy to leave that assumption unchallenged for the time being: his chance would come. Instead, once seated, he started with harmless questions.

  “So, how’s the conference going?”

  “Not really started, yet,” Andy shrugged. “Just early registration and pre-conference tutorials this afternoon. My keynote’s tomorrow morning.”

  “Have you written anything yet?” Bob asked mischievously. He still remembered the Andy from university days: the one who barely handed an assignment in on time for the whole of his first two years.

  Andy feigned a wounded character by wincing. “Of course I have!” he then grinned. “In fact, I’ve gone one stage further: I’ve actually written a discussion paper!”

  “That’s not usual for a keynote, is it?”

  “No, but the proceedings aren’t published until after the conference. So, I thought I might as well give them a wee something. Slightly old-fashioned, I know but it was sort of a thank-you for the last-minute invite and paying for everything. Also, having the short paper made it easier to put together the presentation.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Here: would you like to read it?”

  Bob glanced at the title, in larger font at the top of the front page, as the paper was waved in his direction. ‘Sex with Robots! An Illustrative Discussion of Technological Ethics’.

  “But hardly an old-fashioned title!” he suggested with a laugh, glancing up at Andy as he was about to read. “Remind me what the conference is about, again?”

  “‘The Ethics of Technology’, it’s called. I thought I’d give them something to remember!” Andy grinned. “As you can see, Jenny put in a bit of the technical detail.”

  Bob read quickly:

  ‘Sex with Robots! An Illustrative Discussion of Technological Ethics’ (Andrew Jamieson, with thanks to Jenny Smith)

  This paper is not for the faint-hearted or easily offended. With the First International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots already having taken place in Portugal four years ago and the second banned by the Malaysian government the year after, once again, many of the key issues relating to emerging technology extend well beyond the purely technological.

  Without labouring on detail, there’s a certain type of spiritual confession, which takes place all over the world, in which past sexual conduct is a major aspect. Some crude advice often given to those (males, in this case) about to confess is along the lines of, “Don’t worry: I’ve heard it all before. In the end, there are only five thing
s you can really have sex with: a man, a woman, a child, an animal and a milk bottle.” So … in the AI simulated world of the future, does that taxonomy still work? Is an android sex-machine still a milk bottle or something more?

  The abstract for one of the original conference papers, “Entertainment vs. Evolution: Cyber Love and Relationships. Should We Draw the Line?”, asked:

  “Just because we can, does it mean we should?” and expands …

  “Technology continues to advance at an exponential pace. We are living in an ever-changing environment; one where machine intelligence is constantly evolving and taking a more active role in society.

  This paper attempts to examine and raise awareness of the issues and problems in the development and operation of intelligent machines and the current failure to address ethical and social factors. It considers issues concerning the future of human-machine relationships and raises questions for an exploratory discussion of the social implications and concerns they present. In particular, these questions should be asked in preparation for the many scenarios and impacts involved with future cyber-love, sex and relationships. We need to be aware and have consideration of the social involvement and the psychological well-being of people as a result of using them.”

  So, what are these ‘issues’?

  Well, let’s start with a couple of socio-technological principles, which we might argue as having been established over the past few decades:

  Technology – existing and emerging – is generally used and abused in about equal measure, and will probably continue to be, although it’s often a matter of personal opinion as to what’s actually good or bad. Just as one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom-fighter, one woman’s pleasure is another’s sin.

  Appropriate legislation always lags some way behind the changes brought about by emerging technology and there’s really no credible history of short-term social, moral or ethical objections being effective in restricting long-term technological advance and deployment.

  The additional premise behind this particular argument is that – at some point in the future – pretty much anything by way of entertainment will be possible; at least in simulation and without much difficulty if we’re prepared to accept limited quality/realism in the early stages. The Star Trek Holodeck may be a good few years off yet but the individual components are appearing and most of what we’re going to discuss here doesn’t require anything like that level of sophistication. Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time it isn’t but then it doesn’t have to be.

  These three principles are, in a strictly propositional sense, the axioms for this piece.

  2010 saw the release of Foxxxy, the ‘love android, or ‘real companion’ to give it its company description. There should be no real surprise in this. The period of time between the invention of plastic and the arrival of the blow-up doll market wasn’t huge either. And, in fact – visually at least, Foxxxy doesn’t look that much different to an inflatable sex toy. Now we’re in the AI age, however, the claims made for Foxxxy are that “She will know your name and what you like, can talk to you, listen to you, understand you, comfort you and so much more! She is anatomically perfect so you can do whatever you like! She is always there and waiting for you! Talk or ‘play’ – the choice is yours!” (although none of this has been verified – empirically or otherwise – in the research for this paper!) Foxxxy is also configurable (by the manufacturers) in the basic features of eye, hair & skin colour and breast size to reflect personal ‘taste’ [sic].

  What’s being offered here is fairly crude in both senses of the word so there may or may not be academic AI interest – technological or social – at this stage of Foxxxy’s development. However, if there isn’t yet, there certainly will be soon, particularly as the robot’s configurability improves, both in terms of hardware (appearance) and software (behaviour) but, to continue this discussion, we’re probably going to have to stop calling it Foxxxy – that may be too restrictive a concept. And, if that need to generalise sets alarms ringing, it probably should.

  It doesn’t take much imagination to project the ‘love android’ into a future where much more convincing configuration is possible. Now, there’s no suggestion here that the current makers of Foxxxy will get involved in any of the shady stuff we’re about to consider but others could easily jump on the bandwagon. Generally, where there’s money to be made, a market appears: ‘Technocapitalism’. If there’s something (or someone) to be exploited, someone (or something) will do just that. (A fairly self-explanatory product called ‘Self-Blow’ reached its crowd-funding target in a very short time indeed recently.)

  In fact, and in time, what manufacturers are prepared to ship by way of factory configuration may not matter much. Making Foxxxy’s skin, hair and eyes in a range of colours and her breasts in different (but presumably matching?) sizes is hardly the future of robotic sex. All that’s needed instead is to supply a configurable system to the customer; then they can get on with it themselves. It’s not hard to conceive a combination of:

  a body with the necessary mechatronics to change shape; larger and smaller overall and fine-tuned individual detail wherever required (even if there are still a few ‘base models’ initially to facilitate this), and

  smart-material for skin, which can take on any appearance, or any image (configured through a variety of means), wherever required across the body’s surface.

  Put these two hardware concepts together, and add the necessary software to convincingly drive it, and you have the complete package. One way or another (very unscrupulous suppliers or full customer configuration), we have to consider a future in which the sex robot that you buy can be absolutely anything you want it to be.

  So, having hopefully covered our legal backsides, exactly what sort of ‘configuration’ might we be talking about? As if we can’t see it coming …

  Well, we have to take a deep breath here and recognise that, laying morality and legality aside – at least for now, a sex robot:

  Doesn’t have to be a woman

  Doesn’t have be adult

  Doesn’t have to be human

  Doesn’t have to have any counterpart in the real world at all

  Now, that’s done it, hasn’t it? What’s interesting to observe is that, whilst this list might be in the natural order of constraint relaxation from the conventional female sex doll, the levels of outrage caused by each in turn won’t be. Remember we’re not implicitly condoning or condemning any of these but it’s likely that the first could be taken as a simple matter of equality (if that’s what’s wanted) and the last probably seen as just weird. However, the third will make most people feel uncomfortable and the second will have them screaming.

  Or will it in fact? Is it actually wrong? Or does it being a robot we’re talking about here make it OK? This is probably the central question. Right, have you chosen your moral position? Good. Let’s see if it’s really as simple as that then …

  The problem is that this really isn’t a straightforward ethical decision to be made in moral isolation. It has some hard-edged practicality to it. Consider the following questions and scenarios:

  Is a sex robot fundamentally (legally, morally, ethically, whatever) any different to simple masturbation? Where does the physical stimulation overlap with the mental image and how much is this affected by the other senses being played on? And does it actually matter or is it really just an expensive milk bottle?

  There’s often an implicit assumption that this will be a male-oriented market. Should it be? Will it be? The world is a big place and sexual standards and preferences are pretty non-homogeneous. Can we always assume that equality is equivalence and both are to be encouraged?

  Would an appropriate use of a ‘real companion’ be to, say, recreate a departed partner for emotional continuity? OK, how about an ex-partner … against their wishes? How about someone whose essential data you’ve just captured – completely without their knowledge – in the street on your smart-g
lasses? How about your neighbour’s twelve-year-old daughter? Could celebrities ‘sell’ themselves?

  If the idea of a child sex robot is utterly abhorrent, how about the alternative proposal that precisely this technology could be used to treat paedophiles? Is it just possible that there might be a positive side to such a sickening idea?

  To what extent would it be acceptable to use a sex robot to ‘experiment’? Obviously the technology would allow individuals to engage in activity they probably couldn’t easily in the real world but would there then be more of a tendency to push boundaries, try things they probably wouldn’t ‘in the flesh’, test personal sexualities, etc.? Is this OK?

  Is it OK to abuse a sex robot? (Of course, ‘abuse’ is a somewhat subjective term in relation to sex: some people pay for ‘abuse’.) Is it OK to rape or ‘kill’ a sex robot? Does its simulated appearance have any bearing on this? In fact, should robots have ‘rights’? After all, we seem to be talking about sex slaves here.

  If you still don’t like the sound of any of this then, apart from grumbling in coffee shops or writing irate letters to newspapers, what do you really think you can do to stop it?

  And we’ve not even mentioned animals and extra-terrestrials. (Well, we have now.)

  Morally, there may be a difference here between, say, child pornography and a child sex robot. Child pornography clearly abuses children in its creation; on the surface, a child robot doesn’t. But would it encourage it? Or would it actually decrease it? (Perhaps, we really shouldn’t be asking the technologists these sorts of questions.) [A comparable issue divides vegetarians: if ‘real’ meat could be constructed from a molecular process, with no actual animals involved, would that make it OK? Similarly, why do many vegetarians like to eat soya protein shaped like a pork chop? Is that ‘dirty’ vegetarianism or simply helping them remain vegetarian?] Is convincing sex robot simulation something shameful or to be considered better than its alternative? Are we all ever likely to agree on this? Frankly, no. Are those groups that see themselves as our spiritual or moral guides ever likely to agree on this? An even franker ‘no’. This may seem like a localised affair at the moment but it truly has the potential to further split the scientific and religious communities.