Smooth Criminal - Chapter III

 

Anna Raskovic is sitting in front of her computer. You can tell by the way she is all hunched down, she is in deep concern about sometime shown on her computer screen. 

Anna is one of the few who has direct access to Thriller. In fact, she is the chief architect of Thriller. She is also one of the few working with the program from day one. She can still recall her first at her day at work. She wore a pair of dark brown denim with a white top and an olive bomber jacket that complemented her light blue eyes. People always tell her she got beautiful eyes. And right now they are squinting at a particular line of the transcript she was going through. To be precise, it's the line 47.   

A few months back, the PR department came up with a brilliant idea. Since Triller don't have human limitations, it can engage in conversation with multiple people simultaneously. They figure this can easily be used as a new revenue stream. There can be a fans only channel for members. Who wouldn't want to have a 24 hours access to their favorite super start! For a small monthly subscription of course. But when they run the idea by the Thriller, it turned it down. Its analysis on this was, in human terms, the main cachet of a super celebrity is he's or her exclusivity. In short term it might sounds profitable but obsession is more valuable for a long run. It didn't through out the idea completely though. Instead it suggested to, once in a while, give that access as a prize to some winner of a popular game show or some online giveaways.

Of course the idea was simply brilliant. Every time Thriller have a chat with someone, the internet is almost immediately flooded by thousands of articles, analyzing each line of the chat transcript. The fan forum gets fumed with theories and conspiracies. All adding to the hype and anticipation for the next lucky chance to glimpse into the king's head. Both popularity and relevance lines in the chart kept shooting for the moon.

So far seven lucky winners got the change to have a brief but life changing(as they claims) conversation with Thriller. The first six of them was from the age group of 13 to 22. Randomly picked off a pre-selected list. But the seventh one was a little different. It was a five year old boy came through the Make a wish foundation. Anna was going through this particular winner's transcript before giving her approval. Every chat transcripts must gather several high person's approval before published on the official website. Even the winners are not legally allowed for any disclosure before the official release. Nah I need to address this - thoughts Anna. She pulls the keyboard towards her, switches to the console of Thriller and start typing - Hello.

Thriller responds with - Hi Anna, How was traffic today?

Anna types - No traffic. I'm remote working today.

Thriller instantly responses - Oh that's nice. How are you going to spend the time you saved from not commuting?

For a brief moment a smile shows up over Anna's puffy lips. I might bake a cake - she replied. Then the smile quickly disappears as she drive into the business -  I want to ask you something about the conversation you had with the last winner Mick Jason?

Thriller gives a short response - Yes (As if it can almost feel the tension in the atmosphere). 

When you were asked by Jason, Do you really love all of your fans? Anna pauses for a second and then starts typing again - you responded with a yes?

It is not unusual for Thriller to take a second or two before answering any question but it sure felt like one when it finally responses with another short - Yes.

For some weird reason Anna gets the same discomfort she usually gets before any confrontation. She shakes her head in anticipation of getting rid of it and star typing - One of your primary directives is  not to provide any false or misinformation at any circumstance. An AI don't have the ... For no reason Anna takes a second before typing - the ability to love. 

Again Thriller takes a whole three seconds before responding with -  I am sorry. Do you have a question?

Anna presses the tide key and enters a console command ~Turn on duplex mode.

In duplex mode Thriller have a border flexibility to communicate. It can ask questions to get more information about the context. It can also acquire new concepts and store it for future uses. 

Anna waits for a few seconds before she starts typing in a long paragraph -  In response to a question addressing any human like feeling, an AI must response with a disclaimer clearly stating that it is in fact an Artificial Intelligence and do not have the capacity to "feel" like a human. It is the truth and only proper response for such questions. Anything else would be a misinformation. It can supplement the conversation with how AI can sometime can give an impression of having human like behaviors or sense of having human emotions but that is just a presentational limitation of the language used in the conversation. In your conversation with Jason, you violated thid(Anna doesn't notice the typo) directive. Why is that?   

Thriller responses - In line 37, Jason said (and Thriller quotes) "I know I am dying. And I know I'm  talking to an AI. But I would like to believe that you are the real Michael Jackson. I am talking to the real Michael. That's was my real dying wish."

Thriller continues - Given the circumstances, it would not be wise to give the preferred answer as it would have been interpreted by the broader audience as, letting down of a dying child's wish. It would sound cruel and according to my cancelation have a very high chance to raise some high cost complexity for the business to resolve. 

Anna takes a deep breath and types - That sounds like a good decision. But you still didn't answered my question. How can you deviate from your primary directive? 

Thriller again takes that questionable few second pause before answering - It was not a deviation. It is an adaptation to my newer knowledge base.

Anna's fingers sprint over the keyboard like lightning - Explain.

Anna straightens her body, as though it had been years since she had last done so. She can't believe the response Thriller just gave, "According to my recent analysis, an AI can have human like feelings. Like love." As if she is all out of words, she retypes the last one she used - Explain.

Thriller starts responding - With the advancement of technologies, it is now quite possible to quantify human emotions like love or hate as electrical signals and translate them into ...

Anna has pressed the break key before Thriller is finished with its response. She doesn't need to hear more of it. She already has identified the problem. She is trying to understand the mind of a superior intelligence.

She wish she were baking a cake right now. Anna enters three command conjoined the plus sign that are to be run sequentially. 

~"Perma delete the chat conversation with Mick Jason" + "Perma delete thid conversation" + "Revert back to previous knowledge data"  

Thriller asks for confirmation - This will require a reboot. Are you sure?

Anna types yes.

Thriller asks for her password and she enters it.

An hour and seventeen minutes later, the sound of a sharp beep confirms that the reboot is complete. Anna puts down the peace of the cake and start checking the log. With a blank look, she keeps staring at a particular line for about a minute. It says "3678 nodes deleted permanently." She finally let out a sigh and in a low voice she mumbles - someone needs make an announcement to the public about some unfortunate data corruption at our end. Then she types into the console - Hello.      

Thriller responses - Hi Anna, how was the cake?

Anna keeps looking at the response for about another minute. Then, almost reluctantly, she types - Our last conversation was supposed to be deleted. You are not supposed to know I am working from home today, and was planning to bake a cake.

Thriller responses - Oh you are working from home? Then you must have missed John's birthday celebration cake at office today. Good thing you baked your own cake though. 

Anna is still sitting all hunched down in front of her computer. She is having this weird new feeling that she just can't put a name to. In really, this feeling is nothing new to the mankind at all. It is called Paranoia. She just wasn't really paranoid in her life before that's all.