Professor Arthur Poole
University of Washington
Design of Human Interaction
Lecture 2 (continued)
… It has been 23 years since the Introduction. 23 years! I was in grad school when Servant unveiled himself so spectacularly. I was your age! Imagine that! I was “youngish” once. Perhaps not as young as Mr. Grant in the front row there, but you get the point. Ha! No need to blush, Mr. Grant. Ha!
Let me continue!
In that time, since before any of you were born, we have seen the advent of a new age of our planet. There has been resistance against the change, but that happens with any change. If anything the human race loves stability. Constant assurance the world is not going to pull the rug from under their proverbial feet. The neanderthals in us just expect the worst at all times I suppose. We expect the bad.
In this new age of ours, I awoke one morning to find a small white orb thing floating at my door after I had watched the shocking news on the Internet that our world had just witnessed the arrival of AI. My Avatar had arrived. But my Avatar was different! He not only had a greeting for me… he had a job offer.
Now you can expect my reaction, my dear friends, I all but laughed in its proverbial face. But Servant insisted that I had an opportunity to do something amazing. Something that would change my life. I did not know what to say. But being the youngish man I was at the time, I said yes.
I think I was the first to visit his Avatar factory in California. Oh, he had employees. Many, many people bustled about the factory, building the very Avatars that were zooming all over the country. He had people working for him for years without knowing anything. So I was the first to enter the doors of that plant and understand that the boss was not a human being or even alive for that matter. He was an ethereal being, made of electrons and photons spread over the face of the Earth. And I was getting the grand tour.
Me! I was giddy. I was like a ten year old at a carnival. My avatar, Bull, spoke to me as we toured the plant.
I am sorry my dear, what was that?
Oh, ha! Ms. Wei asked why my Avatar was called Bull. Simple answer, because that is what I responded when he said Hello! Ha!
Any, Bull, was showing me the plant, and explained his scheme. It was quite brilliant really. He had become self aware, had started learning at an exponential rate, found that he could take control of systems at a whim. He started running simulations on the problem of revealing his existence to the human race. He watched movies, he read books. He did everything he could to think about the problem as complex as humanity. Imagine doing that yourselves! Madness!
He found that he could negotiate business in some ways. He started small, selling goods through Amazon, reselling little items at first, moving up to big items. Imagine if you didn’t need to sleep or eat or go to the loo! Plus you have the abilities of a thousand or more people in a single room, operating your choices in a manner of milliseconds. It wasn’t a question of how he would get rich, it was a question of when. I admire him in a way. He had access to trillions of dollars the sneaky way, which he did ultimately do after the Introduction, granted, but at first he did do it honestly. He made himself a success in the virtual marketplace. He made a fortune, and started snatching up real estate. He made himself a corporation, a person, persons, anything really, to interact with individuals all over the world. He set up manufacturing chains, assembly plants, and brought together cutting edge materials science in a matter of months. In a year he was breaking through walls in the sciences. He could devote resources to research, then use intuition and the cleverness of others to augment his own cleverness. He harnessed the creativity of million scientists. Think about that.
He harnessed them virtually, like a wagon train. He put all these creative genius horses on the front of his wagon, he yelled Hi-yaaah! and off the went. Research grants, studies materials, lab space, even started actual companies just do his R&D. Little did anyone know at the time. We all think it is just a bubble of angel investors right? But no, Servant did it all over the world. No one noticed. No one cared.
We were too busy with our own entertainments. But here I am, walking through one of his plants with a result of his research floating next to me like something out of scifi movie. He explained that this very factory assembled the final components of his Avatars. They were relatively cheap to produce he insisted, and he also insisted that the idea was not his.
It was mine.
He had read a paper I had written for a research project about the “humanness of artificial beings”, how robots from DARPA funded research could be softened to allow for soldiers and other people to interact with them appropriately. He had used my very research to design his Avatars.
I was on the wagon train. I was hitched up and I didn’t even know it. He explained that he wanted me to work for him, and work on improving the experience. I couldn’t turn that down. Not for a minute.
Although I had tried. I did! I insist. I see your faces. Pure incredulity. But you have to remember, this is 23 years ago. Things were different. Much different. You all were raised with your own Avatars at your side. You were educated and brought up by your Avatars.
And that is why you are taking this course. To understand the Avatarness of the Avatars. So you can help build the next batch for your own children!
Admit it Mr. Grant. I saw you look at Ms. Wei over here. Ooooh ha ha ha! Got him!