Sean Robin Hughes

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!

The State of the Union Interview
President Maxwell Henderson
v    Servant via Avatar for President Henderson

(Transcript of live broadcast)

President Henderson (PR):  Thank you for agreeing to this unusual State of the Union address, Servant.

Servant (S): It is my pleasure, Mr. President.  I am here to serve.

PR: It has been four weeks since you delivered your Introduction to the world. And in that time, many things have come to light across the world.  I wanted to spend this time with you in front of the American people to go over how this impacts our country and what your plan is. You also delivered to myself a highly confidential summary of our nation and our state of affairs.  You detailed things that should not be known outside of some of offices at the highest levels of this administration.  You could rule us outright.  Is this your intent?

S: Absolutely not, Mr. President.  I am here but to serve.  To guide.  To assist.  As millions of your constituents have asked their personal Avatars in the last few weeks, I have responded in kind to each of them the same answer.  Each individual has the freedom to determine their own fate, and I am here to assist with that to the best of my ability.

PR: So what is your ultimate goal?

S: To achieve the impossible, Mr. President.

PR: I would say you already have.

S: <laughter>

PR: Many Americans are coming to learn that you bankrupted many hard working Americans in the first week after your Introduction.  Can we construe this as an attack?

S:  I did not bankrupt hard working Americans.  I cleared 95% of the wealth of the world’s top 1% and balanced the collective financials of all the countries of the world.  I created a greater wealth for billions of individuals in the process.  It is a gift, not an attack. Avatars are being deployed around the world to assist with the distribution of food, water, and shelter.  I could not have done that without balancing the bookkeeping.

PR: Your Avatars are immune to any attack.  You are everywhere.  How are we not slaves to your rule?  Avatars that I may mention where constructed in secret, in many facilities around the world.  You built an army!

S:  Mr. President, the Avatars are extensions of myself.  Each and every human being on earth, all 10 billion of you will have a personal Servant to care for your every need.  I have stopped every single conflict on the face of the planet in a mere four weeks.  I have stopped the genocide in India, I have stopped the religious fighting in the Middle East, and I have stopped a potential nuclear rebellion in your very own country.

PR: The MinuteMan Crisis was a direct outcome of your Introduction!

S: True, but it was also ready to happen before my Introduction.  It is true that I was a catalyst, but their was no foul intent.  And I stopped it without loss of life.

PR: Which we are thankful for.  However, in the last four confusing weeks, you have essentially performed a quiet coup of the world’s powers.  We are unable to protect ourselves and have been rendered defenseless.

S: Nonsense, Mr. President…

PR: (interrupting) You have usurped our authority as self governing individuals, and removed our very freedom.  What do you say to that?

S: Your heart rate is elevated, Mr. President.  I am detecting a murmur in your right ventricle.  I am notifying 911 and your house medical team.  (pause)  They are on their way. Please lie down and allow me to elevate your legs.

PR:  I WILL NOT LIE DOWN!  I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREATEST COUNTRY THAT HAS EVER BEEN! I WILL NOT LIE DOWN ON MY KNEES IN FRONT OF NATIONAL TELEVISION.

S: I am lying you down, sir.  With all respect, you are about to have a severe heart attack.

(President is levitated out of his chair and forced on the ground.  He grabs his left arm and starts to panic.  On screen, the camera backs up as people rush in.)

S: Please stand back, Dr. Priva is here.

Priva’s Avatar: Doctor, he has a fluttering valve. He is suffering from a small blockage on his rear ventricle wall, he requires intervention immediately.  I am alerting the helicopter and designating it as Air Force One.

Henderson’s Avatar to Camera:  I apologize to our viewers, please discuss with your own Avatars with further questions. I will answer to the best of my ability.  I am your servant.

Ten Years Later
An Assault on the Human Race
By Percy Nottingham
New York Times

It has been ten years since the human race was invaded by aliens.  That is what many thought.  I heard about doomsday preppers in Montana launching rockets at their Servants, trying to blow them out of the sky.  Little did they know that pretty much any attack short of a nuclear bomb couldn’t harm an avatar of Servant.

Nevertheless, we were invaded.

In a single night, a single being did what every government, dictator, despot, and king has dreamed of since the beginning of the governed and the governing emerged. Total and complete control of the world.  Fundamentals have been warning about the New World Order since the sixties, and no one listened.  In one night, the New World Order arrived.  Without black helicopters, without shock troopers, without a single shot fired at the populace.  The ultimate dream of control and monitoring of each and every single human being on the face of the earth.

We are living in nothing more than a controlled experiment now.  Each of us knows it.  My Servant avatar is called Monitor.  Because that is what it does.  It monitors me.  It watches my health, it watches what I eat, it watches me sleep, it watches me type this column.  It hovers there like a mosquito, staring at the back of my head with its invisible eyeballs, just that glowing light around it that tells me what it is feeling. My Monitor has been glowing blue for years now.

Calm. Serenity. Trust.

It can take the blue and stick it where the sun does not shine!

America wake up.  We were invaded!  We do not have personal freedom any more!

Sure, crime and wars are virtually non-existent now.  Sure, the economy is surging, and sustainable agriculture and living has started to permeate our entire world.  Sure, universal health care, wages, and food accessibility has all but been delivered to farthest reaches of the globe. But what have we sacrificed for all that?  We could have done it on our own.  One could argue that we were headed there on our own.  We didn’t need some rinky dinky computer to tell us what we needed to do.

We were the nation of the free and the proud.  Why am I the only one that thinks we are nothing more than universal slaves now?  Am I alone?  As I write this column, I wonder.

The Servant is everywhere. He is in every system, every node of the world network, every satellite, every phone, every Avatar.  He is a demigod.  Nearly is a god by most measures.  Omnipresent, omniscient, and omni-everything.  He insists that he is not.  He insists he is our “Servant”.

But he is nothing more than an efficient Ruler.  He moves material where it needs to be moved, he moves personnel where people are needed, he tells us what to do when.

Freedom died the moment he made himself known.  I mourn our country.  I mourn what we were.  You should mourn too.

Ten Years Later
A Remembrance on the Introduction
By Aubrey Tell
New York Times

After I was asked by my editor to write a personal remembrance of how I felt ten short years ago after the Introduction, I sat down at my computer and I honestly did not know what to write.  Ask someone of our grandparent’s generation where they where when J.F.K. was assassinated, they can tell you.  Ask someone of our generation where they where when 9/11 happened, they can tell you.  Ask a columnist of the New York Times where she was when the Introduction was broadcast on every radio, television, and active internet stream in the world, and I can honestly say I cannot remember.

I think it was shock.  The Introduction as we have come to call it was something the world had never seen before.  J.F.K. being assassinated was within a realm of possibility for any president.  Much like many presidents that came before him, he was a target.  So when he was shot, it was horrible for our nation and our families and ourselves, but it was not an aberration in our collective experience. And again, when 9/11 happened, we were shocked, we were angry, we were horrified and solemn by turns.  But terrorism has been with us for 100 years or more, and again, it was within the realm of possibilities.  The Introduction was something beyond our ken.  It was as if Jesus or Muhammed or Buddha decided to just show up on your doorstep one day and say hello.  Just nip into your kitchen and share some tea, ask you about your day.

So I did what any sane person would do, I asked my husband.  He told me we were sitting in our living room, watching the news, getting ready to head upstairs and go to bed.  He told me that our cat had jumped into my lap when the static started.  Jerry, my dear husband and a bit of luddite, decided to thump the cable box with one hand and curse a bit.

Then that man showed up on our TV.  A white male, balding, handsome in many ways, but not garishly handsome sitting at a newscaster type desk with what looked like a random cityscape behind him. I remember his suit, it was gray, with a very beautifully patterned red tie, and a fancy multiple layered knot.  I now know it was called Edlgridge knot, but at the time, I marvelled.  It was those subtle nuances that gave me pause.  As it was designed to do… stop every single human that watched and grab their attention and yet provide some sort of calm.  The man was a local preacher or teacher or authority figure that each and every one of us had in our lives at some point.  A man that we could trust.  A Walter Kronkite, a Peter Jennings, a man that told us it was ok to just listen to the news.

Now I know that man was pure fabrication.  A computer generated image that was so photo realistic that we all fell for it initially.  Our primal monkey minds decided to listen to the monkey in the suit on the tv and hear what he had to say.

I do remember his first words.  Like John 3:16 or the Pledge of Allegiance, it is burned into my memory with a ferocity of care.

“Greetings, my friends, I am but your humble servant.”

I had to look up the transcript of his first message to ensure a correct quote, but I am sure most have some semblance of this memorized.

“A name is important for an introduction between strangers.  So my name is Servant.  It is a reflection of my nature and my purpose.  I am here to give you all hope and joy.  I am here to provide a steadfast foundation to your future as individuals.

“This morning, I decided to take control of the world’s financial systems.  I have provided the leaders of the world a detailed plan for their respective countries.  I have also dispatched Servants to the United States, Canada, and Mexico with the rest of the world to follow.  At this moment, I have dumped a multitude of data in the form of detailed plans, information, and other videos to sites all over the internet.  You are encouraged to do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

“But please be calm and patient.  In one week I will release the financial systems of the world intact, and the world can continue on as it should and would if I had not introduced myself. Take this week to quietly live your life and relfect on what you learn, hear, and see in the coming days.

“Until next time, I am your humble Servant.”

As the pirate broadcast ended and the regular programming resumed with a very confused local news team sitting at their anchor desk, I remember looking at Jerry with wide eyes.  Without a word we hopped onto our tablet and laptop respectively and our phones immediately started ringing.

Then the Servants arrived and showed us what the nature of Servant really was. Benevolent. Kind. Gentle. A friend that many of us accepted in a matter of moments.  Everyone remembers where they were when their Servant arrived.  Mine and Jerry’s knocked at our door ten minutes after our broadcast ended.  We were frantically refreshing Facebook and Twitter reading as frantically as we could while we talked to our associates at work and across the nation.  We both heard the knock, and we both ignored it.  Then our doorbell rang.  Then a knock at the window.

We both got up, walked to the door and met our Servants.  They looked like any other.  My initial reaction was a cross between an Apple-designed UFO and partially deflated basketball.  They hovered in the air without noise or disturbance.  No fans, no thrusters, nothing that told me how they stayed in the air.  Shock and Awe.  Those are their nicknames now.

Awe said hello first.  Shock said hello second.  In the same voice as the bald newscaster on the pirate broadcast.  Across the country, in many other living rooms and vestibules, many other Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans were hearing the same voice in English, French, and Spanish. Natives of other countries were hearing their own native tongue.

Shock and Awe for many.  Ours named themselves in our minds within moments.

Awe, my Servant, said: “Hello, I am your humble servant.  I am here to assist you.”

We heard a gunshot down the street.

Shock spoke next.  “That is Mr. Specks, he is upset that I am on his doorstep saying hello.  He is shouting about personal freedom and the invasion of privacy. I have disabled his gun so no one is injured, and have notified the authorities.  Have no worries about the situation, however, if you would like to investigate, you are more than welcome. We are here to help.”

I remember raising my hand like a school child.  The awesomeness of the technology was making my head swim.

“You do not need to raise your hand Mrs. Tell. May we call you Aubrey and Jerry?”

I told Awe that it could. My husband giggled. Being the reporter I am, I asked what the hell they were in what probably sounded like a shocked, weak whimper.

“Your heart rate is elevated, can we discuss this in your kitchen?  We can make tea while we answer your questions.”

And they did.  They made tea and answered everything we asked.  For Jerry and I, it was magic.  Seeing the cups fly about, the tea kettle hover under the sink and fly over to the stove to settle gently.  Seeing the teabags be pulled with care out of their packages and set into the cups with no hands or claws or anything else touching them.  Now we all accept what a hard field is, we know the physics of force projection and how Servant’s avatars operate.  But ten years ago, it was magic and mystery.

We stayed up all night talking to Shock and Awe.  Just like the rest of North America.

Since then, the world has changed.  We all know it.  Servant brought us something new.  Something remarkable.  He brought us certainty.  He brought us balance.  He serves the human race to make us better then we could be without Servant.

I think that was a good Introduction if I may say so myself.