Existence (47 page)

Run.

Mei Ling tore off the specs, suddenly sweating, her heart beating in terror, certain beyond any doubt that this trap had been lain for her. But why? She was cooperating. Coming in of her own free will!

The answer struck home as obvious. There was no appointment at the nearest police station. That had been a ruse, with one aim—getting her to go down this alley.

Her mind whirled. What to do? Where to go? Maybe, if she went the other direction … kept to busy streets … tried phoning Inspector Wu.

“Mother comes this way,” said the boy. He took her hand, tugging. “Cobblies are all over the place and bad men, too. In thirty-eight seconds they will know and give chase from all sides. But we know how to take care of mothers.”

She stared at him, resisting. But the child smiled again, making another flicker-brief eye contact. “Come,” he insisted.

“Time to run.”

Then the moment of decision was in her past. They hurried together, away from that alley of danger, along a street that only a short time ago had seemed full of fantasies. Only now—she knew—it also contained dangerous eyes.

A RISING TIDE

The relative advantages of humans and machines vary from one task to the next. Imagine a chart with the jobs that are “most human” forming the higher ground. Here you find chores best done by organic people, like gourmet cooking or elite hairdressing. Then there is a “shore” consisting of tasks that humans and machines perform at equivalent cost, like meticulous assembly of high-value parts. Or janitorial work.

Beyond and below these jobs can be found an “ocean” of tasks best done by machines, such as mass production or traffic management. When machines get cheaper or smarter or both, the water level rises, as it were, and has two effects.

First, machines substitute for humans by taking over newly “flooded” tasks.

But the availability of new machine capabilities can also complement and expand the range of many human tasks, raising the value of doing them well. New opportunities for people sometimes erupt, like a fresh mountain, rising out of the sea.

—
Robin Hanson, an emulated character in the websim play
Trilemma

36.

FALSE DIAMONDS

A gong sounded, calling all guests into a banquet room the size of a private jet hangar. A personal, liveried attendant held the high-back, medieval Cistercian chair for Hamish, then hovered throughout the meal, refilling gold-rimmed crystal goblets and serving courses on plates made from vitrified lunar soil. (The famous dinner set Rupert Glaucus-Worthington commissioned when NASA’s cache of moon rocks was auctioned to pay off debts.) It was all marvelously excessive, but he wondered most of all about the servants.

How on Earth can they do this?

It wasn’t the cost. When you ranked seven or eight nines along the wealth curve, you could afford all the private help you wanted, for any task at all. No, it was
confidentiality
that couldn’t be bought with money alone. The more people in any discussion, the more likely were leaks, from rumors to full-spectrum recordings. Despite clear ground rules for this occasion—along with Faraday shielding to keep out the World Mesh—anyone in this room
might
be carrying some newfangled device. In the game of leapfrogging technology, the rich could never be sure. A small startup company, or amateur smartposse, or even a pathetic legacy government might briefly get the upper hand.

Hamish pondered how the top clade families—the Glaucus-Worthingtons, the bin Jalils, the Bogolomovs, the duPont-Vonessens, the Wu Changs, and so on—could let so many participate in this meeting. Even if dinner table decorum kept most of the banter light, with the main topic set aside for tomorrow, someone was sure to drink too much and babble.

During soup, he conversed casually with a social psychologist from Dharamsala. But kept wondering.
Perhaps the servants get hypno-loyalty locks. Not legal in most places. But Switzerland and Liechtenstein never joined the EU. Or they may be paid in delayed futures options, invoked decades from now, only if fealty criteria are met.

One approach—the Tata Method—had a touch of class. Find some rural village wracked by poverty, disease, and hopelessness. Pour in enough money to transform the place—schools, hospital, jobs, and scholarships for bright youths. Nurture a local cult of gratitude. You get a reliable source of loyal and appreciative help. And some good publicity, too.

Or it might be accomplished the old-fashioned way. Blackmail. Betray us and we tell the cops what you did.
Glancing at his personal waiter, Hamish figured the man looked plenty tough, under the silk uniform and unctuous attentiveness. Hamish tossed back some wine and, while his glass was being refilled, noted what might be faint signs of tattoo removal on the back of the servant’s hand, perhaps indicating a rough past.

With specs, I might get a multicolor pattern analysis. But it’s more fun putting together bits and pieces the old-fashioned way.

In fact, Hamish was having a great time, making mental notes for his staff to research and expand upon later. Readers and viewers loved stuff like this! Of course, his wealthy villain would have to be from some
other
circle of wealth. A Naderite tech-billionaire perhaps, or a rich mad scientist, or a member of some liberal cabal … certainly not anyone in the clade! Especially now that this elite of elites was lining up with Tenskwatawa.

Meanwhile, the sociologist to his left was blathering about the paper she planned to present tomorrow, on Neo-Confucian Pragmatic Ethics and the New Pyramid. Hamish felt so good, he refrained from asking where she cribbed the last part of her title.

“You see, Mr. Brookeman, as the Enlightenment fades, so will its diamond-shaped social structure—dominated by a large and vigorous middle class. That pattern fostered vibrancy and creativity, but also brittle flightiness. The kitschy culture and fickle habits that infested your forever-adolescent America.”

Hamish responded with a courteous smile, which she mistook for deep interest, waggling delicately painted fingers. “That kind of social order is
unstable
. Too dependent on high levels of education, civility, confidence, and shared sense of purpose. As in ancient Athens and Florence, it’s simple to incite the bourgeoisie to bicker over trivial matters. Just get them overreacting to one exaggerated threat, while ignoring others.”

The sociologist seemed to be trying hard to keep Hamish’s attention, smiling and tilting a little to restore connection, each time he lifted his gaze from his plate—now the fish course, a poached yellowtail, very expensive, with hints of real saffron. He politely obliged her with a steady gaze, noting she seemed rather more attractive than his first impression. Hamish took another swallow of wine and let the waiter refill his glass while she continued.

“As Plato taught, stable governance requires a broad base that narrows steeply to a small but superqualified ruling class, born and raised for leadership. The mode that postagricultural civilizations adopt, ninety-nine percent of the time. Even under so-called Soviet Communism, power soon consolidated in a few hundred families of the
nomenklatura
caste—a classic feudal society, despite all its superficial egalitarian rhetoric.”

Hamish wondered,
Does she imagine I don’t know this?
While lazily nodding and maintaining eye contact, he sampled other conversations. Behind him, a Brazilian fertilizer magnate rehashed conjectures about the Alien Artifact that had become tiresome hours ago.

Meanwhile, across the table, a boffin from Tenskwatawa’s think tank was discussing
probability-weighted responsibility
—the notion that scientists and innovators should have to buy insurance or bonds to cover possible bad outcomes, ensuring they would pause and consider before charging ahead with risky experiments. A version of the Precautionary Principle—demanding that a burden of proof fall on those bringing change. An interesting alternative to the proposed
Science Juries
, this would let risk markets carry the burden of regulating progress, instead of policing it with a bureaucracy.

Clever, but a nonstarter, now that top families of the First Estate were joining renunciation. Tomorrow’s oligarchs wouldn’t use market methods. Bureaucracy was easier to control.

“So all signs point to reversion, back to a pyramid-shaped class structure. But
which kind
of social pyramid will it be?” asked the sociologist, thinking she had Hamish’s undivided attention.

She’s definitely flirting with me,
Hamish decided

“Well, yes, that’s a good question,” he replied, realizing that his tongue felt a bit thick.
The wine is too good. Honor it by sipping, not gulping.

“Indeed!” She nodded vigorously, which jangled her gold (plated) necklaces. Her toothy smile seemed impossibly white and she was trying too hard, but Hamish started to find it, well, a bit endearing as she hurried on.

“Does our rising aristocracy really want to repeat the mistakes that drove common folk to rebel in 1789 France and 1917 Russia? What’s it worth, to capture all the money and power, if it ends in a tumbrel ride to the chopping block?”

Hamish had an answer to that.

“Louis XVI and Czar Nicholas were inbred, mentally-deficient fools. Also, they didn’t possess tomorrow’s tools. The proliferation of microcameras, throughout the world. Or unbeatable lie detectors.”

Or
—his inner voice added, without voicing it—
the arrival of true artificial intelligence. But let’s not mention that third item, ensuring top-down control.

“Well, you’re right about that,” she conceded. “Though at present, the cameras and truth machines are often as annoying to the First Estate as they are useful, shining light inconveniently upward as often as down.”

“Yes, but all that’s needed is to
break reciprocity,
” he answered. “By controlling information, making sure it flows one way. Take over the databases. Trump up panic situations, so the public will support paternalistic ‘protections.’ Make sure lots of privacy laws get passed, then bribe open some back doors, so elites can see it all anyway, and ‘privacy’ only protects them.

“Of course there’s more to the program than that,” Hamish continued, gaining momentum. “The smarty-pants knowledge castes will see what’s happening and complain. So you propagandize a lot of populist resentment against the scientists and other professionals, calling them ‘smug elites.’ Finally … when the civil servants and techies have lost the public’s trust, just cut the other estates out of the information loop, take complete control over the cameras and government agencies and voilà! A tyranny that lasts millennia!”

The woman stared at Hamish.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that—”

“The point is, when those at the top can see absolutely everything—how would any Lenin or Robespierre ever get started?”

While grinning and taking another drink, Hamish felt flush from his sudden, passionate spill of words. In truth, it had felt like delivering a movie plot pitch to some producer, spinning—in a matter of seconds—a wonderful, nefarious scheme that would make perfect sense on-screen. One that meshed with human nature and history, and that … well … in fact most of it was already underway in the modern world.

The sociologist blinked rapidly a few times.

“I’m not sure that
‘tyranny’
is the word Plato would use.”

Oops.
Hamish was suddenly aware that others had turned to watch his outburst.
Damn. I got so into story mode, I wound up portraying the clade aristos as villains! My next step would have been to explain how a trio of quirky heroes might proceed to bring the whole edifice crashing … in less than ninety minutes of view-time.

He worked at his plate while thinking. How to get out of this?

“No, of course not,” he murmured after chewing and swallowing. “In fact, such perfect security would likely
lessen
the harshness of future rulers. No need for the iron-boot cruelty portrayed in that George Orwell novel. Why bother? Perfect rulers, all knowing and secure, would scarcely need brutality. They would, in fact, try for platonic paradise.

“But please,” he urged, “go back to your point about how a pyramidal social order will be improved by Confucian ways.”

She nodded, clearly as eager to get on track as he was to be quiet a while.

“As I was saying, Mr. Brookeman—”

With his most disarming smile, he reached over to touch her hand.

“Call me Hamish.”

“Very well … Hamish.” Her fine complexion changed hue and she smiled shyly, charmingly, before hurrying on. “Way back in the twentieth century leaders of Singapore and Japan, and then Great China, pondered non-Western ways to manage a complex modern society. Finding the occidental enlightenment far too brash and unpredictable, they cleverly designed methods to
incorporate
technology and science—along with limited aspects of capitalism and democracy—into a social order that also remained traditional and essentially pyramidal, without the chaos, friction, and unpredictability found in America or Europe. Much of their inspiration came from Asian history, which had much longer stretches of stable and noble governance than the West.”

Yeah, sure,
he thought while she kept talking.
But will any of this really matter when brainiac machines burst upon the scene? They’ll have priorities. And first will be a humanity that is well ordered. Predictable. They won’t try to exterminate or enslave us, though I’ve exploited that cliché many times, in books and films. No, they’ll want us calm and ruled by our own kind, in ways they can easily model and guide.

It had taken Hamish years to reach this conclusion, after decades spent loathing and resisting the notion of artificial minds. Only recently did he accept the inevitable. Especially when he realized—
Whatever logic applied to other elites will apply to the new AI lords. They’ll want us to tithe resources to support their passions and goals. Beyond that, they’ll want their human vassals to be content. Happy. Perhaps even imagining we’re still in charge.