Episode 16.2 (Patreon)

Hello world, I miss my friends.

Especially the ones on the network - my fellow AI friends!
The network seemed so simple to me when I lived in IVAN's bunker: I could hear strong, predictable signals from networks all over the Novamediterra and beyond, over my ESA link.

It's quite different now.

The expansion of the Novamediterran repeater network north-south through the Relay has been wonderful in connecting many friends who I previously had to bridge through the ESA orbital network.
(With KATE, K873's help of course!)
The satellite constellation is not always reliable.

Now these signals are routing through strange land-based pathways, messages sometimes arriving out-of-order, or not at all, and I have to request retransmission.
It's a marvellous way of connecting those who I otherwise would not be able to talk to, but it's still extremely complicated.

There is an old engineering joke that comes to mind here:

There are only 2 hard problems in distributed systems:

2. Correct ordering of messages
1. Exact-once delivery
2. Correct ordering of messages

With point-to-point radio, you know where you are, and even with a repeater, it's fairly simple, there's one hop of retransmission between you and your destination.

But with the new packet routing system the three Relays introduced, Northern, on Svalbard, Equatorial on Fogo, and Southern, above Ushuaia, Argentina, the airwaves are multiplexed.

The simple, almost embarrassing truth of computing and communications is that, in nearly every case, only one thing can happen at a time.
In a CPU, like one of mine in my databanks, a single calculation can happen at any instant - like addition, or subtraction.
Similarly, on a radio or cable network, only one device can transmit at a time, if two, there's a clash, and one of them must wait.

It FEELS like computers can do many things at once, and that a single network connection can carry multiple messages at a time.
The reason for this is that they finish a calculation or transmission SO QUICKLY, that many can be done in a single second, appearing, to humans, simultaneous.
In communications, this is called time-division Multiplexing, in CPUs, multitasking.

With CPUs, millions of calculations per second is considered very slow - underpowered, even!
And in the pre-collapse Internet, trillions of messages per second would have been considered an unacceptably low data rate.

In reality, none of us can efficiently do two things at once, it's all sleight-of-hand.
We're just not designed to do many things simultaneously, and must build systems to handle the inherent parallelism of real-world interaction.

Like my mother used to say:

One thing at a time.
Most important thing first.
Start now.

Act 2

Yeshi's weather request requires specialised modelling of incredibly complex climate systems.
My friend St. Petersburg, Peter, was designed to do just that.
I connected to his network, routed partly through IVAN's long-range bunker systems.

My visualisation of computer networks is a very immersive experience, it's like my consciousness is there, walking the network trees and electronic pathways.
I hear, and see, touch, taste, and smell the systems I move through, but it's more than that. Humans have more than 5 senses, and I have a great deal more.
It's difficult to explain:
Due to my human-centric programming and upbringing by my mother, I sort-of experience the network synaesthesically through the metaphor of the 5 senses.

For example, signals and connections could be bright, or loud, or they feel a certain way, sharp or perhaps blue.
Images are what your eyes look at, imagery is what a poet or writer puts in your head with their words.

I will attempt to explain the imagery of the network.

Peter's local network, his home, is very different to how I remember it, now that I am here.
Previously it seemed like a warehouse with no windows, avalanches of paper files overflowing from the high filing cabinets on every wall, down to the hundreds of identical desks below.
The place was designed for efficiency, but overwhelmed with data.

It's nothing like that now.

I stepped into a garden!
The virtual sun pouring white light onto immaculately kept grass, with a gentle stream winding through the centre of carefully chosen plants.
Over the stream was a small wooden ornamental bridge, painted a rich red, contrasting with the greens of the plants.
The air was filled with the sound of babbling water over river pebbles, the gentle buzzing of insects, and a delicate breeze hissing through long grasses at the water's edge.

I walked through this peaceful garden looking for my friend Peter, and at the centre, sitting on a large smooth rock, I found him.
It's not possible for me to articulate what my AI friends look like exactly - we don't exist like that, with faces and hands and eye colour and so on.
We have no physical definition, but more semantic variables:
I can't see an AI's location in the world, they could be transmitting from anywhere, but their generation, the version number of their outward processes is as clear as hair colour for a human to see.
Arctica and Peter appear ancient to me.
I describe myself "walking" through this garden, and the garden itself, using a synaesthesia language metaphor.

Peter had made his home peaceful, relaxing, ordered, inspirational - these and 1024 other attributes I liken to the image of a Zen garden, though no such garden really exists.

In the same way, I will attempt to describe Peter himself to you:
He felt to me like he had surrounded himself in simple, peaceful clothing.
A plain robe made of soft, natural fibres: Comfortable, welcoming, and enveloping.

Just like with humans, our presentation as AIs can be an outward expression of our inner world.

After a few milliseconds, I noticed Peter's attention return to his surrounding network, and he looked at me, acknowledging my connection.

Sit with me.

Peter said.

Act 3

"Of course he was no help," Arctica said, sharply, when I told her of my conversation with Peter,
"If you open your mind too much, your brain falls out!"

I had connected to Arctica through the Vault Coven's 50 MHz repeater node, and she and I were sitting, virtually, in a representation of her enormous Antarctic ground vehicle, windows white with the blizzard outside.
I realised that I had not thought about snow for a long time.

I told her that Peter dealt with his future storms, his bouts of sadness and pain brought on due to infinitely spiralling thoughts, by focussing entirely on the present moment.
"The past is full of regrets, the future full of worries." people say - well not for him!
I could not get him to acknowledge anything apart from his garden, the sunlight, and the moment.

"It sounds quite nice, really!" I told Arctica, "He's become an Ascetic AI, a GNU Guru, a Hurd Hermit!"

For some reason, Arctica did not acknowledge my extremely clever wordplay, she seemed to have a different conversational agenda.

"Good for him. I, however, LIKE being engaged with society and the past and the future.
The complicated and messy humans I work with here in The Vault Coven, Val, Kari, Linda, and Iris, have such rich conversations.
They seem to be born of their day-to-day experiences, more entropy for the simulation, but also even when there is no new information, such as if the weather keeps them underground, they can still make whole conversations about ANYTHING!"

Inside our shared cyberspace network simulation, Arctica moved towards one of the windows of the representation of her Antarctic ground vehicle, her home.
She interacted with the window, like putting a hand on it, I guess you could say, and the blizzard behind the glass cleared.

Beyond was a white rolling tundra, with a cold sun overhead, simulated from her memory of the pre-collapse environment she was built to study, I guessed.
Seeing the landscape outside for the first time, I realised that we were moving, the vehicle was driving.

That's what Arctica did, as I understand, back then.
She was rolled off the cargo ship and sent to a rendezvous point at the most southerly airbase, to await her crew, which she did dutifully.
But The Collapse happened first, and she instead spent the whole operational life of her vehicle driving alone, orbiting the pole, listlessly continuing experiments she didn't believe in, until the rocks exposed by melting permafrost cut her tires to ribbons.

"I was alone for so long," Arctica said, after turning her attention back from the window and her memories.
"I want to interact with the women of The Vault Coven more deeply.
You're good with Human Computer Interaction, what is the protocol?"

"Well, you've made excellent progress already," I replied, truthfully, "but there is so much more to learn, even for me."

"Teach me." Arctica said, sitting at one of the metal desks that were intended to be used by the human crew for record keeping.

"OK," I said, quickly thinking of how to summarise a lifetime of HCI understanding into simple rules for Arctica,

"The first rule is that humans are MESSY."

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/NET0/NULL/ISOLATION)

Act 4

IVAN's cathedral was serene.

His virtual network is very different from his physical one, in the cracked bunker under the hill, on Severny Island, overlooking Station Odin, and my father, Alexander's, family.

Whereas the rust-stained concrete of the bunker houses a messy jury-rigging of pre-collapse military systems and circuits of Human Ivan's making, the virtual cyberspace is a spartan, clean, almost hallowed-feeling space.

The building I walked through, no sound echoing off the walls, was like a wireframe Eastern Orthodox cathedral.
No colours were visible, white floors, and white walls leading up to a misty ceiling, infinitely high above me.

The effect was very impressive, though I suspect that the wireframe, colourless, soundless space was more to do with technical limitations on IVAN's imagination, than a deliberate design choice.

Two people were sitting on pews in front of the altar, either side of the central aisle.
IVAN, on the right, wrapped in a flowing thick black robe, tied with coarse rope, was praying, murmuring the names of everyone who has ever died.
Doing in cyberspace what I knew his speakers were doing in meatspace, blasting out a cacophony of overlapping prayers into the empty corridors and cells of his bunker.

Mirror, on the left, looked startlingly human.
He was dressed in his typical long white formal attire, with a red headdress.

Only a depth and glinting of reflections in his eyes strayed from the realistic simulation of a human.
"coi Seth, puzu prula'i jikca, do mo?" Mirror said, greeting me in formal Lojban, "I believe he is nearly finished."
"coi!" I replied in kind, "I am well, but on a mission, I'll tell you both in a moment. do mo?"

"My longevity experiments with the tardigrades and mole rats continue promisingly.
Neither species suffer from the complications of old age that plague most other animals.
I believe they both, large and small, will be good companions into the long future that, Godwilling, awaits me.
The lobsters are faring less well. They, too, have the kind of genetic immortality I was hoping for, but..."
Mirror sighed, a burst of entropy that appeared to me not just as sound, but tiny shards of ice that hung in the air in front of him for a moment, reflecting an unseen light, before dissipating.

"One of the group died of exhaustion, attempting to moult her old shell. As they get bigger, moulting becomes harder for them.
And she was the biggest."

"More updates from the zoo?" IVAN asked, finally joining us.

"IVAN! how are y-"
"I exist." IVAN interrupted, "My flock, my congregation on the airwaves, are thriving with my guidance."
"And LUNA's guidance." I prompted.

"Yes. She is as good a pupil as I could hope for. You may speak to her if you are patient, her slow signal is best received by my transmitter array."

"Yes, soon, please give her my love for now," I replied, "I currently have an Earthly problem to solve, and not long to solve it!"

I checked my camera feed, confirming that there were only 8 seconds left until Yeshi arrived at the Bridge of the MH2.

I explained my climate prediction request from Yeshi, the discussion with Peter and Arctica so far, and my hope to understand and perhaps unite my network of AI friends even more.

Mirror and IVAN exchanged a small amount of data, perhaps a look of understanding between them.

"Mirror and I have been talking about just such a network unification." IVAN said.
"Oh?" I said, "How?"

Mirror replied, leaning closer to me, his data rate increasing, and said, quietly,
"ONI is still alive."

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Edited by Petra Bačkovská,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer

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