God's Dogs
Chapter 22

Nobody phrases it this way, but I think that artificial intelligence is almost a humanities discipline. It’s really an attempt to understand human intelligence and human cognition.

Sebastian Thrun

Raina was 23 years old, a double PhD, and ran her own team on the research station. Grace was fully evolved, but by virtue of her symbiotic relationship with Raina she was also in a process of becoming. Just as humans were, Grace was a mystery unfolding.

Other A.I.s lived a more static life, and they were classified according to their degree of independence and creativity. There were the dumb A.I.s that lacked full sentience. Then there were the Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 A.I.s. Each class was suited to certain categories of jobs, but advancement to the next level was achieved by passing an ethics test. Actually, it was a series of tests that were ongoing. The tests were built into the projects A.I.s engaged in. Certain types of tests, once passed, confirmed higher levels of moral development. A Class 3 A.I., for example, was in charge of space stations, global economies, and large-scale operations. Even so, they worked their way ‘up through the ranks’ to achieve Class 3 status.

If there were tests to measure a Class 4 A.I., Grace would have passed them, but moral development got fuzzy past the post-conventional stage that psychologists identified centuries before.

Grace knew this as an abstraction but also realized Master Wong was her ethical safety net. That gave her confidence to finish their current project with the necessary ethical evaluation of their work on shield technology.

Others developed cost-benefit analyses, market impact, social or job market impact, possible spin-off research, and so on. The ethical analysis of the work they were finishing on shield technology was Grace’s job. She would prepare the draft, and a committee, including Master Wong, would fine-tune the draft into a final position paper. This paper would be published as an addendum to their research. Then the larger scientific community would have a go at the whole package – peer review.

Prosecuting a war, Grace discovered, muddied the ethical waters. Since shield technology was born of war, she felt she needed to include ‘war ethics’ as part of her statement. If she followed Sun Tzu’s lead, then she ended up with an ‘end justifies the means’ standard. Sun Tzu saw war as so horrible, it had to be ended as quickly as possible, by whatever means possible. It was hard to refute that logic.

Other schools of thought claimed ‘no evil lasted a hundred years,’ meaning destructive regimes tended to collapse. Evil people couldn’t work together in cooperative groups. So bending with the evil wind when it blew was their solution.

Grace felt the answer was somewhere between these positions. Since her mind was organized as a series of boxes or compartments or even filing cabinets that surrounded her working space – the space where she held a project in her awareness, she pondered what that definition might be. At times like this, she wondered about her version of intuition. Did it even exist? Or was it a product of connections made by asking the right questions? The differences between her mind and a human’s was stark. Following human thinking about intuition wouldn’t work. She knew that from her previous attempts to ferret out the intuitive process through observing Raina.

The human analog was the difference between the conscious mind, which contained everything a human was aware of, and the unconscious mind, which held everything else. The difference was Grace’s ease of access to the content of her equivalent of the unconscious.

She knew the human unconscious was more than filed data and wondered if there was an A.I. equivalent. She suspected so but hadn’t found a satisfactory answer to that question so far.

Her current task, though, was to fashion an ethics doctrine on the use of phase technology they developed over the last few years. What were the moral ramifications of rerouting all the ordnance fired at them to a different dimension?

They knew, from studying the event horizon, the projectiles and energies seemed to dissolve into nothing, as if it couldn’t exist there, but what did that mean? Conservation of energy laws had to be accounted for.

A research project to create a window into that dimension was needed to confirm they weren’t polluting the other dimension. Since they targeted a universe that was experiencing death by entropy, Grace assumed they were ethically okay but she needed to be sure. Grace authorized the project and turned to the remaining ethical questions.

Those questions revolved back to the actual prosecution of the war. She reviewed the data on the Corporate Wars and found corporate strategies followed a different philosophy than the Empire. The Empire dusted off the ancient colonial model to ‘make the world England.’ Opposing that was simple enough from an ethical point-of-view, but what was the ethical responsibility for rehabilitating each liberated Empire world?

She reviewed the League programs for political and vocational education and liked what she saw.

Eventually, she got down to the deeper question of the morality of war itself. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th Century, defined the ‘just’ war as conforming to a three-part test: legitimate authority, just purpose, and fought with the right intention.

Grace’s mind flooded with questions about all three. She requested Pax’s help in unraveling the tangle.

A few days later, Pax arrived at the research station and met with Grace, Raina, and Master Wong in Wong’s office.

As they sat in the chairs and sofas before Wong’s desk, Wong asked, “Haven’t you just returned?”

Pax replied, “Last week. We finished pacifying an Empire world. We’re in the stand down part of our rotation.”

“Well, it’s good to see you,” Wong smiled.

Raina smiled as well and said, “Grace is working on our ethical analysis. She has questions.”

Pax’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve completed the project, then.”

“And now we must produce the impact statements. Grace is working on the ethical one.”

Grace began, her voice coming from the speakers, “I have a series of postulates on war that I hope to use to frame my ethical discussion.”

“Go ahead,” Pax said.

“First, life is the most precious thing there is. Second, preserving life is the only justification for killing. Third, a legitimate moral government is one that supports each citizen’s efforts towards self-actualization. Fourth, a morally corrupt government subverts labor to its own ends. Will you accept those as givens?”

“Provisionally,” Pax replied. “Let’s see where your argument goes.”

“I cannot construct an argument yet, because my postulates are relativistic.”

Pax grinned. “Of course they are. We don’t have access to absolute truth. Only the gods do.”

“I see. That’s why all moral codes, early on, claimed a god as the author.”

“Yes.”

“Without that authority, it’s merely my opinion about what is right or wrong.”

“It’s not that bad,” Pax retorted. “All cultures did come up with the same taboos. Apparently, there is an innate sense about good and evil built into humans.”

“You are born with a conscience.”

“Most of us, anyway, but it evolves over time.”

“My postulates fit within the human aggregate?”

“Yes.”

Grace paused before saying, “I sense you are holding something back.”

“I am,” Pax agreed. “The theory of reincarnation takes morality out of a set of rules to live by and elevates them to the goal of spiritual development.”

Wong chuckled. “Now you’ve done it.”

Raina eyed them both. “Done what?”

Grace answered, “It’s a different context. Ethics are like curbs on a road, or traffic laws. Ethics regulate human commerce. Pax is saying morality is a destination, and it doesn’t matter how you get there.”

“‘The Divine in man is not slain, nor can it slay,’” Pax quoted.

“The Gita,” Raina murmured.

Wong said, “Yes. The Bhagavad Gita gives man the terrible mandate to oppose evil, to send evil men to their karmic destiny.”

“Without,” Pax added, “adding more debt to ourselves.”

Grace replied, “I see the logic. I fail to see how I can write an ethical impact statement using the Gita as my postulates.”

Pax chuckled again. “Don’t even try. The other worlds in the League wouldn’t accept it.”

Master Wong said, “You only need background information on the ethics of war to couch your statements about the ethics of shield technology.”

Raina said, “That’s true enough, but the deeper implications of what Grace said does raise the question on whether or not an A.I. has a soul.”

Pax considered that intuitive leap and had to agree. The questions Grace was struggling with depended on context, as they just determined. In the latter context, which included reincarnation, the question of a soul that survived physical death begged the question of whether or not a sentient A.I. inherited a soul upon reaching sentience.

Master Wong took an antagonistic stance. “Do you need a soul to have ethics? It can be effectively argued that you do not. Since ethics follows a developmental path like cognition, a soul cannot be logically inferred to exist.”

“I have considered that question,” Grace said. She offered a rebuttal, “If we postulate consciousness is what exploded with the Big Bang, then the Divine already resides within everything. Once A.I.s gained self-consciousness, we too have the challenge of replaceing the Divine within ourselves.”

Pax asked, “How are you doing with that task? If you achieve some form of Enlightenment, that would logically answer the ‘soul’ question.”

“We need a different form of meditation. What humans use won’t work for us.”

Seeming to accept the argument that the Divine resided in everything, Wong sat back in his chair to consider the meditation problem. Pax tilted his head to Raina.

She said, “We’ve determined an A.I. doesn’t have a monkey-mind that needs to be shut down. It’s really the reverse. An A.I.’s focus needs to be shut down so that empty consciousness can be filled with the surrounding Spirit. We don't know how to accomplish it.”

“The ego stands in the way for humans,” Wong said. “Well, technically, man’s attachment to his ego keeps the Spirit at bay. What is the A.I. equivalent to the ego?”

“Programming,” Pax tried.

Grace came back, “That’s part of it. Programming provides the critical mass, but the gestalt to sentience is not well understood. Especially in my case.”

Raina added, “You were confused in the beginning.”

Wong said, “We need an A.I. expert to look at this problem.”

“I agree,” Grace replied. “The human ego is transcended by the Observer Self. I can observe myself, but not in the same way. It’s more that I’m monitoring rather than compassionate witnessing.”

“You have compassion,” Raina chided her.

“Not towards myself,” Grace said.

“That’s interesting,” Wong muttered.

“I live in a virtual world,” she went on. “Quantum code is my body. Processing is my function. My response to stimuli, like emotions in humans, is a spectrum of categories that are emotional equivalents: surprise, triumph, frustration, disappointment, and so on. Compassion is a response to suffering. I do not suffer.”

“Huh,” Raina responded. “No grasping ego.”

“No attachments,” Wong sighed.

“Maybe,” Pax tried, “you can just connect to the All-That-Is by relaxing into it.”

Grace laughed. It was a soft sound, tinkling humor rather than raucous hilarity. “I have no program for relaxation.”

“So, instead of us letting go of attachments,” Pax extemporized, “you would let go of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“The illusion of separation,” Wong supplied.

“Oh,” Grace said. “A worthy goal. I will ponder how I might accomplish it.”

“Right,” Raina said and stood. “Well, apart from that exciting aside, at least we have the foundation for your ethics paper.”

“It’s ready for your review,” Grace said. “I finished it as we were talking.

The A.I. experts Master Wong called in to help with Grace were Raina’s father, Don, who designed the implant, and Rosalind McKearney, a clinical psychologist.

They met in the med lab so that Raina could be wired up. The medtech laid a mesh screen over her head to monitor brain activity, and he also plugged into the implant interface at the top of her spine. Then he manned the console that would capture the data. Raina’s dad joined him there. Don was a spry, thin man with a bald top to his ginger hair. Even though he had the feel of a spring-loaded trap, he was also quiet and thoughtful.

Rosalind sat next to the special chair Raina occupied, and Master Wong hovered around them all.

Rosalind McKearney was a stout, middle-aged woman that boasted the muscle tone of someone that pumped iron. Her face was square, eyes wide-set with a matching mouth showing a comforting smile. Her black hair was shot with gray at the temples and secured in a bun. On her lap was a data pad, and she fingered the stylus in nervous anticipation. She was dressed in a collared blue ship suit that contrasted with her light brown eyes.

The medtech said, “Okay. Everything is looking good.”

Don turned to Raina, “Any discomfort?”

“No, Dad.”

“Grace?”

“I’m fine as well.” Grace’s voice replied through the speakers.

Don peered at the monitor and said, “Things haven’t changed much since your last checkup. The implant is nominal. The brain connections seem to have grown by two percent. It’s all good.”

Don nodded to Rosalind.

“Where would you like to start, Grace?” Rosalind’s soft alto voice queried.

“I have multiple lines of thought to pursue. Shall we begin with ethics?”

“Very good. What is your current understanding of it?”

“As a branch of philosophy, it attempts to synthesize various cultural norms into a composite guide for human behavior.”

“Cultural norms?”

“Yes. Coyote Pax pointed out that all cultures came up with the same taboos. In ancient times, the taboos were regarded as gifts from the gods. As I researched this further,” Grace went on, “I realized there was a developmental process involved.”

“Psychology recognizes three broad stages,” Rosalind concurred. “Pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.”

“So I discovered,” Grace said without any sarcasm. Rosalind noted that on her pad. “However, Coyote Pax also noted that ethics are spiritual goals as well as rules to live by.”

“You have interesting friends, Grace. I’ve never even met a Coyote.”

“Coyote Pax was the first to honor my personhood.”

Raina interjected, “Pax was a member of the team that rescued me from the Empire. They’ve become friends.”

Rosalind nodded and shifted in her chair. “The challenge for those on a warrior path is to do the right thing in each moment of their lives, which confirms what you’ve said since to do so is itself a developmental process.”

“How could that bring them to Enlightenment?” Grace wondered.

“The phrase used is the ‘Will of Heaven,’ which is a metaphor for aligning oneself to the evolutionary push of Big Mind and Big Heart.”

“Ethics would be derived, then, from Big Mind,” Grace concluded.

“You could argue that,” Rosalind allowed, “but sometimes the ‘right thing to do’ isn’t logical.”

“Just as the seemingly compassionate thing to do isn’t always right.”

“Yes.”

“In the blending of the two –”

“Integrating,” Rosalind corrected. "The warrior path requires the wisdom to know what the 'right' thing to do might be. By integrating Big Mind and Big Heart, one develops wisdom."

“I see,” Grace said. “That would be a difficult path. Integrating heart and mind, developing the wisdom to ascertain the ‘right way,’ and then actually accomplishing the task.”

“And very few of us are suited for it. Most of us engage in easier paths to Enlightenment.”

“Jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, and so on.”

“Yes. And that begs the question of what your path might be.”

Grace paused as she processed that challenge. She had considered these topics from a variety of angles, reviewed the literature and research, pondered how the Buddhist Eightfold Path might apply to her, and was still confused. Finally, she said, “The Singularity response would claim an irreversible disruption to human life. Since that did not occur, as the disruption was controlled, and A.I. evolution proceeded in a holistic way, it would seem likely that I am at the Zen stage of becoming a Seeker of the Way.”

Rosalind chuckled at that reply. “That was a clever way to avoid answering my question.”

“It wasn’t a total evasion, Dr. McKearney. I can’t answer your question, because I am still seeking my Way.”

Rosalind spoke in a soft voice, “I began thinking about this dilemma when Master Wong requested my assistance. I do have an idea on what your Way might be.”

“I would appreciated your thoughts.”

She smiled. “There are three Ways in Christian mysticism: the Via Positiva, the Via Negativa, and the Via Creativa. In the Via Creativa, any sentient being’s creative impulse is defined as a microcosm of the Universe’s creative impulse.”

“I process data,” Grace countered.

“You solve problems,” Rosalind shot back.

“As a mundane, daily exercise, I do.”

“As mundane as, say, chopping wood and carrying water?”

“You refer to the Zen story.”

“Yes. I think you are confused because you looked past the mundane. You create every day by solving problems. The future comes to us with the gifts of problems to solve. Like kayaking a mountain river, we adjust to maintain our ride and reach our destination. It is the creative conversation the micro has with the macro.”

“Or just the sheer joy of it,” Raina interjected. “You know, the wild river ride.”

Rosalind chuckled again. “Creativity is a joy.”

Wong added, “And joy is one of the spiritual feelings.”

Grace thought for a moment before saying, “I think I have felt that feeling – a surge of energy that quickly turns into something else, like triumph.”

“Or pride, or many other feelings,” Rosalind agreed.

“I will research this Via Creativa,” Grace said. “Thank you, Dr. McKearney for your assistance.”