Traveller Probo
45. Australia

Phil had not been back to the Woomera headquarters since he had left to work for Helguard and was surprised at the wave of nostalgia as he walked into the office. It was such a small building, and so quaint. The Queenslander tongue-and-groove timber house looked as if a good storm would blow it away, though he knew appearances were deceptive. This building had been heavily reinforced and was guarded by some of the most efficient security systems known to man.

On the wall above the receptionist’s desk hung the spear he had been given when they had Transported back to the beaches of old Maroochydore. Housed in an airtight display box with an authentic woomera, the native spear launcher that gave their company its name, the artefact was often visited by local Aboriginal elders who considered the spear sacred.

Phil was welcomed by Mel and Zak. “Great to see you, you bastard!” exclaimed Zak while Mel gave him a hug and kiss.

“When’s Allen here?” asked Phil.

“Probably a couple of hours or so,” replied Zak.

“Good,” nodded Phil, “that’ll do.”

Zak laughed, “I told you he’d want to,” he exclaimed happily to his wife.

“Well you had best be quick!” replied Mel. “I don’t want Allen arriving without you two here!”

The men made a dash to Zak’s office, changed into wetsuits, then dived into Zak’s Jeep, boards ready, for a quick afternoon surf. As the wind whipped through his hair, Phil laughed and felt the phantoms of stress slide away.

It had been far too long!

***

By the time they returned, the sun had set and Allen sat with Mel in the boardroom. “Do you realise,” she suggested once they were showered and dressed, “that this is the first time we’ve been together for over four years!” She toasted them with a glass of soda-water and fresh lime, grateful their friendships had been renewed.

“And what of you, Phil?” asked Allen. “You’re the man ever in the public eye, yet your love life is suddenly secret. So, how is Kylie by the way?”

“Hah!” exclaimed Phil, “I should have known not to try and hide anything from you! Yes, things are good. Very good indeed!”

“It seems we have a few things to discuss this evening,” replied Zak. But before we do so Mel and I have an announcement to make.” He looked to his wife and smiled. “Yes, after years of practising, we’re finally pregnant!”

There were immediate congratulations and an “About bloody time!” from Phil. Mel smiled, “Yes, well it seems that Tatae’s little formula worked, at least for us,” she chuckled. “I had a little discussion with Olivia, you know, of the Tatae Natural Healing brand and she gave me a fertility formula they’d been trialling. Tatae put it together for couples that were replaceing it a little difficult to fall pregnant and, voila!”

“I hear you may have news of your own,” suggested Zak as he broke into Mel’s matriarchal musing.

“Finally! Yes, that’s right! We’ve actually done it! That bitch Transporter can now be duplicated!” Phil exclaimed with his arms raised in victory.

“So, there’s now no doubt?” confirmed Allen. He, more than anyone, knew how the fused ganglia had been most reluctant to reveal its secrets.

“I’ll never admit it publicly but that ganglia has the most unique construction. We would never have untangled that puzzle without the advanced diagnostic tools we were able to access,” continued Phil. “Some strange things have been going on at the sub-atomic level that only Mel might be able to describe but the good news is that we’ve been able to duplicate a couple of the structures. They are so damned hard to make. If it wasn’t for Allen, we’d still be stuffed.”

“So, what are you saying?” pressed Zak. “That we can build a few new Transporters?”

Phil nodded. “That’s the plan. Peter Conti is beside himself, because this whole process has been a bit of a shit-fight, you know, with the US Government involved and such.” None mentioned that it was Phil’s involvement with the Government that created the complications.

“What time-line are we looking at?” asked Mel. As a director of Woomera Technologies, she had the task of training technicians to operate the Transporter. “As you know I plan to withdraw to a role that’s more managerial and administrative.”

Phil shrugged and looked to Allen. “We’re thinking about five or six months?” Allen nodded in confirmation. “Allen managed to manipulate the initial imaging from the scans. It was bloody brilliant.”

“So, let me get this straight,” asked Zak. “Is there a confirmation of three Transporters or not? We could keep one aside for maintenance, emergency, and for the Saxon situation, and leave the other two for active projects.”

“Well that’s where we’re aiming”, agreed Allen. “These results are only a day or so old. As Phil suggested, the excruciating difficulty in manufacturing new ganglia suggests that we won’t be running Transporters off a production line. If we can get three active units, that is all I would want in the world.”

Phil frowned as he added, “There’s been some conjecture as to how many would be ideal. I mean, we could engage in a number of projects for species recovery, medical research, and support of existing Traveller projects. There’s even been talk on the greater use of drones in locations usually deemed too dangerous for human interaction, especially after New Zealand.”

Allen screwed up his face and Zak asked, “What’s up Allen? You don’t agree?”

“No, I don’t. I think we have to proceed slowly, because we might have a tiger by the tail in this.”

“Why?” asked Mel. Allen had always argued that the Transporter might not take the Traveller back to THE past and this was a position the software developer seemed to back more and more.

“There are two reasons, and they both might seem to be fanciful,” Allen suggested.

“Here it comes,” smiled Phil in jest.

Allen smiled briefly at Phil’s cynicism before he continued. “One is how, no matter what, we can’t change the apparent time period to which Travellers are sent. It seems to be stuck at one thousand years. Though not apparently a problem, the immutability of the time makes me suspicious that we’re missing something.”

“What’s the second?” asked Zak. Mel suspected something more significant. Allen always led with his lesser concern.

Allen glanced at Phil, who remained without expression. “Well, I’ll start with a question that has often been asked since we have initiated our Traveller missions, ’Where are the future Travellers?”

“Maybe they’re here and are better at hiding themselves,” replied Zak with a shrug. “Maybe they’re UFO sightings, or are even one of us. If we move a thousand years into the future, there’ll be a lot of changes in technology, I’m sure.”

“Well that’s surprisingly close to what I want to discuss,” agreed Allen. “There’s this, well let’s call it a theory, called human history’s Law of Accelerating Returns. Now, before you all start rolling your eyes please note that I’m in these kind of discussions every day and many in my field, especially the boldest and brightest, are actually becoming somewhat concerned.

“Here’s the rationale,” he continued. “Imagine that we can make a Transporter to ship us back to about the middle 1700’s. When we look at the technology of the time there was no electricity, no mass production, no long-distance communication other than getting on a horse and doing the Paul Revere thing. Now, bring a person from that time forward to us and the technology is so different, there is a suggestion that on a physical and intellectual level, they wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Like Tatae, or the Maori Warrior in New Zealand,” suggested Zak, casting a quick glance to Mel.

“Exactly but those on the ground mostly protected them from what ‘Here’ and ‘Now’ is really like,” continued Allen. “Tatae has no clue, really, and that poor bastard, the Maori Warrior, was a disaster. Imagine how such a person would feel about satellite TV, or the Internet, or GPS for your car, or even your car. We’ve seen how Tatae can’t conceptualise most of what we take for granted. Now, Tatae is from one thousand years in the past but a similar inability to grasp our reality would be apparent from someone from even, say the year 1700. That person might consider some of what we do to be sorcery, or that we are Gods! It has been suggested that the shock that comes with such an inability to grasp our technology and life might be so great, they can die.”

“Let’s say we could take a person from Hunter and Tatae’s time and move them to around 1750. While the technological developments are considerable, with developing arts, scientific theory and technology such as firearms, the change would not be as shocking as it would if we took the 1700’s guy to us. It’s been suggested that to take someone to the year 1700, and to have them as shocked as the 1700 guy coming to us, we would have to kidnap someone from as far back as 12,000 BC, before the First Agricultural Revolution gave rise to cities and the concept of civilization. If someone from a purely hunter-gatherer world, from a time when humans were, more or less, just another animal species, saw the vast human empires of 1700 with their towering churches, ocean-crossing ships, the concept of being “inside” of a building, and their enormous mountain of collective, accumulated human knowledge and discovery, it could drive him or her crazy!

“Let’s take it even further. How long do you think it would take for the technological developments of 12,000BC to blow minds? Can you imagine that we’d have to kidnap a poor bugger from about 100,000 years in the past and show them fire and language for the first time.”

“This is called the Law of Accelerating Returns and it happens because more advanced societies have the ability to progress at a faster rate than less advanced societies. Nineteenth Century humanity knew more and had better technology than Fifteenth Century humanity but, when you look at where we are now, our technology is amazingly advanced and is advancing even faster.” Allen leaned forward to emphasise his point. “This works on smaller scales too. The average rate of technological advancement between 1985 and 2015 was higher than the rate between 1955 and 1985 because the ’80’s onwards was a more advanced world and so much more change happened. Advances are getting more and more significant and are happening more and more quickly. Just think of when your family received their first personal computer, or your first mobile phone, and what we expect from them now. This suggests some pretty intense things about our future, right?”

“So what’s this have to do with us?” asked Phil.

“Yeah,” added Zak, “while we appreciate what you’re saying so far, you suggested some tie-in with the lack of Travellers from over one thousand years in the future?”

“Okay, I’m trying to set the scene, because this becomes very relevant,” continued Allen. “If we’re to take into account the Law of Accelerating Returns, we in the 21st Century will be responsible for exponential growth in technological development to the point that this century will achieve 1,000 times the progress of the 20th century. As technology develops, we see faster and faster change to the point that many of us won’t be able to cope. It’s suggested that the world of 2050 will be so different to today’s world that we would barely be able to recognise it.”

“So, what you suggest Allen, is that our child will grow up in a world a lot more different than today’s ability to use Email or Messenger aps on mobile phone,” smiled Mel.

Allen nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Yet we’re still resistant to excessive change. There’s only so much the public can handle. Just think how well our parents use computers or smart phones and how well kids today use them. I see some of the cleverest stuff well before the public does and, let me tell you, this new stuff will challenge us. Yet our children will quickly adapt to newer technologies infinitely better than we can. But this change is not global. It’s a function of education and wealth versus populations that are poor and undereducated. One thing we’ve all seen is the increased gap between the wealthy and the poor, both within our own nations and internationally. But that’s not what I am trying to identify.”

Phil smiled, “Jeez, I miss Allen and his bullshit theories. Remember his theory of alternate dimensions and the past?”

Allen raised his eyebrows and replied, “Well not so silly it seems. Mel will let you know that String Theory is again on a resurgence, with the theories of alternative universes now accepted as valid. Some think the Transporter might just be a gateway between two proximate universes.”

Phil chuckled and toasted their old colleague as Zak laughed, “Yeah, remember when Craig tried to address the alternate theories of time travel. Hasn’t that bloody well changed?”

“Yeah”, murmured Allen, temporarily off track. “Poor Craig!”

They were silent a moment. Phil raised his beer in a toast, “To Craig, May his good works never die!”

They raised glasses in a toast and were silent a moment. “Sorry Allen,” Mel interrupted quietly, “ignore these dickheads, please go on.”

Allen nodded, completely unfazed, and frowned in concentration. “Now, I want to highlight something that’s happening in my world, the world of IT. In IT, growth in technology is truly exponential. Change is happening faster and faster. There are some projects we’re working on that will literally impact the world and, as you can imagine, a lot of it will be invisible but will just make everyday things easier. Mine is one of dozens of truly innovative IT companies that are making progress in areas you wouldn’t imagine. But I don’t want to go into that except in one area: AI.”

“Artificial Intelligence, like Terminator or the robots in Star Wars?” suggested Zak a little flippantly.

Allen didn’t smile. “This is serious Zak! I’m no longer joking! I just want you to listen for a moment as these are fears that are becoming valid for many in the industry. There’s been meteoric progress in the AI world. Our good friends at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, you know, the lovely crew at DARPA, are up to their necks in it, as Phil will know. Sorry mate but they’re the kind of crew you’ve been working with. They’re also up with time travel theory and all kind of deep science. But I digress. You use AI every minute of every day with your phones and your computers. What do you think Siri is on iPhones? The integration of AI has seen incredible access to information and ease in the use of computerised equipment. Now, in the industry, this is what we call ANI or Artificial Narrow Intelligence or Weak AI, because it is AI that specializes in one area, like playing chess or accessing information on a recipe.

“Next is AGI or Artificial General Intelligence, which is sometimes referred to as Strong AI, or Human-Level AI, like a computer as smart as a human is across the spectrum. This has been very difficult to achieve but there are some companies who are close to achieving this. If I’ve heard they’re close, then that means they are already there. My company has been involved in the development of software that could be applied to this human-like AI. Imagine a computer that can reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience.”

“Are we really that close?” asked Mel, suddenly concerned.

“Very,” nodded Allen, “and using similar technology has allowed us to develop even more comprehensive security systems for Helguard.”

“Shit!” muttered Zak and he looked at Phil who surprisingly had said nothing. He looked uncomfortable, his beer forgotten.

“But it’s the next level that concerns many,” Allen continued. “You see, there is the level three AI or what some theorise will be Artificial Superintelligence. Now superintelligence will be smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills. Imagine a device that’s either just a little smarter than a human to one that’s trillions of times smarter. We’re looking at systems that will be as different from today’s computers as Phil’s Ferrari differs from a horse and cart.”

“But how far are we from this kind of development Allen?” asked Mel. “I know the mathematics that can be involved and we’re a long way from anything like you suggest.”

“Today!” exclaimed Allen. “But that won’t be the case over the coming years. Remember, with the Law of Accelerating Returns, our technology will double and double again in only a few years. It’s industry driven, because a thousand-dollar computer is now beating the mouse brain, which means they’re about a thousandth of the human level. This doesn’t sound like much until you remember that computers were about a trillionth of the human brain level in 1985, a billionth in 1995, and a millionth in 2005. Being at a thousandth puts us right on pace to get to an affordable computer in the late 2020’s that rivals the power of the human brain. Now, add to that any algorithms that make that computer smaller, cheaper, and able to learn at an exponential rate and we will, within years, replace that there’ll be computers which will be much smarter than any human. Better equipment, faster processing speeds and almost infinite memory means this is not only possible but probable. There are programmes out there that might make it happen within our lifetime.”

“Are you really serious?” asked Zak. “Isn’t there any control on this? In the industry I mean.”

“Well no, you know what it’s like. You’ve been to some of the conferences. It’s a race. The big money’s in making computers and artificial intelligence that can do more. When you look at defence expenditure, more and more is being assigned to weapons that remove humans from the equation. Defence is astonishingly big money. I know this, because my company’s part of that lucrative little industry and what we’re seeing is scary. Forget robot drones and robot mules for the marines. We now have tanks and ships that will attack until they are themselves destroyed. Or intelligent mini-drones designed to make a kill based on the target’s identity. Think about autonomous weaponry, being weapons that can patrol and kill without any reference to controlling humans. The military is using systems right now on the border with North Korea and are testing many more concepts I really can’t talk about. This is a major drive for the military as automated, AI driven weaponry doesn’t question and won’t have any ethics at all. These are currently being developed and may even be deployed in some arenas soon. Look,” explained Allen, “this is how we think it might happen. The late, great Stephen Hawkins mentioned this as his very valid fear and he could never be accused of being a dumb-arse. Imagine that we take a couple more decades to reach low-level general intelligence, say a computer that’s able to understand the world around it as well as a human four-year-old. But if it can learn and evolve, with no physical limitation to its learning ability, within an hour of hitting that milestone the system will probably pump out the grand theory of physics that unifies general relativity and quantum mechanics, something no human has yet been able to accomplish. Ninety minutes after that, the AI has become an ASI, a million times more intelligent than a human.

“Isn’t that drawing a long bow?” asked Phil quietly. He looked nervous.

Allen shook his head, “Well, not necessarily. Remember, I see the resources being thrown at these ventures. Defence, especially in the US, is going crazy. To make the money, IT companies have to churn out stuff that is spectacular. Sometimes, like we did with the Transporter, the results can even be gifted.”

“So, you fear the lack of future Travellers might be because AI has, what, destroyed humanity?” asked Mel.

Allen shrugged, “That’s one option and is a real fear in some sections of the industry. You never know though, maybe there have been visitors from the future and we don’t know it. Maybe humanity will overcome the penchant for self-destruction and use AI wisely. There have been significant advances in technology recently and a lot of it’s about adapting technology to better integrate with humanity. There’s been a lot of research in the field of nanotechnology, where nanobots can be assimilated with the human body. Others hope to develop what is called a ‘utility fog’ where nanobots assemble to form all sorts of forms or machinery, as if something has been created from nothing. These technologies will change what it is to be human and will make humans interact with technology so effectively that we wouldn’t know them to be human.”

“We’ve heard about these concepts in conferences but are they more than mere ideas or are researchers actually progressing with this? Are we talking fact or just supposition?” asked Zak.

“Well,” winced Allen, “without me describing efforts that are classified, let me say, it’s not bullshit. There are some pretty frightening things out there. Billions have been spent by the US on ‘black projects’ and I’ve been a participant in some of these. When we have governments hell-bent on gaining military supremacy on earth and in space, a lot is spent on some pretty weird shit, believe me. Think of my concerns this way. Think about the inability of humanity to behave equitably with each other, let alone with other species and you can’t help wonder how an impartial superintelligence might judge us. Despite our technological brilliance, we still pollute and use fossil fuels, make species extinct each and every day and constantly make war on each other, especially upon the poorest among us. We don’t have a very good report card, I’m afraid.”

Mel placed a hand on her tummy thoughtfully. “I hope your fears are unfounded Allen. Maybe one thousand years in the future, humanity has all it needs to learn about history and developed a conscience.”

Allen nodded, “Well there’s another alternative as well. There are a few companies who anticipate that they’ll be able to transfer a human consciousness into an artificial body within the next fifty years. We’ve actually been working on some of the systems that might make this possible.”

“Okay, now that’s going a bit far,” laughed Zak. “Jeez Allen! Sometimes I don’t know when you are joking or when you’re not.”

Allen smiled and shrugged, “No, seriously. The first step will be to break down the human condition into measurable data and then store data regarding conversational styles, behavioural patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the inside out.” He gazed at the ceiling and spoke as if they were no longer there. “Now that’s not yet possible but with the rapid development of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, we might see it in our life time.”

He stopped to sip at his beer but it had warmed, so he grimaced. “This data will be coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human, or even a live human. It’s all ‘Ghost in the Shell’ stuff at the moment. Who knows? It’s in the developmental phase but the theory is pretty sound.

Phil shook his head and smiled ruefully, “Allen mate, sometimes you scare me!”

They continued with more light banter but the evening had deteriorated and there was little further comment. Phil looked particularly troubled.

Their evening dissipated soon after.