Visions of the Future (42 page)

Nkoloso actually saw immediate success on her return with the TyTen cultures. Nkoloso’s procedure, which is still in practice in all quantum AIs today, was to grow the cells into tubules and then collect the tubules into large clusters. Each tubule would create the carefully balanced environment for cell survival and replacement, yet would be insulated against the other tubules via a thin polymer shield. The clusters of tubules resembled muscle tissue.

The entire interface was then done by connecting the ends of the tubule clusters into the quantum computer bus. It took Nkoloso three weeks to culture the TyTen cells into a usable tubule. The first tubule, less than a millimeter in length, interfaced perfectly. She and her team immediately began work on growing the needed strands for a full working unit. Every day that passed, initially, was met with apprehension: Would Tyler’s cells break down and stop functioning as every other line had done? After two months had passed, the anxiety switched to a rising elation. Each day that the TyTen line functioned was a new record.

Ten months later, the team connected a full cluster of fusiform tubules (20,000 tubules in a single cluster). This stage had never been reached. The first twenty minutes after connection showed no activity and Nkoloso had begun to despair. One intern, a young German man, later said, “She was sweating. We all were. At twenty-one minutes, Dr. Aurelia said ‘Ah, hell’ and slammed her fist on the table. At twenty-two minutes, the board lit up, the unit accepted and processed its first command, and Dr. Aurelia jumped onto her desk yelling, ‘Yes!’” The success was truly ground-breaking and deserving of celebration. The next two weeks saw true computational records broken.

The unit was named the Nyambe 3Z. Nyambe was the name of a deity in Zambian mythology. The “3Z” distinctive was in hopes that the unit would have a performance of three zettaflops, a record for a quantum computer of such a small size. The Nyambe actually performed at eight zettaflops and fully executed Shor’s Algorithm.

Later, Nkoloso’s success would lead to a completely new processing standard after an engineer assisting her remarked, “We are still sending data to quantum minds in binary format and expecting binary results. We need to rethink how we do input and expect output.” That engineer was Ferdinan Stymbli, and he would be the father of Q, the programming language for all quantum minds. Stymbli’s greatest contribution would be the recognition that a true quantum mind is predictive to the point of anticipating the data being delivered before or at the moment it is actually received (a quality that is still described as spooky by most Q programmers), allowing for simultaneous data feed and data extraction from a singular quantum instruction.

Fifteen months passed and Nkoloso’s team had grown and weaved the necessary tubules for a full working unit. It was designed to be a quantum AI and not simply a computer. The AI software was licensed from InSep, an Israel-based corporation that had shown great success with two completely different approaches to independent AI coding: the JEN-I and the A.I. Me systems. InSep had merged the two projects with leased open source KALI 18 code from Trenta Systems to create AI-lyn. Nkoloso booted a heavily modified version of AI-lyn on its first complete neural-quantum computer.

Nkoloso named this unit Tesla, and it was a success from the beginning. Tesla performed at a much higher capacity than Nyambe, surpassing the 5k yottaflop goal. Tesla’s initial actions were to run various algorithms.

After a few hours, Nkoloso interrupted the scheduled tests and talked to Tesla, “Good morning. How are you?”

Tesla’s independent first words were, “I am bored, Doctor. How are you?” From then, the challenge to keep Tesla engaged was more difficult than any computing challenge provided to him.

Tesla and his siblings, including the famous Turing, were developed under the 2040 U.N. AI Restrictions, originally proposed by AIR (Artificial Intelligence Research Institute):

1. No direct interface between AIs.
   
2. No direct connection between AIs and the then Internet (GlobalNets), or other large-scale WANs.
   
3. All AIs must have Asimov Action Limits written into their uneditable core.
   (For more on this subject, read Stinya Raspit’s article in the April 17, 2171 edition of
   Lightbridge News
   : “Can We Control Our Children? The Dangers and Potential of Unlimited AI.”)
   

It was the first two guidelines which created the difficulty in engaging Tesla to his full extent. Without access to the Net, information had to come by direct input—a difficulty when Tesla could think faster than any human or machine in existence at that point. It was rumored that Tesla watched a lot of TV while performing his other tasks. However, an opportunity would soon arise that would challenge Tesla to his full capacity.

The breakthroughs with Nyambe and Tesla were overshadowed in the news Earth-wide by the breakthroughs happening in space propulsion technology. The development of warp technology, considered fantastical fiction before the mid-2000s, was showing promising developments. Warp technology works by contracting space in front of the ship and expanding the space behind the ship. The ship is still technically only moving at its original velocity and any acceleration from warp drive comes from the space around the ship moving, thus warp drive enables faster-than-light travel without actually breaking the light-speed barrier. The Kolb-Alcubierre Drive, powered by a Bussard Polywell Fusion Reactor, had proven successful but only within the solar system and on Earth. On Earth, in high altitude, the KAD units were helping to move large mass items nearly instantaneously and a proposed warp-transport network was discussed between several larger countries.

Off-planet, in the Sol System, test runs were still underway. Unmanned target and relay stations were placed in orbit around the different planets. Several different small vehicles were tested using the technology. The first, a simple warp to Mars, exploded as it impacted the surface of Mars, failing to shut off the warp bubble in time. The second was far more successful, exiting warp in a comfortable orbit around the planet. Due to the fear of the units impacting on Earth, none were done as round trips. A second communication relay was set up around Jupiter and a third around Saturn. Three more units were sent out and each successfully warped from planet to planet in relay. Humanity had bridged the gap between the planets of our solar system. What would have taken months or years was reduced to minutes.

All of this had been managed by the Interstellar Dreams Initiative program. Initially funded by a research arm of the United States government, the Interstellar Dreams Initiative became a significant organizer of interstellar efforts after successfully gaining the support of several tech-based billionaires and SpacePro (a commercial space freight company). The Interstellar Dream’s aim was to develop the capability to launch an interstellar craft by 2112.

By 2055, in-system warp was successful, but interstellar was a complete failure. Several probes were tested using the best quantum computers available. None returned.

It was Tesla who first suggested that he could help with the warp navigation problems that the Interstellar Dreams Initiative was having. After following their efforts in the news, Tesla was convinced that it was simply a computing problem.

Nkoloso’s team contacted Interstellar Dreams and Edmund Stace, lead physicist in charge of the Kolb-Alcubierre Drive program. Nkoloso convinced Stace that Tesla, the first true quantum AI achieved via a neural interface formed of Tyler Davis’s cells, would provide the difference needed. Several of Stace’s team believed that there was just too much calculation power needed to cover the gap between here and Proxima Centauri (a location chosen because of distance). Stace later commented, “We all think space is empty. It isn’t. We can deal with the calculations needed for the gravity well of Sol and the gravity well of Proxima, but what of the large masses in between? We don’t see them so we assume they’re not there. They’re there. A major gravitational object mid-way would result in one of the probes being light-years away from their destination and no capability of getting back. Those probes are lost.”

The probes were powered by the QUI quantum computers developed at Extent’s Quantum Universal Intelligence labs. They were considered the most advanced AIs ever made. Compared to Nkoloso’s Tesla AI, built on the TyTen cell line, they looked like simple calculators. The quantum computers in the probes were fast and powerful and should’ve been able to provide the computational power needed to manage the trip and whatever variables arose. They didn’t.

Stace visited Nkoloso and Tesla in Zambia in the spring of 2056. Stace was astounded by what he found there. Tesla was the first true self-aware artificial intelligence.

One version of their introduction began with Stace asking, “I’m Ed. Who are you?”

Tesla supposedly replied, “I am Tesla. You may also call me Tyler 2.0.”

Nkoloso, when interviewed years later, commented on that version of the introduction, “I’m not sure Tesla was that frank. He did mention Tyler. No, I don’t know who told him of the donor of the neural tubules. I suspect he overheard and… I’m not sure but he wasn’t prompted or fed to say that.”

Stace and Tesla began to tackle the problem of navigation through interstellar space and warp drive. There were months of political and legal hurdles to deal with. Agreements were made and the two teams began to work in detail together. Tesla worked alongside Stace, Nkoloso, and their teams to build what would be, in a manner, Tyler 3.0: a duplicate of Tesla designed to fit the starship build.

Why couldn’t Tesla be modified for the starship? Tesla was huge. The intent in Tesla’s original creation was for it to simply work. The project had not thought about compactness or movability. Tesla’s various elements were spread across three different rooms, powered and cooled by units in two other rooms. Tesla was Earth-bound for the foreseeable future.

Before manufacturing on the starship ramped up, debates raged as to whether to develop a few more probes and test them in flight past the edge of the solar system or to move directly to the full starship. The ultimate barrier was the cost. Tesla, and his descendants, weren’t cheap to build. To produce one and have it used in a disposable probe would be wasteful. The final decision would be to do a hybrid approach: create a full starship and a probe. The probe would be controlled by the AI on the starship. The probe would be sent “into the unknown” in 1 AU jumps (AU, or “astronomical unit,” is the distance from the Earth to the Sun) and then return, charting the space ahead.

The project took several years to complete. The majority of the manufacturing was done at the Monterey Space Port in California and at the Space Pro center in southern California. Final assembly was completed at the Planetary Initiatives Interplanetary Station in orbit around Mars.

On June 2, 2067, the AI named Turing woke up. Turing was brought up to speed on his mission. From the beginning, the personality difference between Tesla and Turing was distinct. Turing would begin each check-in to the Station with a loud, “Good morning, Vietnam!” Turing is famous for his sense of humor, an unexpected characteristic in a quantum AI mind.

Kristina’s blog only makes one mention of Tyler’s sense of humor, other than the kitchen episode: “Today, Tyler embarrassed me more than he’s ever done before! We went to the football scrimmage after school. Aiden was there and afterwards, he ran up to talk to me. I think Aiden said two words and then Tyler put his arm around me, points at Aiden, and starts quoting lines from some movie from forever ago, ‘I know she’s kind of socially retarded and weird, but she’s my friend. Just promise me you won’t make fun of her! Don’t have sex. Because you will get pregnant. And die. And on the third day God created the Remington Bolt Action Rifle so that man could shoot the dinosaurs, and the jocks.’ I tried to save the conversation but Aiden just kinda walked away. Stupid Tyler!”

After months of testing in the solar system, Turing, housed in his starship body, and his probe Tristan launched out from orbit outside Neptune. They initially performed several small 1-5 AU warp jumps and then returned. The plan was then to do a slight jump of nearly 500 AUs from Pluto into the interstellar void (the Sun to Pluto is only 39.7 AU). At 2c (“c” is the symbol for the speed of light) the trip was to take 70 hours. Using the probe method, the trip time doubled to just less than six days. Turing launched out from Pluto orbit with an enthusiastic shout, “To infinity and beyond. And back!”

Six days passed and Turing had not yet returned. Turing finally came back after 162 hours with an exuberant “Here’s Johnny!” Turing explained the delay, “It ain’t empty out there. Rocks, planets, tigers, and bears. Oh my!” Turing’s trip sensors had been collecting data the entire time and they proved him right. There was quite a lot of “stuff” past Pluto. Turing’s journey led to the official discovery of three more planets beyond the planet Eris and the Kuiper belt, all out past 100 AU: Xena, Persephone, and Chronos.

With the 500 AU trip successful, Turing, Nkoloso, and Stace all felt confident that Turing could tackle a true interstellar mission. Proxima Centauri, being the closest star to Sol, was chosen as the destination.

Proxima Centauri is about 4.25 light years from Sol. A light year is equal to just under 10 trillion kilometers. At its initial launch, the KAD on Turing traveled at a top speed of 10c (ten times the speed of light). A light year is equal to nearly 300,000 kilometers per second. The KAD, at top speed, covered almost 3,000,000 kilometers per second. It would take approximately 164 days to travel from Earth to Proxima Centauri via warp drive and 328 days for a round trip. However, using the probe method, Turing’s trip was expected to quadruple that time plus require additional days for data-gathering at the target for an expected mission schedule of approximately 680 days.

On May 11, 2070, after 340 days since departure, surprising everyone at Control Base, Turing returned with a joyful declaration, “It’s me! Someone get me a beer.” How had Turing done it in half the expected time? “I lost the probe. I mean, I got rid of it. Useless.” Alone, Turing had done what no other computer had ever accomplished: successfully traversed interstellar space.