Retrospectroscope - 20/Jul/2012
Start July 2010, Dublin.
It'd been a busy six months. Arthur was amazed he was still sane. Assuming he was. Janet was OK, and Alice had become a not-quite member of the family.
He was now a tens-of millionaire. The Tax Man had taken a good chunk, of course. But, after Eire's recent financial problems, Arthur liked to think he was doing his small bit to help.
They'd diversified, a bit, and become a small telecom provider, even though they hadn't got a spectrum license; their competitors were still complaining about that. Volume was still limited by Alice providing mind phones - she had to wave each one herself, using one of her humanoid bodies. The base stations were less of a problem.
He'd attended his first Fen convention. KandorCon. Amazing. In many respects he was still a 'Dane, but his friends said there was still time for hope. He'd taken his aunt along, and Janet, of course. Alice attended by teleconference; they still hadn't solved her tie to Earth, and she was a lot bigger, these days.
The company was running smoothly. Kevin Wright was still Managing Director, but he'd let the Sales Director role slip to a new hire; he still kept Personnel Director for himself. Arthur remained Technical Director, Janet was Head of Engineering, and Alice was Production Director. Arthur's aunt recommended someone who became Financial Director.
Arthur had changed his name by deed poll - he was now "Arthur Arthurkin". People accused him of being a bit recursive, but he refused to discuss the matter. Some were amazed to find his previous name had been "Arthur J. Arthur"; no he would tell them what the 'J' stood for and claimed it was 'Just'.
He'd found time to get his pilots license, and personally flew the team, plus aunt, to Luna, for the con. They took a pass near some of the finished and still on-going construction works. Fenspace never ceased to amaze him. One of Alice's mind phones was wired-in as an emergency pilot, she'd got her license about the same time he did, but they weren't planning on admitting its presence.
Civil rights for AIs was his main reason to attend. He spoke briefly, himself, but was mainly there to introduce Alice. She spoke passionately, about being a person with no rights at all, less than a wild animal. The light-speed delay wasn't too much problem and she was well received. The mind phones in Arthur and Janet's pockets gave Alice an interesting perspective.
Australia fell into line shortly after KandorCon. They probably had the most to lose. AIs were now persons with full rights, but details were still being thrashed out, like competency, and age of majority. Turing Tests looked likely, but understandably "Voight-Kampff" tests had been voted-down. Particularly when it was pointed out quite a few Homo Sapiens would fail one. Organised religion was, predictably, up in arms.
Arthur had attended quite a few con items, and toured the various presentation and dealers rooms. He headed straight for the second-hand books and media, but suddenly realised he could afford to buy new. Then, he went back to the second-hand stuff. He came away with several armfuls.
Just listening to talk in the bars was interesting. Nearly as good as the technical presentations. SMOF (Secret Masters?) doing this, First Fen doing that - Stellvia got quite a few mentions, but not, he noticed, O'Neill Station. Once he thought he saw one of the Angels, in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure. He avoided the more raucous stuff.
They say the retrospectroscope is the only 100% reliable scientific instrument. But, he still felt he should have worked it out. After they came back from KandorCon he took Bea into the lab, and went over her minutely, component by component. It was tedious, but the only thing he could think of that they hadn't tested.
All the components matched the parts list he'd used for the ten O'Neill Station AI crew, Nurse Blake, and Janet. No, he wasn't going to wave-up an AI based on exactly one of those frames, just to test a theory. Even though it was possible the Hollywood Machine made all the difference.
Then, he double-checked. There were some PIC micro-controllers used in a number of places that he always programmed himself; Kevin Wright had bought-in pre-programmed ones for production. On a hunch, he checked his version against downloads extracted from the externally-sourced ones.
All the code and data matched. But, what was unused space in his, contained text. Their terms and conditions. Which included Kevin Wright's:
'Not licensed for off-planet use'.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Start July 2010, Dublin.
It'd been a busy six months. Arthur was amazed he was still sane. Assuming he was. Janet was OK, and Alice had become a not-quite member of the family.
He was now a tens-of millionaire. The Tax Man had taken a good chunk, of course. But, after Eire's recent financial problems, Arthur liked to think he was doing his small bit to help.
They'd diversified, a bit, and become a small telecom provider, even though they hadn't got a spectrum license; their competitors were still complaining about that. Volume was still limited by Alice providing mind phones - she had to wave each one herself, using one of her humanoid bodies. The base stations were less of a problem.
He'd attended his first Fen convention. KandorCon. Amazing. In many respects he was still a 'Dane, but his friends said there was still time for hope. He'd taken his aunt along, and Janet, of course. Alice attended by teleconference; they still hadn't solved her tie to Earth, and she was a lot bigger, these days.
The company was running smoothly. Kevin Wright was still Managing Director, but he'd let the Sales Director role slip to a new hire; he still kept Personnel Director for himself. Arthur remained Technical Director, Janet was Head of Engineering, and Alice was Production Director. Arthur's aunt recommended someone who became Financial Director.
Arthur had changed his name by deed poll - he was now "Arthur Arthurkin". People accused him of being a bit recursive, but he refused to discuss the matter. Some were amazed to find his previous name had been "Arthur J. Arthur"; no he would tell them what the 'J' stood for and claimed it was 'Just'.
He'd found time to get his pilots license, and personally flew the team, plus aunt, to Luna, for the con. They took a pass near some of the finished and still on-going construction works. Fenspace never ceased to amaze him. One of Alice's mind phones was wired-in as an emergency pilot, she'd got her license about the same time he did, but they weren't planning on admitting its presence.
Civil rights for AIs was his main reason to attend. He spoke briefly, himself, but was mainly there to introduce Alice. She spoke passionately, about being a person with no rights at all, less than a wild animal. The light-speed delay wasn't too much problem and she was well received. The mind phones in Arthur and Janet's pockets gave Alice an interesting perspective.
Australia fell into line shortly after KandorCon. They probably had the most to lose. AIs were now persons with full rights, but details were still being thrashed out, like competency, and age of majority. Turing Tests looked likely, but understandably "Voight-Kampff" tests had been voted-down. Particularly when it was pointed out quite a few Homo Sapiens would fail one. Organised religion was, predictably, up in arms.
Arthur had attended quite a few con items, and toured the various presentation and dealers rooms. He headed straight for the second-hand books and media, but suddenly realised he could afford to buy new. Then, he went back to the second-hand stuff. He came away with several armfuls.
Just listening to talk in the bars was interesting. Nearly as good as the technical presentations. SMOF (Secret Masters?) doing this, First Fen doing that - Stellvia got quite a few mentions, but not, he noticed, O'Neill Station. Once he thought he saw one of the Angels, in the distance, but it was difficult to be sure. He avoided the more raucous stuff.
They say the retrospectroscope is the only 100% reliable scientific instrument. But, he still felt he should have worked it out. After they came back from KandorCon he took Bea into the lab, and went over her minutely, component by component. It was tedious, but the only thing he could think of that they hadn't tested.
All the components matched the parts list he'd used for the ten O'Neill Station AI crew, Nurse Blake, and Janet. No, he wasn't going to wave-up an AI based on exactly one of those frames, just to test a theory. Even though it was possible the Hollywood Machine made all the difference.
Then, he double-checked. There were some PIC micro-controllers used in a number of places that he always programmed himself; Kevin Wright had bought-in pre-programmed ones for production. On a hunch, he checked his version against downloads extracted from the externally-sourced ones.
All the code and data matched. But, what was unused space in his, contained text. Their terms and conditions. Which included Kevin Wright's:
'Not licensed for off-planet use'.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind