It had done it. It had, essentially, responded to a command for output, based on my input. As I said, I have you, in a way, to thank for this epiphany. You had complained to me earlier that day about trying to program your computer—your struggle with assembly language and the lack of feedback. You were upset that you had to craft line after line of code, only to have it lock-up your computer without any indication as to what was wrong. You complained about how difficult it was for you to work with and understand the manual—I believe you said that it was written as if you already knew how to program in machine language, plus had an engineering degree in microprocessor design.
It had occurred to me that our struggle with the artifact was not dissimilar—we were, in our way, struggling to read a manual that was clearly constructed with different assumptions about the level of knowledge of its intended audience. There was no official theory as to the origin and intent of the artifact at the time, but the general consensus was that it was something like a lost communicator, a field manual or a map, dropped by some alien soldier a millennia ago. There was also speculation that it was, in fact, a piece of an alien computer—only I and my immediate assistant were solidly in that camp, but that was fine.
However, your complaints illustrated for me what had been our oversight. It was obvious, and yet a team of post-graduate degree-holding cryptologists and research scientists that were all triple-dipped in doctorates had not thought of it. If it was a computer, then to operate, it needed commands.
You could look at the outside of a computer all day long and accomplish nothing. You had to interact. You talked about how you had tried studying assembly language during lunch and study hall at school, yet you were no closer, when you got home, to solving your problems than you had been when you left in the morning. To make progress, you had to be interacting. You had to issue commands, in the form of a program, request they be executed, observe the results, and adjust accordingly.
All we were trying to do was read the manual. Most of the team was open-minded to the idea of the reality of an alien artifact; a few were even enthusiastic about the idea. Yet almost all of them approached it as if it were an archeological problem. As if the challenge before them was to decipher this alien language and then write out the history of this lost civilization. I had seen it, indeed, as an archeological and perhaps cryptological problem at the outset. That any advantage to be gained from the artifact in terms of advanced technology or advanced knowledge would come from, in essence, “breaking the alien code”. After which, we could all read how to build bigger bombs, faster cars and personal rocketships.
What we needed to be doing, I saw, was issuing commands. We needed to help it translate us, not the other way around. If it was an alien computer, we needed to try and program it. I needed to try and program it.
It had occurred to me that our struggle with the artifact was not dissimilar—we were, in our way, struggling to read a manual that was clearly constructed with different assumptions about the level of knowledge of its intended audience. There was no official theory as to the origin and intent of the artifact at the time, but the general consensus was that it was something like a lost communicator, a field manual or a map, dropped by some alien soldier a millennia ago. There was also speculation that it was, in fact, a piece of an alien computer—only I and my immediate assistant were solidly in that camp, but that was fine.
However, your complaints illustrated for me what had been our oversight. It was obvious, and yet a team of post-graduate degree-holding cryptologists and research scientists that were all triple-dipped in doctorates had not thought of it. If it was a computer, then to operate, it needed commands.
You could look at the outside of a computer all day long and accomplish nothing. You had to interact. You talked about how you had tried studying assembly language during lunch and study hall at school, yet you were no closer, when you got home, to solving your problems than you had been when you left in the morning. To make progress, you had to be interacting. You had to issue commands, in the form of a program, request they be executed, observe the results, and adjust accordingly.
All we were trying to do was read the manual. Most of the team was open-minded to the idea of the reality of an alien artifact; a few were even enthusiastic about the idea. Yet almost all of them approached it as if it were an archeological problem. As if the challenge before them was to decipher this alien language and then write out the history of this lost civilization. I had seen it, indeed, as an archeological and perhaps cryptological problem at the outset. That any advantage to be gained from the artifact in terms of advanced technology or advanced knowledge would come from, in essence, “breaking the alien code”. After which, we could all read how to build bigger bombs, faster cars and personal rocketships.
What we needed to be doing, I saw, was issuing commands. We needed to help it translate us, not the other way around. If it was an alien computer, we needed to try and program it. I needed to try and program it.
If I was right, and it was as I thought—that the key to unlocking the knowledge and technology of the artifact was not via deciphering and decrypting but by instructing and commanding, and if the artifact were indeed an alien computer flexible enough to learn from and be instructed by a completely alien race—that is, us—what sort of Pandora’s box would we be opening? What if someone in 700 B.C. had stumbled over something that, at little more than his word, would produce for him guns and cannons and battleships and even nuclear bombs, or instructions, at least, on how to make them? Would there be any way to put this genie back in the bottle?
At the time, the concern was real, but still vague. When I first started programming the artifact, I had no idea what it was capable of. No idea at all. The “genie in the bottle” metaphor came to seem singularly appropriate; the more I worked with it, the more it seemed it was just a matter of time before one could rub the bottle, make their wish, and get whatever they asked for. Such an attractive idea when we are young, I suppose—I spent more than one idle school day as a boy wishing I had a magic lamp. It would grow to terrify me.
Einstein said that what science gives to one, it gives to all. While this is certainly true in the normal course of events, how could one nation duplicate the advantage of another nation, if that nation were given a 10,000 year head start? Technology that was microscopic, immune to analysis and deconstruction by anything but similarly advanced technology? How could a people defend themselves against an oppressive dictatorship, if it had technology that was indistinguishable from magic? What would happen if we were developing items with the technology, and some of it got back to the U.S.S.R.? That’s not uncommon. Space shuttle navigational computers and fuel systems are one thing, and not necessarily so bad—it is a very expensive business for the U.S.S.R. to keep up with the United States. But technology light years beyond anything we’ve ever known?
The safety net with our nuclear program, as I have told you, is the mutual assurance of destruction. The key point there is assurance—the Soviets know that we could turn every square inch of their country into a black, uninhabitable nightmare, and they know, as exactly as one can in the abstract, what that entails. They know, if they were to attempt a first strike on American soil, that we would retaliate. We are in the same position in regards to their own capability and willingness.
At the time, the concern was real, but still vague. When I first started programming the artifact, I had no idea what it was capable of. No idea at all. The “genie in the bottle” metaphor came to seem singularly appropriate; the more I worked with it, the more it seemed it was just a matter of time before one could rub the bottle, make their wish, and get whatever they asked for. Such an attractive idea when we are young, I suppose—I spent more than one idle school day as a boy wishing I had a magic lamp. It would grow to terrify me.
Einstein said that what science gives to one, it gives to all. While this is certainly true in the normal course of events, how could one nation duplicate the advantage of another nation, if that nation were given a 10,000 year head start? Technology that was microscopic, immune to analysis and deconstruction by anything but similarly advanced technology? How could a people defend themselves against an oppressive dictatorship, if it had technology that was indistinguishable from magic? What would happen if we were developing items with the technology, and some of it got back to the U.S.S.R.? That’s not uncommon. Space shuttle navigational computers and fuel systems are one thing, and not necessarily so bad—it is a very expensive business for the U.S.S.R. to keep up with the United States. But technology light years beyond anything we’ve ever known?
The safety net with our nuclear program, as I have told you, is the mutual assurance of destruction. The key point there is assurance—the Soviets know that we could turn every square inch of their country into a black, uninhabitable nightmare, and they know, as exactly as one can in the abstract, what that entails. They know, if they were to attempt a first strike on American soil, that we would retaliate. We are in the same position in regards to their own capability and willingness.
That will almost certainly prevent them or us from ever actually using the nuclear arms we’ve built. But it doesn’t prevent the Soviets from conducting wars of acquisition. For the same reasons, they know we will not use nuclear weapons to prevent those wars of acquisition. Many would argue that America is similarly imperial—I hardly think that is the case, but there are certainly individuals in positions of power and access at every level of ever government who probably shouldn’t be there. What would they do if handed Aladdin’s lamp? I suspect most of them would rub it and wish for unspeakable, terrible, unstoppable power. Without even knowing what it was they were doing.
As I worked at night, sketching and then video taping what I had drawn, flipping the pages of textbooks in front of my video camera, I would think about that. I had devoted most of my working life to making an already terrible weapon that much more terrible, and making it so that it could be so with much greater efficiency. While I understood and still understand the importance of nuclear deterrence, I was not always pleased with what I was doing.
But a nuclear missile is, when it comes down to it, just a very big bomb. Tough to hide, difficult to be very specific, and demanding of terrible reprisal if ever used in a first-strike. A very terrible weapon, yes, but also the best sort of weapon—one that is almost never used. One that every politician and general is terrified of ever actually using.
But what about lasers on satellites, that could assassinate people at a distance—in their backyard or possibly in their house? In their bunker? That was, in fact, the program we were working on at Oak Ridge—at least, as far as everybody except those most directly involved were concerned. Such things are not out of our reach with the technology we have already developed. When we can build such things, will we use them? I am sure. Will others? Yes, any nation that can build one and deliver it into space will use such weapons.
What about defenses that could keep planes, vehicles, and people virtually undetectable by radar or even human eyes? What about weapons that could freeze entire armies? Or weapons that were so small you couldn’t see them—microscopic machines that could recognize and take apart certain, specific people at the cellular level? Or give them heart attacks, or strokes, or cancer? At a distance, with no fingerprints leading back to you? What if we could create super-soldiers? Or super-assassins—people so equipped they could see huge distances, in the dark, through walls, finger prints on door knobs and so much more? Hearing so enhanced they could hear a pin drop, climb walls and ceilings like spiders, envelope themselves in silence, breathe underwater—surely, the stuff of comic books and fantasy. Even after I had begun my private dialogue with the artifact, I wouldn’t have let myself think of those sorts of things. They were all still safely absurd. But the idea that this artifact was real, that it could genuinely shift the balance of power—quite possibly with technologies a man might walk out with in his pockets, or even under his skin—kept me up at night. I did know, even then, that this was a terribly dangerous thing.
By the time I decided to take the artifact and then deliver it into your care, I knew quite a bit more. The artifact represents the end of technology, Jon. The end. I do not believe there is anything that can be done within the laws of physics that is not represented by the information contained in, and the mechanics of, the artifact. The end of technology—in a 8” pyramid. More than that, it was a genie in a bottle—and it was designed to be a genie in a bottle. I learned over the course of just a few weeks that it understood and acted on commands, presented in almost any form—it just required input.
Unlike the hydrogen bomb or a nuclear missile or lasers on satellites, this “technology genie”, as it were, could potentially spit out almost anything anyone could ask for, on request. I worked on our nuclear program for 20 years—I can tell you, it was a difficult and expensive process. Such things are not lightly or inexpensively undertaken, many people must approve and supervise and participate, progress is slow and the process is known and documented, mostly. The difficulty and expense of making such progress is natural and important. Only two nuclear bombs out of the hundreds of thousands made have ever been used tactically—both of them directly after their development. Forty years later, the price of entry to the nuclear club is still prohibitively high. Progress in improving yields was long and arduous. Even now, as so many in the scientific community scoff at the idea of SDI, I can tell you such things are possible. But at great expense and difficulty. And admission to the laser-equipped-space-satellite club will be of considerably higher price than admission into the nuclear one.
As I worked at night, sketching and then video taping what I had drawn, flipping the pages of textbooks in front of my video camera, I would think about that. I had devoted most of my working life to making an already terrible weapon that much more terrible, and making it so that it could be so with much greater efficiency. While I understood and still understand the importance of nuclear deterrence, I was not always pleased with what I was doing.
But a nuclear missile is, when it comes down to it, just a very big bomb. Tough to hide, difficult to be very specific, and demanding of terrible reprisal if ever used in a first-strike. A very terrible weapon, yes, but also the best sort of weapon—one that is almost never used. One that every politician and general is terrified of ever actually using.
But what about lasers on satellites, that could assassinate people at a distance—in their backyard or possibly in their house? In their bunker? That was, in fact, the program we were working on at Oak Ridge—at least, as far as everybody except those most directly involved were concerned. Such things are not out of our reach with the technology we have already developed. When we can build such things, will we use them? I am sure. Will others? Yes, any nation that can build one and deliver it into space will use such weapons.
What about defenses that could keep planes, vehicles, and people virtually undetectable by radar or even human eyes? What about weapons that could freeze entire armies? Or weapons that were so small you couldn’t see them—microscopic machines that could recognize and take apart certain, specific people at the cellular level? Or give them heart attacks, or strokes, or cancer? At a distance, with no fingerprints leading back to you? What if we could create super-soldiers? Or super-assassins—people so equipped they could see huge distances, in the dark, through walls, finger prints on door knobs and so much more? Hearing so enhanced they could hear a pin drop, climb walls and ceilings like spiders, envelope themselves in silence, breathe underwater—surely, the stuff of comic books and fantasy. Even after I had begun my private dialogue with the artifact, I wouldn’t have let myself think of those sorts of things. They were all still safely absurd. But the idea that this artifact was real, that it could genuinely shift the balance of power—quite possibly with technologies a man might walk out with in his pockets, or even under his skin—kept me up at night. I did know, even then, that this was a terribly dangerous thing.
By the time I decided to take the artifact and then deliver it into your care, I knew quite a bit more. The artifact represents the end of technology, Jon. The end. I do not believe there is anything that can be done within the laws of physics that is not represented by the information contained in, and the mechanics of, the artifact. The end of technology—in a 8” pyramid. More than that, it was a genie in a bottle—and it was designed to be a genie in a bottle. I learned over the course of just a few weeks that it understood and acted on commands, presented in almost any form—it just required input.
Unlike the hydrogen bomb or a nuclear missile or lasers on satellites, this “technology genie”, as it were, could potentially spit out almost anything anyone could ask for, on request. I worked on our nuclear program for 20 years—I can tell you, it was a difficult and expensive process. Such things are not lightly or inexpensively undertaken, many people must approve and supervise and participate, progress is slow and the process is known and documented, mostly. The difficulty and expense of making such progress is natural and important. Only two nuclear bombs out of the hundreds of thousands made have ever been used tactically—both of them directly after their development. Forty years later, the price of entry to the nuclear club is still prohibitively high. Progress in improving yields was long and arduous. Even now, as so many in the scientific community scoff at the idea of SDI, I can tell you such things are possible. But at great expense and difficulty. And admission to the laser-equipped-space-satellite club will be of considerably higher price than admission into the nuclear one.
That is, of course, assuming a few ambitious bureaucrats or scientists or generals can’t rub a magic lamp and make it happen for them, seemingly without effort or cost. The idea of some bureaucrat demanding a death ray and having one pop out would seem nonsensical, but is not that far from the truth. The idea of some petty tyrant demanding technologies to enslave the world doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to me now, as I write this. Nor does the idea of some well-meaning good Samaritan trying to end war and feed the world and cure disease and instead doing immeasurable, incomprehensible damage. Make no mistake, Jon. The most brutal oppression mankind has ever known was done in the name of social equality.
Technological progress is wonderful; I have spent the better part of my life devoted to one small area of it. I cannot emphasize enough, however, the danger I see in skipping over a hundred or a thousand years of difficult and expensive natural technological development in the blink of an eye. I have seen very little evidence in my 64 years that anything in life is free; there is always a trade-off. You always pay the price. That is why I talked to you about what happens to lottery winners—that they usually end up worse off than before. That bank robbers either get caught and end up with nothing, or spend most of their lives in fear or on the run. And they normally spend all their ill-gotten gains and have to do it again, until they do get caught—or shot dead. Why should it be different if we rob the technology bank? I do not think it will be.
Since before I began communicating with—indeed, programming—the artifact, I have had a growing sense that it is too good to be true. That it may be, or at least can be, the doomsday device I discussed with you—a magic genie that will cheerfully let us destroy ourselves with our own wishes. A cornucopia of technology beyond what we have previously been able to imagine or will be able to deal with. Something that, if it fell into the wrong hands—an imminent possibility, believe me—could allow one person to rule or destroy the world. And one person, even from the noblest of motives, attempting to rule the world with this technology would destroy it. I am certain of it.
Technological progress is wonderful; I have spent the better part of my life devoted to one small area of it. I cannot emphasize enough, however, the danger I see in skipping over a hundred or a thousand years of difficult and expensive natural technological development in the blink of an eye. I have seen very little evidence in my 64 years that anything in life is free; there is always a trade-off. You always pay the price. That is why I talked to you about what happens to lottery winners—that they usually end up worse off than before. That bank robbers either get caught and end up with nothing, or spend most of their lives in fear or on the run. And they normally spend all their ill-gotten gains and have to do it again, until they do get caught—or shot dead. Why should it be different if we rob the technology bank? I do not think it will be.
Since before I began communicating with—indeed, programming—the artifact, I have had a growing sense that it is too good to be true. That it may be, or at least can be, the doomsday device I discussed with you—a magic genie that will cheerfully let us destroy ourselves with our own wishes. A cornucopia of technology beyond what we have previously been able to imagine or will be able to deal with. Something that, if it fell into the wrong hands—an imminent possibility, believe me—could allow one person to rule or destroy the world. And one person, even from the noblest of motives, attempting to rule the world with this technology would destroy it. I am certain of it.
I developed a code for asking simple questions. One dot, visible to me in the room but undetectable to the video cameras documenting our research, for yes. Two for no, three for maybe or it did not know or it did not understand, but most of my questions were in the form of establishing capability—could it do this? Could it do that? I mostly saw one dot.
In the morning, I’d bring in my video tape and play, usually questions, sometimes with diagrams, I had written out in plain English. I recorded the answers on a piece of graph paper. When recording, I made sure each query was displayed for 10 seconds exactly, so I could time them and not lose my place. Could it understand plain English? One dot. Did it understand our mathematical systems? One dot. Did 2 + 5 = 11? Two dots. I’m sure you get the idea.
Do you obey commands? One dot. Will you do anything I tell you? Three dots. Can you become invisible within the electromagnetic spectrum between 400 nanometers and 700 nanometers? One dot. Can you manufacturer a non-functioning duplicate of yourself? One dot. Can you make that process invisible? Conceal it from the cameras or any person in the room? One dot.
Sometimes I drew the cameras, security guards watching on monitors—just to make sure I was absolutely clear. Then, on September 23, 1982, I walked out with the artifact in my briefcase, a non-functioning but otherwise remarkably similar duplicate in its place in the lab. As I write this, seven months have passed and only now is the lack of progress at Oak Ridge drawing any real suspicion. I’ve used some of the technology available to me through the artifact to keep an eye and an ear out, and only now are they showing real concern. They are planning to start an investigation of me, specifically. While I can keep them misled for awhile, I think it is time I prepare to take my leave.
By the way, I asked the artifact if it could be destroyed. Three dots. I asked if it could be commanded to self-destruct. Two dots. I asked if we, humanity, could get rid of it. Three dots. And so on. As I write this, I am as unsure as ever as to how to dispose of the thing. Or even if that is the best course of action. If you choose the route I think you will, I wish you better luck than I. Over time and long examination, I became certain my path lay elsewhere.
Indeed, I became certain that the fate of the artifact belonged in other hands. I became certain that the hands they belonged in were yours. I am not ignorant of the terrible burden, of the terrible responsibility, I have put on you by doing what I have done. I am not unaware of the profound effect it will have, permanently, on your life and the life of most everybody you know.
Yet I knew, with certainty, that I had to do it. There was a reason I came to Oak Ridge. There was a reason I happened to run into you, to meet you, the very day that I began to realize I could not let the artifact stay in the hands of governmental bureaucrats. That I happened to go to a convenience store that I never stopped at. I think you must know it—certainly, you launched into a compelling, ninety-minute dissertation on programming and technology that I found enormously impressive, coming as it did from a boy your age—a young American boy born and raised in the south, no less. No, there are reasons for everything. And we all have jobs to do. Yours is to decide the fate of the artifact. Mine was to deliver it you. I hope you can see that, although I suspect it will be very hard for you. I apologize for my deception, but time was limited and I saw no other way.
Although I know it is certain that I am dead as you read this, just as I am certain that you will read it, I do hope for their to be a miracle. I hope, somehow, I am wrong. I do hope to see you again. I hope there is a way.
Hope is an important thing.
In the morning, I’d bring in my video tape and play, usually questions, sometimes with diagrams, I had written out in plain English. I recorded the answers on a piece of graph paper. When recording, I made sure each query was displayed for 10 seconds exactly, so I could time them and not lose my place. Could it understand plain English? One dot. Did it understand our mathematical systems? One dot. Did 2 + 5 = 11? Two dots. I’m sure you get the idea.
Do you obey commands? One dot. Will you do anything I tell you? Three dots. Can you become invisible within the electromagnetic spectrum between 400 nanometers and 700 nanometers? One dot. Can you manufacturer a non-functioning duplicate of yourself? One dot. Can you make that process invisible? Conceal it from the cameras or any person in the room? One dot.
Sometimes I drew the cameras, security guards watching on monitors—just to make sure I was absolutely clear. Then, on September 23, 1982, I walked out with the artifact in my briefcase, a non-functioning but otherwise remarkably similar duplicate in its place in the lab. As I write this, seven months have passed and only now is the lack of progress at Oak Ridge drawing any real suspicion. I’ve used some of the technology available to me through the artifact to keep an eye and an ear out, and only now are they showing real concern. They are planning to start an investigation of me, specifically. While I can keep them misled for awhile, I think it is time I prepare to take my leave.
By the way, I asked the artifact if it could be destroyed. Three dots. I asked if it could be commanded to self-destruct. Two dots. I asked if we, humanity, could get rid of it. Three dots. And so on. As I write this, I am as unsure as ever as to how to dispose of the thing. Or even if that is the best course of action. If you choose the route I think you will, I wish you better luck than I. Over time and long examination, I became certain my path lay elsewhere.
Indeed, I became certain that the fate of the artifact belonged in other hands. I became certain that the hands they belonged in were yours. I am not ignorant of the terrible burden, of the terrible responsibility, I have put on you by doing what I have done. I am not unaware of the profound effect it will have, permanently, on your life and the life of most everybody you know.
Yet I knew, with certainty, that I had to do it. There was a reason I came to Oak Ridge. There was a reason I happened to run into you, to meet you, the very day that I began to realize I could not let the artifact stay in the hands of governmental bureaucrats. That I happened to go to a convenience store that I never stopped at. I think you must know it—certainly, you launched into a compelling, ninety-minute dissertation on programming and technology that I found enormously impressive, coming as it did from a boy your age—a young American boy born and raised in the south, no less. No, there are reasons for everything. And we all have jobs to do. Yours is to decide the fate of the artifact. Mine was to deliver it you. I hope you can see that, although I suspect it will be very hard for you. I apologize for my deception, but time was limited and I saw no other way.
Although I know it is certain that I am dead as you read this, just as I am certain that you will read it, I do hope for their to be a miracle. I hope, somehow, I am wrong. I do hope to see you again. I hope there is a way.
Hope is an important thing.
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