From The Girls (a story of revolution)
Episode #31
On screen: laboratory building, military encampment, desert, Israel
- Hey Prof. We've got good new and bad news. The good news is bad news, and the bad news is good. In a way.
- Quit playing around.
- The good news is that the Pornographer has got his hack working. The bad part of that is that you and me are Americans and our country is stupid: we got right in.
- What is the real bad news?
- The Americans are coming. Not us. We're already here. The American Forces.
- Coming now?
- Now. The good in that is that we're ready. Follow me. Not you Prof., the camera guy. See this bracelet thing on my wrist? Sensors in there monitor heart rate, blood pressure. Inside accelerometers using algorithms determine what kind of activity I'm doing. I've an oxygenation sensor on the tip of my right big toe; I've a posture sensor taped to to my back to monitor my posture. Look? Cut out the wolf whistles. The Russian dancing girls are coming on in a minute. All the American soldiers are wearing the gear.
- Smart.
- Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Who worked with the Americans? The Israelis. Who worked with the Israelis? Our Israel house pornographer!
- A Trojan horse.
- We've got the Americans on strings. I show you our tests. Stop, Henrik! Come here.
- Yes, Boss?
- Tell the government in Jerusalem about Skype. You were with the Estonians, the Swedes, right at start up. Tell the story. No, tell the end.
- The end is they did the work for the love of it, no banter, no small talk, no showing off or showing each other up. They sold the company for a couple billion to the American Corporation Ebay, which sold it to another American Corporation, Microsoft, they of memory drain and deteriorating performance, for eight billion. The American corporate executives came to Estonia, a bunch of prancing, bragging lunatics who thought because they could make easy money monopolizing markets they were all time super geniuses. The got Skype such that last time I used it to call one of my Skype buddies I couldn't even get it to work.
- And the moral of the story is?
- Don't be vain.
- What I wanted to hear. Take us to the Vanity lab. You can talk and walk. Talk. First introduce yourself proper. Profession?
- Software engineer.
- Self taught. What are you doing with us?
- Like I went to Skype: it's where the action is.
- How did you know what to do when you got here?
- They handed me a job: identify and respond to elements of moral experience.
- You succeeded. You came up with a system.
- First step, language recognition. Key words, phrases. Trainers receive alerts on their wrist bands.
- Who trained the trainers? You? Sonia! Come with us.
- I trained them. Or the system did. It is simple. Identify the good and bad, reward the good, punish the bad.
- You trained our soldiers like dogs.
- Yes. No time for mommy and daddy's love and kindness. How much do the politicians know?
- They never know anything.
- Of course not. The bad thought was the prancing and posing Microsoft execs who instead of performing their useless theater should have gone home to rest after their day of toil, full of love for their kiddies or if none for the sunset.
- How did programming identify the behavior?
- By monitoring the response.
- The trainer's response? Outfitted in diagnostic sensors like this?
- Yes. The girls.
- The strippers.
- Whoever came up with that idea was a real genius.
- The Professor, of course.
- Girls who make a living from attracting men with their performances are experts in spotting fakery.
- The strippers then respond...
- By punishing the soldiers. Being cold, distant.
- What about girl soldiers?
- They aren't front line troops.
- Next: the programming identified bad behavior.
- More challenging. Key words, of course: "they say" "they expect", linked to wish to satisfy other people expectations and not your own. But in this case, the subject own biometric results were more reliable. Fear is behind the need to do what others want, and the biological signs of fear are strong. Punished the same.
- Rewards now.
- Here is where I did get involved. The girls were trained in dialog. The soldiers were given a task. The girls ask, what have you done already like we need here? How did that work out? What did work out? Does it apply? Why don't you test that?
- Ok. I'm going to play the test video when we get to the lab. Good thinking?
- An easy one. Love, a child's relaxed smile, easy to spot. Biometrics, the trainers, the subjects, all in agreement. Rewarded by trainers
- With childish relaxed smiles. Alright. We're training our soldiers to be creative good guys. What good stuff did they create for us? Don't go away. Come in the lab. Here goes. Tell us what we're seeing.
- Daniel, trained at the military institute in software engineering. Sonie here is the trainer.
- Nice outfit.
- Functional. Watch.
- Daniel. You have been given a problem to solve. What is it?- I work on aerial micro robots. Little robots that fly in swarms, primarily modeled on insects and birds. I have to weaponize the robot, and devise strategies, offensive and defensive.- And you understand why I am here?- To take off your clothes?- Why would I do that?- You're a stripper.- We're both in the army here.- My job is to program, yours is to strip.- When you do your job. Only then.- What am I supposed to do?- Think of me as your psychiatrist. I'll ask you questions, you answer.- What is the lie detector stuff for?- To help with the training.- To hell with that.- No Daniel, biometrics tell me vain pride is speaking there.- "Pride more compassionate than the lost generosities".- What?- Paul Valerie. A French poet.- Good. Tell me about poetry. I reward appreciation of beauty. How would you like me to reward you?- Take off your clothes?- One piece. Your choice.- Jacket.- When you read poetry, are you reminded of anything you like to do, that you are good at yourself?- Like what? What is the point of these questions?- I'm doing my job. My job is to associate the correct elements of behavior with your analysis of your job. What is your analysis?- Defensive and offensive strategies of little flying robots. I told you.- Tell me now the elements the strategy will be applied to.- I don't understand.- Moral behavior is analyzable into four parts: good and bad thought, good and bad action. What are the parts of your project?- Swarms can be broken down to Individuals, and collective movement.- Good. What else?- I don't know.- Their soldiers and ours?- Sure.- Poetry is creative with the elements of words. What can you do with these elements: individual and collective, their soldiers and ours? What is the array of possibilities?- Are you asking how individual robots fly in swarms? How individual soldiers swarm together? How swarms of robots can cause individual soldier to form swarms? Individual robots cause swarm of soldiers to act individually?- Good! Which interests you most?- Take something off.- This.- Yeah.- What strikes you as the most beautiful, creative alternative of those you listed?- Individual robots cause soldiers to act individually.- What interests you particularly?- The biometrics. The American soldiers have them too.- Your bioimetrics are promising, very promising. Go on.- Well, we're hacked in. We can identify them. And even to some degree reverse the flow of information. Instead of receive electronic signals from the soldier's body, deliver signals to the body.- I am aware of that.- We have access to files. Individual robots could deliver soldier personalized messages. Scare them. Warn them.- How?- The later phases of occupy movement tried out sky writing, using swarms of light bearing robots. I was thinking...individual robots could be equiped with loudspeakers. They'd have to fly practically into the soldiers' ears. And then, with them already scared, reverse the communication, let the soldiers see each other dance.- Good.- Now you dance.
- Turn it off. The recording dates from the first day of testing.
- Usable results?
- Why talk about it? We'll know soon. The Americans are coming.
(to be continued)
