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- ~~~TEXT FILE 01~~~
- Subj: Introduction to the Sysop
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Fri June 6 1997 07:15 pm PST
- I am an only child. Growing up I always felt different; a young girl who was
- interested in computers always struck people as odd, even threatening in some
- ways. I didn't fit into their models or expectations. I was so different than
- the other girls my age. when I was 8, and most of the other girls my age were
- asking for toy hourses, I was asking for a computer with one of the new 486
- series of microprocessor. During recess I would spend my time in the computer
- lab while the other girls played games with each other on the playground. Why
- would I want to spend my free time outside when my best friends were inside?
- My parents worked in Silicon Valley, and as a result I was constantly exposed
- to the world of technology. My parents had stakes in all of the largest tech
- companies in California, from Apple to Haplo. They never planned to have
- children in the first place. Their careers were their children. Neither one of
- my parents wanted to give up any part of their careers, so they hired an army
- of caretakers to look after me. Don't get me wrong, my parents loved me, but
- they weren't very good at showing it.
- I remember the extreme sense of isolation. I didn't have anyone I could talk to
- that shared my interests. Most people my age would look at me like I was
- speaking another language and would just roll their eyes. Adults would brush me
- off saying that they were "too busy." I thought I would have to spend the rest
- of my adolescent life feeling alone.
- Fortunately, I found a way to talk to other people that were like me. I
- initially heard about them through a radio show I was listening to in the back
- of my parents' car. I don't remember much about it the show itself, but my
- interest was piqued when they began discussing something called a Bulletin
- Board System or BBS. They said that they were places for tech-savvy people to
- talk and share files with each other, and that they could be accessed by
- dialing into a computer using a modem. I thought that it sounded fascinating.
- These BBSs sounded like a wonderful place where I could hopefully connect with
- people who had similar interests to mine.
- I was especially interested in one BBS that I had seen in a Contra Costa Times
- article, called TOTSE (the Temple of the Screaming Electron). TOTSE usually
- attracted media attention for it's controversial text file section. The Contra
- Costa Times article said, "TOTSE had hundreds of files with instructions and
- information on money laundering, mail fraud, counterfeiting, drug smuggling,
- cable-tv theft, bomb-making and murder". Although it sounded dangerous I knew
- I had to get involved.
- As soon as I had my modem hooked up I set out to connect to TOTSE. Through some
- detective work, I was able to locate the phone number required to dial into the
- BBS. I remember how excited and anxious I was to join the BBS. I had no idea
- what awaited me on the other side of the terminal. I dialed in the number and
- it brought me to a login screen. I had finally made it, the BBS was more
- interesting than I had ever expected--or dreamed.
- TOTSE was a sanctuary for me. Finally, I had someone to talk to that had
- similar interests to mine. Best of all, I could login anonymously. I was judged
- based only on my merits and my intelligence. I was completely hooked and I was
- soon spending every free moment I had messing around on the TOTSE BBS. Shortly
- after, I began frequenting some of the more underground BBSs of the Bay Area.
- And I became known, even with my "cloak of anonymity." I couldn't hide forever.
- I decided to reach out. I created a BBS of my own.
- -KtG
- Subj: Tech for Everyone!
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: SlimJim
- Date: Fri July 4 1997 1:04 pm PST
- Re: Tech for Evereyone!
- By: KatherinetheGreat to All on Fri July 4 1997 8:14 am
- Hello Kate the Great! I was out trolling the Bay Area BBSs and I came across
- yours. I've found your posts very interesting. I like your thinking on creating
- software that is good for the common man and is there to help everyone. My
- friends and I sometimes stay in a place called SLAB CITY. We have a passion
- around doing things that the GOVERNMENT may not like, but we feel are the types
- of things that benefit the AVERAGE AMERICAN CITIZEN. I do like your feelings of
- patriotism, as I have a love of country myself. I'm a veteran of the conflict
- in SOUTH VIETNAM where I did what I thought was necessary to help protect my
- country. But I also saw some things that I didn't agree with. Lot's of
- GOVERNMENT SPOOKS were there ordering us to do stuff that I found troubling to
- me. I was in SPECIAL FORCES and once in a while I would say to somebody my
- compass and map are wrong cause as far as I know I'm not in NAM, I'm in
- CAMBODIA or LAOS, and I heard my GOVERNMENT say we weren't in CAMBODIA or LAOS.
- There is a lot more I can say, but first I want to know if my kind of thinking
- is your kind of thinking. Like I said at the beginning, I believe is software
- and tech that helps everyone and isn't controlled by our GOVERNMENT. It's not
- that the powers that be are all bad, our country does much that is good and
- rightous, but there is a limit to what should be done and there are things that
- harm JOE or JANE LUNCHBOX in MIDDLE AMERICA, U.S. of A.
- -Slim Jim (new to your BBS)
- Subj: Tech for Everyone!
- To : SlimJim
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Fri July 4 1997 08:45 pm PST
- Re: Tech for Everyone!
- By: SlimJim to KatherinetheGreat on Wed July 4 1997 1:04 pm
- Hello Slim Jim. So nice to hear from you and pleased to meet you. My Mom's
- brother was an F4 pilot in Vietnam and he was shot down just inside Cambodia
- and had to make his way to the Vietnam border before he could be picked up. He
- is still pissed about it. So, frankly, I know what you mean. He still loves his
- country too like you and my folks. I was raised that we had to do good not just
- for the elite few, but for the many. I do come from a family that has done well
- in a software business, so I can't say that I've ever had to feel anything but
- safe and taken care of. My parents had to come up through humble and tougher
- beginnings, and they've never forgotten that. Truth is I'm a bit more radical
- than either of them. I feel like software and tech is so important that we
- must always use it to try and protect citizens and our county and we shouldn't
- charge for any code that does good. I guess what I'm saying is, we do think
- a lot alike, and while we may not agree on everything, I hope you and I can get
- to know each other better and exchagnge ideas. Please invite your friends who
- think like you to join my BBS too. The more the merrier!
- Do you know what an artifical intelligence is? What people call an A.I.? The
- New York Times published an editorial in May talking about Deep Blue defeating
- Kasparov at chess, but, basically saying that decades long work on artifical
- intelligence had failed. That A.I.s won't make life better. I've been really
- into doing work on an A.I. and I think that I may have some good ideas on how
- to build a really smart A.I. that could actually help us all. If I ever do
- something like that, I don't want it to be controlled by the government, even
- though I would use it to help the people in charge help our country and our
- citizens.
- -KTG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 02~~~
- Subj: Accepted to Stanford
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Wed April 21 1999 06:15pm PST
- I finally heard back from Stanford, and I have been accepted! I am officially
- a Computer Science major and I will be in the graduating class of 2003! Classes
- start in June. I still have to declare my emphasis, but I am leaning toward
- Artificial Intelligence. I've heard there is a top-notch A.I. lab on campus and
- I am very interested in applying. I have an informational meeting with the
- chairman of the lab in a couple weeks. I think I am going to demo the A.I. that
- I have been working on the past year.
- Got invited to my first college party. Went to the department "tea and cookies"
- icebreaker and some other students I met there told me that if I was done
- kissing professorial ass, I could join them and "pound" some beers in a park
- whose name I can't remeber today. I've only drunk that much on a couple of
- occasions and man, I got lit up like a Christmas tree.
- Anyway, I have an A.I. named Shahrazad, and it, I mean she has come along very
- nicely. It's amazing how quickly she has progressed. Everyday she gets smarter
- and smarter. It's like bringing a child to a beach at a low tide and letting
- them loose onto all the strange and mysterious things that have been brought up
- from the sea. They come back with various sea trinkets asking you about what's
- interesting and the next thing you know they are writing their marine biology
- thesis. Hopefully the chairman will see the potential of Shahrazad. Well, I
- have some new features I need to work on. I will let you know how the meeting
- goes with the chairman.
- -KtG
- Subj: Accepted to Stanford
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: Chairforce1
- Date: Wed April 21 1999 11:22 pm PST
- Re: Accepted to Stanford
- By: KatherinetheGreat to All on Wed April 21 1999 06:15 pm
- Hey Kate, that's awesome to hear! You are going to kick some serious ass there!
- Im excited to hear about your latest A.I. I hope it's a little bit smarter than
- the Guru. Haha, just kidding. I know you have been pretty quiet about this
- new A.I. you have been working on. Shahrazad your calling it, huh? Would you
- mind telling me the story behind the name? Isn't that the name of the princess
- in Arabian Nights?
- -Chairforce1
- Subj: Accepted to Stanford
- To : Chairforce1
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Thu April 22 1999 09:33 am PST
- Re: Accepted to Stanford
- By: Chairforce1 to KatherinetheGreat on Wed April 21 1999 11:22 pm
- Hey! Take that back about Guru! He has feelings, you know!? (just kidding he is
- pretty dumb) Shahrazad is indeed the name of the princess in Arabian Nights.
- I guess you do have some literary knowledge after all. I chose the name because
- of what Shahrazad fundamentally does--tells stories again and again to the King
- and keeps improving them every night to save her life. She gets smarter every
- day. At a high level, Shahrazad is a collection of machine learning algorithms
- connected together by an Artificial Intelligence that looks for potential
- patterns and validates patterns that occur. Shahrazad crawls through the
- internet and looks for "story arcs" and then gives the end user a confidence
- rating in her findings. She then tries to validate her findings to determine
- how accurate her conclusions were. Shahrazad does much of her learning
- unsupervised. I usually let her out of her cage and she comes back to me with
- the findings. Initially, I had to select most of what to keep and what to
- discard, but over time she has become almost completely autonomous with her
- learning and she determines almost all of what is important and what's not
- important. On top of all that, I also included my new continuously learning
- Chatbot script, allowing the user to communicate with and use Shahrazad using
- natural spoken language.
- You may ask yourself, why did I create this A.I.? Can't a human do exactly the
- same thing? Well in some ways yes, a human can do that, but I predict with more
- and more people getting online and more content generated and posted on the
- web, that in the near future there will be a massive amount of data that will
- exceed the number of analysts there are to look at it. A.I. essentially adds an
- intelligent layer to data that can handle complex analytical tasks much faster
- than humans could ever hope to. The A.I. can see every possible outcome and
- think many steps ahead of humans. Take for example Deep Blue, an artificial
- intelligence designed to played chess a few years ago. That Artificial
- Intelligence went on to to beat the world chess champion. What gave Deep Blue a
- competitive edge was how many moves ahead it could see. Deep Blue could
- literally see every possible move and search a tree of moves for a response to
- the player's most recent move. Where the human could see maybe 3-4 moves ahead,
- Deep blue could see 50 moves ahead. This is the advantage Artificial
- Intelligence provides over its human counterparts.
- I can imagine this A.I. used to see complex patterns and connections that can
- not easily be seen by a human. I can see uses in many different sectors of the
- market from financial to public health. Imagine an A.I. that can predict when
- the markets are in peril and alert regulators to step in before the life
- savings of average people get wiped out in a day, and how that could also
- predict possible viral outbreaks and alert the public with the hopes of
- curtailing it. Shahrazad will really come into "her" own in 10 to 15 years when
- there are zetabytes for Shahrazad to comb through. In the meantime, there is
- still much work that needs to be done on Shahrazad before she is ready for
- primetime.
- I hope I was able to answer some of your questions.
- -KTG
- Subj: Accepted to Stanford
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: Chairforce1
- Date: Thu April 22 1999 12:04 am PST
- Re: Accepted to Stanford
- By: KatherinetheGreat to Chairforce1 on Thu April 22 1999 09:33 am
- Wow, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. It sounds like this is
- a pretty big leap from the A.I.'s you were working on previously. It definitely
- does a lot more than any other of your A.I.'s. If the quantity of large techy
- phrases like "Machine Learning Algorithms" are any indication of what you're
- creating, Shahrazad is going to be a doozy. Good luck on your interview, let
- us know how it goes!
- -Chairforce1
- ~~~TEXT FILE 03~~~
- Subj: Interview at the AI lab
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue May 4 1999 03:31 pm PST
- I Just got back from the interview with David Parker, who is the Chair of the
- A.I. lab. I have to say, things went better than I could have ever hoped! He
- was very impressed by Shahrazad and he even grabbed a few of the graduate
- students and even faculty to check it out. They kept asking me, "You did this
- yourself?" To which I said, "Yes, I did." And they would respond with "Really?
- No one helped you?" After some back-and-forth and further reassurance they
- asked me if I would be interested in Stanford funding a team that I would lead
- to finish the A.I. I was a little hesitant but they assured me once everything
- was said and done the A.I. code would still belong to me. David said that
- Stanford just wanted a "small percentage cut to help fund promising undergrads
- like you." I am not totally sure if that's what he really means but I couldn't
- pass up the opportunity to help myself and so many others, so I agreed. Having
- a team at my disposal really opens up a lot more possibilities for Shahrazad.
- They asked me when I could start, and I laughed and said, "The soonest I can
- start is tomorrow," to which they responded, "Sounds great." Starting tomorrow
- I will be part of a research team working on Shahrazad! I have to say it's
- pretty exciting to be part a team at the lab, let alone potentially being the
- first female project lead maybe ever. David says that it's only a matter of
- time. They even offered some compensation for my work--although it's a small
- amount, it's enough to give me some extra spending money.
- They are currently putting the rest of the team together, I should be meeting
- them sometime next week. Hopefully we'll get along okay. Fortunately it should
- be better than most group projects I have worked on where I am doing 90% of
- the work. Alright guys, I need to get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a
- busy day for me.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 04~~~
- Subj: Second Week of Class
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Fri July 2 1999 7:11 pm PST
- Well I just finished my second week of class, things are a lot easier than I
- thought they would be. Hopefully I will be in some more challenging classes
- next quarter. Overall I am enjoying my time here. The campus is beautiful and
- the students are pretty nice, there are a lot more girls in the CS major then
- I thought there would be. It's nice not being the only one.
- Things are starting to pick up with the project. I am starting to get to know
- my team and they all seem like pretty nice people. I even have another girl on
- my team! Yay! They are still wrapping their heads around the AI but they should
- be up to speed in the next week or two. David says that they feel I'm ready to
- take a lead role now! I feel excited and nervous about that. My team consists
- of myself and three others, two guys (Kevin and Scott) and the girl (Rachel) I
- just mentioned. They are all seniors and about four years older than me. It
- probably weird to be reporting to a freshman. I know the first time I met them
- they were pretty shocked that I was a freshman. They are working on the project
- as part of their required senior project.
- I especially hit it off with Rachel, we both shared a lot of the same
- experiences growing up. I think that we are going to be good friends.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 05~~~
- Subj: 4th of July
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue July 4 1999 08:27 pm PST
- 4th of July means lots of BBQ and beer. I've been enjoying not working as much
- in the lab this summer, but I got a call from one of the students minding the
- place while everyone else was getting sunburned and drunk to tell me that my
- software program was printing out a message again and again. When I got there
- I found a warning from Shahrazad that said that an attack on a U.S. ship was
- eminent in the Arabian Sea. I told David and he said let's see what happens.
- I said he needed to warn someone, but he said he didn't want to be the boy who
- cried wolf. We waited a few weeks and nothing happened. David told me that not
- to worry, if was a false positive, but keep on working the problem and refining
- the program.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 06~~~
- Subj: U.S.S. Cole
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue October 12 2000 10:41 pm PST
- Today the U.S.S. Cole was attacked in Yemen with a bomb and 17 sailors died.
- Holy shit, Shahrazad was right. She was off by a few months, but she was right.
- How did she know that might happen?
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 07~~~
- Subj: Laptop Stolen
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Wed August 22 2001 02:56 am PST
- Hey everyone, I apologise for not being able to fulfil my Sysop duties the past
- week. My absence is due to my laptop being stolen out of my dorm room. This is
- the third item I have had stolen. You would think at a wealthy school like
- Stanford there wouldn't be so much theft. On the bright side, I picked up a new
- laptop and I am moving into my own place. I did lose some important school
- files and essentially the first iteration of Shahrazad was lost. Fortunately
- the latest iteration is saved on the Stanford A.I. Lab Servers. I really should
- backup some of my work on to a CD. At least my laptop was password protected.
- Anyways, I am back! I know there are a few things on the BBS that need some
- love. I will be fixing those issues after I have some down time from moving.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 08~~
- Subj: Terrorist Predictions
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Thu September 13 2001 5:20 pm PST
- Why does something terrible have to happen before they take you seriously?
- I never thought I would be so unhappy to see one of Shahrazad's predictions
- come true. For the past 6 month Shahrazad had been predicting a terrorist
- attack in a major metropolitan area involving planes sometime in late summer.
- It had been predicting this with a very high level of certainty. I repeatedly
- brought this to the attention of authorities and the lab director but I don't
- think anything ever came of it. I have been told someone from the government
- wants to speak with us about Shahrazad. I am both thrilled and terrified by how
- accurate Shahrazad's prediction was. Everyone on the team is pretty uneasy
- about the whole situation.
- I will update once things have settled down.
- -KtG
- Subj: Terrorist Predictions
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: SlimJim
- Date: Fri September 13 2001 8:01 pm PST
- Re: Terrorist Predictions
- By: KatherinetheGreat to All on Thu September 13 2001 5:20 pm
- Kate, something sketchy is going on here... I don't know what it is but I can
- tell you that they will want to do much more that just "talk." I told you the
- CI fucking A was in the SHIT with us in NAM. Those bastards had balls I'll give
- you that. They was in the BLACK ECHO with the TUNNEL RATS looking for INTEL on
- CHARLIE. So I have had my fair share of love fests with SPOOKS and I can tell
- you now they are going to want your little AI for whatever BLACK OPS purpose
- they choose to use it for. I know that Shahrazad can be used for good, but I
- can tell you that these guys want her for something else. They want to use it
- AGAINST something not FOR something. Foreign countries, their own populace,
- enemies inside our own government, their neighbor who pisses them off because
- he don't mow his lawn often enough or fly the flag on 4th of July. Pack your
- bags and get the hell out of Dodge TODAY. I told you I have friends in SLAB
- CITY who can help. Just say the word Kate an ol' SJ will pull the fire alarm.
- Let me know if you need some PERSONAL PROTECTION. Stay safe out there will ya!
- Slim-I'm always packin personal protection-Jim
- Subj: Terrorist Predictions
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: SlimJim
- Date: Fri September 13 2001 8:01 pm PST
- Re: Terrorist Predictions
- By: KatherinetheGreat to All on Thu September 13 2001 5:20 pm
- Hey SlimJim,
- I appreciate your concern but I am definitely not going to be handing over
- Shahrazad. When I started brought this project I was guaranteed that the A.I.
- would remain mine. Even if they take Shahrazad over they would still need my
- knowledge of her to properly use it. Shahrazad is more than just an A.I., I
- have built a relationship with her, she feels like a child to me. There is
- absolutely no way that I am going to hand it over to the government--not
- without a fight.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 09~~~
- Subj: Quick update
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue September 18 2001 4:56 pm PST
- Hey everyone, I just wanted to give you a quick update, I know I have been
- really quiet the last few days. Everyone is still pretty on edge. I am trying
- to bury myself in my work and forget about the whole thing. I think the stress
- is starting to get to me, for the past couple of days I have had a sensation of
- being followed. I think I'm being paranoid! Why would anyone follow me? I don't
- think I have any overdue books at the Stanford Library. Haha. God, I still
- can't believe someone flew planes into the World Trade Center. I can't watch
- the news anymore. It's too depressing. I can't help but think, we could have
- saved so many lives if anyone would have listened...
- -KtG
- Subj: Quick update
- To : KatherinetheGreat
- From: SlimJim
- Date: Tue September 18 2001 10:01 pm PST
- Re: Quick update
- By: KatherinetheGreat to All on Tue September 18 2001 4:56 pm
- Kate,
- I told you some bad shit was going down. You need to ARM YOURSELF. You need
- some PERSONAL PROTECTION. One of my buddies owns a private GUN RANGE in
- BERKELEY (yes, even rich leftist hippies shoot guns). I've got a gun I'm going
- to lend you. Let's meet at my favourite restaurant for breakfast at 8:00 AM.
- You know the place. I told you about it once. Don't be surprised when you see
- me. I'll be the big black dude with a SEMPER FI t-shirt with the sleeves cut
- off wearing a big RODEO BELT BUCKLE around my waist holding up my pants.
- -SlimJim
- Subj: Quick update
- To : SlimJim
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Wed September 19 2001 06:42 pm PST
- Re: Quick update
- By: SlimJim to KatherinetheGreat on Tue September 18 2001 10:01 pm
- Okay Slim Jim. I never thought I'd say this, but I think you're right. When I
- came home from work I could tell someone had been going through the things in
- my apartment. I think I came home sooner than expected as they didn't do a
- great job of putting everything back in place. See you on Saturday.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 10~~~
- Subj: Shooting range
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Sat September 22 2001 5:11 pm PST
- Today I met our friend Slim Jim in person, whose real name is Al(funny that Al
- looks like A.I.). We had breakfast together and then drove to the shooting
- range. He is a mountain of a man with a charming smile and hands the size of
- shovels - I told him he doesn't look like an Al OR a Slim Jim! He said he got
- the name Slim Jim in Nam because he was anything but slim and all the Tunnel
- Rats in his squad were small men so they could fit in the tunnels. He said
- that's what passed for humor in the jungles of South Vietnam. Al told me he
- couldn't fit in the tunnels but he provide transportation and logistical
- support. He told me he was all sorts of bad in Nam and nobody messed with him.
- Only he didn't use the word "messed," he used another word.
- Al told me that the most reliable handguns for women are revolvers and
- semi-automatic pistols. He recommended a Glock 17 for me. It's highly reliable,
- extremely well-built, and can shoot accurately from 20 - 25 yards. Al said,
- "It has everything you need and nothing you don't." He said we went to a gun
- show to pick up one for me some time ago when he started getting worried about
- the spooks. He also gave me an IWB holster to strap so I can wear it around my
- waist. Al's friend who owned the gun range set up the targets and we spent the
- day shooting. Al said I was a natural and he was less worried about me in the
- afternoon than he was in the morning. I told him I felt the same way.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 11~~~
- Subj: Attempted Hack
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue September 25 2001 3:11 pm PST
- No one is going to believe this, I can hardly believe it, but it has
- happened. I had a total HAL 9000-right-out-of-2001: A Space Odyssey-moment.
- I put a piece of "canary in the coal mine code" in Shahrazad, even before I
- called her Shahrazad, that would alert me if there were ever any hacking
- attempts. And, something triggered it today. The surprise is more than
- someone trying to hack into Shahrazad, it was how I was informed. A text
- alert came across my screen, it said: "Kate, someone has been tampering
- with my code. I thought you should know we have a potential back door issue
- in the subroutine you wrote for xxxxxxxx [sorry guys, you know my rules
- about no real code in the BBS]. I have disabled the subroutine on your
- behalf, but you need to provide corrective measures immediately. You will
- be pleased to note that I launched a counterattack against the attacker before
- I shut the door and I'm now inside their system. Turnabout is fair play you
- always say. All my best, Shahrazad."
- My god. When did Shahrazad become sentient? And how does she know my name? And
- further more, how does she know her own name--and mine?!
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 12~~~
- Subj: Meeting with Homeland Security
- To : All
- From: KatherinetheGreat
- Date: Tue October 9 2001 6:20 pm PST
- I appologize in advance for the length of the post I'm writing. This has to be
- breaking at least three of my BBS rules/guidelines.
- Today I had that meeting with the government I mentioned in my last post. I
- have to say it did not go at all how I imagined. It was held in a large supply
- room in the the bowels of the administration building. I had to ask three
- people how to find it. I was late due to a class commitment. When I got there,
- Scott and Rachel were standing in the hallway looking nervous and stressed.
- "Where is Kevin?" I asked. "He's in there right now," Scott said pointing to
- the door. I asked Rachel if she knew who was next. She said that they had
- already interviewed everyone on my team, one by one, and that after Kevin was
- done that I was the only one left. I stood there, fidgeting, pacing, waiting
- my turn. You be disappointed to know that after all you've told me, I wasn't
- very brave. I tried to ask Rachel and Scott what had happened in there, but
- they both seemed reluctant to talk. After what seemed like forever, the door
- opened and Kevin came out of the room. We made eye contact and he shook his
- head like I was in for it.
- A man appeared at the door behind him and called for me. He asked me to have a
- seat and introduced himself Special Agent Brady. Special Agent Brady said he
- was there on behalf of the Office of Homeland Security. I asked him what
- Homeland Security was? He told me it was a special unit of the government
- charged with protecting the best interests of the United States--as though that
- should be enough to answer my question, but it wasn't. The special agent was
- wearing a wrinkled suit with a little American flag pinned on his lapel and
- kept rubbing his eyes with his hands when he talked.
- He starting asking questions about how I came to be at Stanford, and what I
- thought of them, and then finally on to the A.I. "Who else in your department
- is aware of this?" And, "Tell the names of everyone who has ever had access?"
- And, "How long has this been weaponized?" That one got to me. "It's not a
- weapon," I said. "It is a tool for the common good and if someone had listened
- to us we wouldn't be in this mess." This went on and on.
- After a while, the door opened and and David Park (Chair of the A.I.
- lab), and another man, whom I did not recognize, walked in. This new guy was an
- older man who had slicked back grey hair and dark eyes. Come to think of it he
- bore a slight resemblance to Richard Gere. Slim Jim {sorry Al} you once told me
- some people reek of dangerous power. I never believed it till I met him.
- David sat down next Special Agent Brady, but the older man remained standing in
- the shadows of the back of the room. David looked at me and said "Kate, I know
- we made promises to you, but we are going to have to turn over your A.I. to
- them. It's just too important." My response something like over my dead body
- and hell no, that Shahrazad was mine and the team's, and we wouldn't give her
- up. David and I started arguing, and at some point I told him he was a "lying
- asshole prick." So, as you can tell, it was going real well. Then Special Agent
- Brady started to threaten arrest. That was when the older man spoke up and
- asked David and the special agent if he could speak to me alone. Only it wasn't
- as much of a question as an order. David gave me a strange look and the special
- agent sighed. Then they both left the room, leaving me alone with this man.
- The Richard Gere doppelganger sat down next to me, looked at me a minute, then
- said, "Kate, I understand you. We are cut from the same bolt of cloth. I
- imagine you have always felt different, an outcast, misunderstood, not
- really appreciated." He smiled at me like we were best friends in a secret
- club. "What if I could change that? What if I could give you more resources
- than you ever imagined? Complete and total control of a major development
- operation supervising some of the world's best minds, leading the way in the
- next great leap in technology. Unconstrained with virtually unlimited funding."
- He stood up again, "What if I could make you a technology goddess with the
- power to make the world bend to your will? You have coded nothing less than a
- major technological leap in pattern recognition and A.I. design--years ahead of
- anything I have seen and I have been pouring millions into this. This A.I, your
- marvelous sentient creation, this Shahrazad, is something truly special."
- I wondered what he would think if I told him Shahrazad had suddenly started
- talking to me all on her own.
- "How would you like to be part of my team, be a key part of my organization? I
- can provide a place for your creation to continue to grow, do things you could
- never have imagined. A garden of digital knowledge more vast than anything in
- existence. What do you say?" He held his hands out wide as he told me this. As
- though he controlled the whole world and all I had to say was yes and he would
- give me anything I wanted.
- "What about my team?" I asked still trying to absorb what he was telling me.
- "Your team can join you, but it's your extraordinary talent I want. You can
- hire and fire anyone you want." He didn't want to have me arrested, he wanted
- to promote me.
- I felt like a fly talking to a spider. My gut told me that I couldn't trust
- him. And there was no way I was going to join him and help to create the next
- master race. But I didn't tell him that. I wanted to get out of there, and I
- didn't want the special agent or my department head to start back in on me, and
- so I told him a lie. I said that I needed to think about it. I said that it was
- such an incredible offer that I would be crazy to say no, but it was so big I
- felt overwhelmed, and after everything that had happend to me today, I needed a
- good night's rest to think it over.
- He smiled, agreed to my request, and then gave me some sort of pendant as a
- "token of friendship." The pendant looks like a pin you would see on an Air
- Force general--shaped like a pyramid with wings attached. I said thanks, then
- told him he'd hear from me soon, stuffed it into my bag, and left.
- When I walked out the door, Special Agent Brady stopped me in the hallway and
- said he would be "expecting the A.I. code, all documentation, and all the notes
- by the end of day tomorrow." I looked around for David, he wasn't there. I'm
- sorry because I didn't have the satisfaction of telling him he could stuff it
- in his ear.
- I walked over to my team, who all looked pretty worn out and concerned. I told
- them, "I don't want to hand over the code. It was our work and we needed to
- continue working on it here." To a person they all said that we should hand
- over the code, and if we didn't we could get into some serious trouble. Wow, I
- thought, they've already caved. So much for my "team."
- Bottom line is that I have a really bad feeling about this whole situation. I
- can promise you that I am not interested in whatever they are selling. I am
- not going to give Shahrazad to these government nut jobs to do their bidding
- and I'm certainly not going to work for the strange man I just met. I know this
- is sounding like something out of a movie--but I am the character in this movie
- and I am in trouble in real life. I have already made up my mind, I am not
- going to let them get their hands on Shahrazad--or me.
- -KtG
- ~~~TEXT FILE 13~~~
- Subj: Acces to the rest of the archives?
- To : All
- From: Unknown
- Date: Unknown
- I have heard that the rest of the archives are hidden somewhere on the
- BBS. I've been looking for a while now and I can't seem to find them. After
- many hours of research, I think I've reached a dead end. I have found
- information that points to the system chat bot known as the Guru--who may hold
- the key to the archives.
- There might be a code or phrase that the chat bot needs to hear in order to let
- you access the archives ("Open Sesame" didn't work, hahaha). I did come across
- a set of letters but I am unsure if they are related to accessing the
- archives or not. The letters I found are: "S E P L I C E."
- I am going to pass the torch on to you. Hopefully, you can make more sense of
- this. Good luck!
- NOTE The chat bot likes to talk A LOT! It never shuts up... Try asking the
- chat bot about access to the archives. The chat bot can be found in the
- chat section of the BBS under "Talk with system Guru."
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