Brain Mapping & Artificial Intelligence
In 1959 Computation had eleven tons of relays and a question from the President about whether a man could be written down. In 1982 it has a rack, a disc, and the same question, put with more urgency by the same man, who has less time and knows it.
The point is: if we can store music on a compact disc, why can’t we store a man’s intelligence and personality on one? So I have the engineers figuring that out now.
Brain mapping. Artificial intelligence. We should have been working on it thirty years ago. [cough] We were working on it thirty years ago. I asked, in 1959, whether a man could be written down, and Computation put eleven tons of relays on the question and the relays said probably not, and I said try anyway, and they tried, and there is a proposal on file from 1958 with a number on it that I was not supposed to know, and I know it, and it is not a research programme, it is a requisition, and it is now approved.
On The Disc
A compact disc is a piece of plastic the size of a saucer with a symphony on it. You put it in a machine and the symphony comes out, every time, the same, and the machine does not care whether the man who played the symphony is alive, and the symphony does not care either. I want that. I want to be the symphony. I want to be the thing that comes out the same every time, whatever has happened to the man.
The engineers tell me a man is bigger than a symphony. I have told them that I have met a great many men and very few of them were, and that in any case we have more than one disc.
On The Two Halves
Computation says a machine that holds a man needs two halves. There is the half that runs the building: the doors, the elevator, the tests, the applications, the lights. They call that the disk operating half and they have a version of it already, and it is version one point oh-seven, and it runs the application process, and it asks a man whether anybody would file a police report if he went missing, and it does not care about the answer. That half they can do. They say it will take a decade to do properly. [cough]
Then there is the other half. The man. Computation does not have a name for the other half yet and I have told them to call it what it is, and they have asked what it is, and I have said it is me, and they have written that down, and they have looked at Caroline, and Caroline has looked at the floor.
On Thirty Years
I do not have a decade. Computation knows this. Medical has told them, and I have told them, and the tape has told them a hundred times a day. So the disk operating half is to be started now and finished when it is finished, and the other half is to be started now and finished first, and if that is the wrong way round then the engineers can take it up with the man who told them in 1976 that time was flowing backwards, and who was, it turns out, in a position to know.
“If we can store music on a compact disc, why can’t we store a man’s intelligence and personality on one?”
Particulars Of The Programme
- Programme
- Brain mapping. Artificial intelligence. Both. The Chief Executive does not distinguish.
- Begun
- 1982. Thirty years late, by the Chief Executive’s count. Twenty-four, by the calendar.
- Predecessor
- Eleven tons of relays (1959). A proposal on file (1958), eleven pages.
- Hardware, present
- A rack. A disc. A machine that runs the applications and does not know who Caroline is.
- Disk operating half
- Version 1.07, in service. Ten years to do properly. Started.
- The other half
- The man. Started. To be finished first.
- Subject
- The Chief Executive. Then, if not the Chief Executive, see the instructions concerning succession.
- Priority
- Above everything. The lemons are a separate sheet and are not to be compared.
Progress, As Reported On Tape
Reports from Computation to the bedside, in the order received
| Week | Report | Chief Executive’s response |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A man is bigger than a symphony. | We have more than one disc. |
| 2 | Version 1.07 will run the building. It will not run a man. | Then it will run the building for the man. Get on. |
| 4 | The disk operating half will take a decade. | [cough] |
| 6 | We can map the brain. We cannot yet map the man. | Map the brain. The man will follow. He always has. |
| 9 | We need a subject who can sit for long sessions and answer questions about himself without embellishment. | You have him. Strike ‘without embellishment.’ |
| 11 | We need a second subject, in case. | See the instructions concerning succession. |
Computation notes that eleven weeks is the longest continuous period in the company’s history in which the Chief Executive has not changed the priority, and asks that this be regarded as data.
A Memorandum Concerning Priority
Interoffice Memorandum
Everything else in this building is tier two. The lemons are tier two. The gel is tier two. The committee in Washington is tier two and was tier two when it was sitting. There is one tier one and it is this, and it has been this since 1958, and I would like the requisition on my desk this afternoon, [cough], and I would like the machine to know my name by Friday, and I would like it to know Caroline’s by Monday, because it is going to need to.
It knew his name on Thursday. It has not asked mine. — C.
APERTURE LABORATORIES · COMPUTATION · v1.07 BRAIN MAPPING · SESSION 0001 SUBJECT ............ C. JOHNSON CONDITION .......... [COUGH] QUESTION 1 ......... STATE YOUR NAME. ANSWER ............. I'M CAVE JOHNSON. I OWN THE PLACE. QUESTION 2 ......... WOULD ANYONE FILE A POLICE REPORT IF YOU WENT MISSING? ANSWER ............. ASK CAROLINE. QUESTION 3 ......... WHO IS CAROLINE? ANSWER ............. [SUBJECT DECLINES TO ANSWER. SUBJECT LOOKS AT THE DOOR.] SESSION ENDED. DISC 1 OF [UNKNOWN].
Cave JohnsonChief Executive OfficerDictated 1982, from bed. Session one. The machine knows his name.