religA.I.on
This is episode 8 of The French Tech Comedy.
(Read all previous episodes here.)
In memoriam of French sci-fi writer Ayerdhal, “Demain, une oasis”.
Nono, a French engineer based in Japan and China, was willing to try something with the A.I. Taka’s lab was working with. His boss, Takafumi Nagato MD PhD, head of the lab of Bioinformatics for personalised CAR-T-therapies at the Tokyo Oncology Center, a private health establishment, was working with the NTT Medical Center Tokyo on a government-funded project in fundamental and applied research in gene therapy — genetically altered immune cells to fight cancer in a semi-personalised therapy. Immune cells tailored to each cancer patient’s own needs, thanks to donors of healthy immune or T cells. Taka was working on a groundbreaking A.I. program, in the hope to produce some kind of bioengineered stuff, made with a CRISPR-cas9 gene editing tool, or more exactly, one of its grand-kids. A sixth-generation DNA and RNA base editor. The A.I. was needed to help match T-cells of cancer patients with healthy donors. Like an organ donation program, nationwide, but for immune or T-cells instead of organs. In a nutshell, a semi-personalised gene therapy for cancer meant you had to produce or engineer some kind of hybrid bio-stuff, needing both a wet lab — molecular biology — and a dry lab — A.I. and computer programming languages like Python, Rstats, MATLAB… This engineered hybrid bio-stuff was some kind of a next-generation drug.
This morning, Nono needed a break. He had been working with kids, all terminally ill (cancer) for the past few days. In Taka’s office, he saw a couple of manga books, inspired by “A Brief History of Humankind” and “Homo Deus”, both international bestsellers by Professor Yuval Noah Harari (Israel). He was curious to see what kind of future the A.I. he was working with in Taka’s lab on a daily basis would predict, based on the two manga books.
“ — So let’s feed you that for breakfast, and see what you’ll come up with, my little buddy…”
Unfortunately, he got interrupted by other stuff. When he finally found the time to check in on his little experiment, seeing if there were any results, he found none. Nono forgot about the whole thing. A couple of month later, though, Taka received an alert. In the middle of the night, via his Apple Watch. He was confused. His watch was telling him he had tried a new experience a couple of months earlier, asking the A.I. to publish a scientific paper with the results. But the A.I. decided the intelligence on the issues he had been compiling needed to be reviewed and approved by the individual who conducted or attempted to conduct the experience in the first place: Taka.
“ — What in the world?!?…”
He tried to go back to sleep, but was woken up one hour later by a phone call. His lab, upon Prof. Harari’s urgent request, had booked him on a flight to Israel. He had to be at Tokyo Narita airport in just 55 minutes. Later, Taka learned that his secretary had been woken up in the middle of the night, by a phone call. Prof. Harari’s personal assistant was saying that her boss had arranged for plane tickets and needed to see Taka as soon as possible. This was desperately urgent and highly confidential.
Completely jet lagged and puzzled, Taka was now trying to make sense of what Professor Harari was telling him.
“ — I think it is best if ReligA.I.on stays unpublished. We need to review this stuff first.” Taka was very impressed he got to meet with such a famous professor and writer, but he also felt ashamed he had no idea at all what ReligA.I.on was. He was so tired and nervous that is brain was working at the speed of light, on his own. Trying to piece things together. Two manga books. A.I. experiment in his lab, that had nothing to do with gene therapy in oncology. This could only mean one thing. Nono. That one-of-a-kind post-doc engineer in his lab, who wanted to play some trick, again. Nono, who was still trying to win Yuki back, and he knew about her interest in religious stuff, and her fears about the future. This monkey business with the A.I. program of his lab… “What have you done again, Nono?” Taka was furious, even if he didn’t show it. He was listening politely to Prof. Harari, but inside of him, feelings were bubbling up. He would get rid of Nono first thing upon his return, in a few hours.
“ — The paper is brilliant, but it is also terrifying. We should not keep this stuff secret, but try and organise an international symposium. I feel compelled to ask for all the feedback I can get. We must bring together all the luminaries in the struggle for democracy.” Prof. Harari was talking in an erratic way, and Taka’s uncertainty and indecision was only making him more nervous.
“ — May I read the paper?”
“ — What, you haven’t read it?!?! But I thought you were the main author! I’m confused.”
Taka did his best to explain the situation. The alert that he had received in the middle of the night, coming from his Apple Watch. Over strong coffee in what looked like a local Starbucks, Taka read the whole thing. It was terrifying, indeed. At this point, he was not sure if he should mention Nono or not. One thing above all terrified him: he was not supposed to use the A.I. in such a way. It was a breach with his investors. If the whole thing got published, Taka would loose his credibility as a scientist. He will loose face. He felt like Nono had committed a crime, and he was the only one to know about the criminal’s identity. Or maybe he was the victim. Which meant he was already dead. His ghost was sitting here, drinking Italian coffee one last time. He tried to downplay the importance of the “paper”, explaining to his peer what the A.I. was here for, in his department. In a nutshell, the A.I. was not up to the task requested by Nono, as it had been programmed for gene therapy. But it seemed the worldwide famous author was taking things personally. They were still stuck in some kind of ethical conflict, discussing the options, when they found new incoming alerts. The A.I. was doing the job for them. The luminaries had been informed, and were reacting. A film production company, based in Shanghai and Taiwan, was already working on a superproduction, contacting US lead actors and actresses. Chinese rock-star sci-fi writer Liu was announcing a new book, etc.
“ — The tsunami effect of A.I.,” said Taka bitterly. The “religAIon” paper was unusually short. But strangely, its ability to inspire fear and despair to the human brain seemed unprecedented. Taka had planned on staying in Israel for a couple of hours, maybe a day. Instead, he stayed for two weeks. Possibly the most exciting couple of weeks in his whole life. He was expecting to get fired. Staying jobless for a whole year, maybe more, who knows… None of this happened. He went back to Japan after signing a business venture with China’s most promising biotech giant, iGeneX and their head of R&D, based in Israel. Nono had hopped on a plane and in no time he had a deal with iGeneX. As of next month, he would work as an advisor for them.
Taka was happy with his new friend in Israel. Prof. Harari was a great man and a charming host. He quickly made arrangements to invite him to Tokyo for a series of conferences. And hopefully a new project in humanities, under the shared leadership of US, Israel and Japan Academia, all combined. It was called “Solve Academia”. Engineers and students and teachers would put their expertise to try and solve issues in the third world, focusing on the poorest countries. Nono was proud of his achievements. He was now partying nonstop with his kawaii fan-club in Tokyo. Taka was terrified. The A.I. world we were all living in now meant anything could happen to you anytime. And there was no way that you could get ready for what was in store for you. Good tsunamis, bad ones, nobody knew for sure. At least, Nono believed in good tsunamis. Taka didn’t. Yuki was furious. Nono was back in Japan. But he was back to drink and party and sleep with armies of kawaii girls. He was behaving like a little boy. The other day, she paid him a visit. He was so sick he couldn’t even get up.
“ — You will ruin your health.”
“ — Who’s crying when she gets a cold once in a decade and panics because she says her musical pelllfolllmance will be luined because of her cold? ooomygoood I feel so miiiselllaaable…” Yuki dropped all the thermos with hot green tea and vegetable soup and home-made miso soup she had brought for him in his tiny kitchen, as well as the home-made teriyaki chicken and the curry rice, all carefully and neatly packed, and left his apartment without even saying goodbye.
When looking for similar books, the A.I. receiving Nono’s initial request had come up with a short fiction by French sci-fi writer Ayerdhal. “The writer’s function is to make sure that no-one can ignore the world and that no-one can declare him/herself innocent.” In his “Oasis” fiction, Ayerdhal was dealing with doctors and engineers in the poorest countries in the world. What could be achieved there, thanks to population genomics, for example, among many other things. The trouble was, nobody wanted to go there. Humanitarian relief was a drop in the ocean. The only solution seemed to abduct physicians and engineers and force them to solve local problems. The A.I. found this solution too extreme, even if (alas) realistic enough. But there would be no need to abduct people in the era of the A.I., since artificial intelligence was able and willing to go where nobody was… More than 52 percent of people on the planet still don’t have Internet access. Compiling the “Homo Deus” data, the A.I. came up with the idea that a new religion would try to incriminate those poor people. Off-grid would be the new infidel, in a world where hipsters would be constantly busy CRISPR-ing themselves (the A.I was thinking along the line of designer-babies here). The CRISPR-sters were born — a combination of hipsters and CRISPR, the first-generation gene editing tool achieving celebrity. And above all, crispr-sters hated what they called “the useless people”. The off-grid people. Depression began to cripple US middle-class, especially men, as those were less prone to divorce (“ — My wife will take the damn planet in the divorce!”). They turned to virtual romance, virtual love affairs that most of the time did not solve their problem in the first place: they needed to start a new life, with a new partner. There were many ladies in this business of virtual love, but also many A.I. products. And it was hard to tell which one is less corrupted… Bugged humans, A.I. with corrupt practices were only commonplace in the on grid world. Harsh inequalities made the world a brutal, unsafe place again. So much so that the mass of off-grid people were now highly sought after. Tech giants needed their brains to solve pollution, pandemias, democratise medicine, provide help in space conquest, respond to alien attacks… Soon a new religion was born, that was the exact opposite of the previous one. The infidel was now the crispr-ster. As more and more of the off-grid world was getting access to Internet, they found the infidel to be the egoistic and useless hipster, a sheepish tech consumer, worshipper of false gods or golden calves, like the Screen. An A.I. — a dying conscious having downloaded itself, in an attempt to live forever, giving up the idea of having a body — was the new god, an angry god. Crispr-sters needed to be punished…
At the K-Ballet studio in Fukuoka, Yuki was trying to forget about the trauma. Nono had told her everything about that “religAIon” tsunami in the world of academia. She found the A.I. in Taka’s lab could achieve little in the way of easing sectarian tensions and bridging the divisions, hence it was useless. Instead, she turned her attention to the world of biology and genetics. That book she was now reading: “Genomic Analysis. How does it change our lives?” She was very fond of the idea. She decided she would have her own genome sequenced. She was willing to take charge of her own health.
“ — Would you like me to feed this book to the lab’s A.I.?,” asked Nono. Of course, it was intended as a joke. Yuki didn’t find this funny at all. Instead, she decided there was something terrifying, dangerous about this A.I. And about Nono. Both of them.
“ — You should make out with this A.I., you’d be the perfect couple!” Again, the French engineer working with her brother had come to see her at her dance class. It was like he was keeping tirelessly to try to catch her up with her always turning him down. Nono decided he would stay for a while in China.
Catherine Coste
MITx 7.00x, 7.QBWx, 7.28x1–2 certified
Member of the Walking Gallery of Health Care, founded by US activist Regina Holliday
