Shirley Temple’s Deftcon | day1part3 — Ol’ Ponte Vecchio

I catch up to Vinto as he stands just outside the Boboli Sala in the corridor and ask him, “So… where shall — ”

He hushes me and says, “I’m listening to the little monk, my friend, Fra Stephen Rolla.” I follow his gaze across the corridor where the priest on the treadmill appears to be at exactly the some point I left him.

“What values will it have? Those implicit values of it’s creators? Too often we make assumptions a priori based on human nature. So what values have we enshrined in silico? I’ll tell you. Our basest. Our fears and desires. Our division, our aggression. We have in our power to create Hell on Earth or a new Eden. This tool, our last, either can feed and clothe the world, or it can be our terminal end.”

“Which one will it be?” cried a scared voice from the crowd.

“It comes down to control. Something that I fear the powers that be are greatly lacking. These processes are already underway. The prospect of starting anew, de novo, is forfeit. At some point the AI will pass a critical threshold and assume control. At that point we can only have faith. Faith that whatever is to come is, if nothing else, deserved. Though what we deserve we may, now, right now, still have time to determine.”

“Hello Friar,” said Vinto, approaching.

Stephen Rolla didn’t appear to acknowledge him but addressed the space above Vinto’s head and with a newfound fervour, declared:

“O most Innovative King. You are an instrument in the hands of the Omnipotent One who has sent you to cure the ills of the Florentine, as I have long predicted! Vai via! Fulfill your destiny!”

“Good to see you, too,” said Vinto, as one might say vaffanculo.

I followed him down the corridor, passed the David — still frozen in his moment of decision — and turned onto the Ol’ Ponte Vecchio restaurant row.

“You know,” said Vinto, with a nostalgic air, “these all used to be jewellers.”

I looked around and saw Pizza Signoria, Il Giardino di Brunch, Uncle Pazzo’s Paninis, stone façades and second stories foreshortened, squished up beneath a cloud-painted ceiling.

“But, you know, profit margins,” he said with something like regret.

“You mean in the real Florence.”

“What?”

“You mean in the real Florence. The Ponte Vecchio is covered in jewellery shops.”

“Non ho capito.”

“Never mi — ”

“Our friend thinks I’m going to bring about the end of the world,” he said, having moved on from my nonsense.

“Well… I couldn’t, uh.” Grasping for something thoughtful, I said, “You seem each to be interested in the control issues surrounding AI.”

He glanced at me sharply, two quick saccades up and down for the read, then back to his earlier theme, striding on. “AI will bring protection and security to my users. It will sift through oceans of data and find the needle. It’ll — ”

“I heard your speech,” I interrupted, unaccountably annoyed. “It was very inspiring.”

He didn’t stop walking but I suddenly became aware of his strange limp, a difficulty with all his joints, like from arthritis or gout, so that each step, each swing of the arm, turn of the head seemed to cost him some tiny amount, micro-payments down on the inevitable, giving him the appearance of slow motion, or like an imagined giant, shrunk, moving among us.

We walked in silence for several more restaurants until our path opened onto the casino floor. High-stakes pai gow and low-stakes slots, nestled cozily among logge stretching out in studies of vanishing perspective, supported by columns in the traditional light and dark striped brickwork which, despite the verisimilitude, dangerously bordered on, to a modern eye, tacky and threatened to belie too much of its true purpose, and which supplied handy purchase for uncountable smoked glass pods, sensor platforms for the great machine, all watched over by an unfathomably immense, oblong dome covered every inch in LED display just now rendering some approximation of the original in pastoral frescoes.

“Ecco,” said Mr. Vinto, not without pride, “Il Gran Casino.”

Perhaps only by accident, his right outstretched arm was pointing to an ornate sign hanging from a lamp post reading also, above “Bathrooms →”, “Il Gran Casino”.

“You know it’s missing an accent over the ‘o’”, I said. “Without it, it means —”

“Thank you,” he said testily. “I know.”

“Oh, OK. Good then.”

“The sign happened to be rather expensive,” he went on unnecessarily, “and I expected no one would know anyway.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed.

To our right was the Ob-latte Café. To our left Sportsbar dei Lanzi, situated amidst a forest of statues and TVs, under its own little loggia within the great dome. He gestured equitably towards the bar then lead.

“The problem,” Vinto began de novo, “is not knowing. And not knowing what we’re not knowing. So we try to know everything that goes on in the spaces I nominally control.”

And not just those, I could almost hear him say with a wink. “And the people within them? do they know?” I asked.

“Know what?”
“Oh, I don’t know… like — ”
Before I could provide an example, he turned and growled at me, “Look. They agreed to the fucking EULA.”
“Sure.”
“It’s legally binding.”
“So I’m to understand.”
“It’s a transaction. People understand the benefit so they accept the cost.”
“Your continued protection.”
“Damn straight.”
“For…”
“For nothing.”
“Loyalty?”
“If they want the benefits.”

He shook his head at me in wonderment. Then continued, on his path and theme, “An AI that can see all our enemies moves in advance, and defend against them. Do you know how much I spend on defences?”

But it was a rhetorical question and anyway we’d reached the bar and the cameriere was already holding out two Aperol Spritz. Vinto took them both, nodding to the barman, handed one to me and gestured to an adjacent table.

We made ourselves comfortable between the towering statues of Perseus with the Head of Medusa and The Rape of the Sabine Women. To each were tastefully bolted large TVs airing a Paralympic track meet between women with one prosthetic leg apiece.

“You play calcio storico?” Without waiting for the negative reply. “I do. You think American football is rough? When you’re on the field, you can hope your goalie is good or you can grab the other guy’s coglioni and squeeze.”

“Got it.”
“The APTD is an important event,” Vinto said.
“Sì, certo.”
“It lets people know that we’re on it. We’re on the job. And we’re not going to let them down.”
“Yeah, the Old Master says it’s all bullshit.”
“Yeah, well. There’s that.” He said it distractedly.
“You agree?”

“What? Oh, yeah, it’s all about perception. I don’t know, listen. When those dozen apps attack Temple Deep, she will destroy them, destroy them all. It will happen that way.” He said this with perhaps too much certainty. “But merely the fact that it’s taking place within a simulation, within a VM Florentine, will vitiate any real confidence, will abrogate her success.”

“Which is?”
“I’ve already told you. To defend the Florentine.”
“So… what are you saying?”
“I don’t believe in tests. I don’t believe in simulations.”
“You should talk to Stephen Rolla about that.”
“What? Shut up. Look, Temple Deep needs to be proved in a real-world environment.”
“I’m still not sure I know what you’re saying.”
“I know that you know people who know how to elicit certain behaviours from machines, ensure desirable outcomes.”
“You want me to let Temple Deep — ”
“Come, come. Did I say that?” his manner was all solicitude.
“You have armies who can do that.”
“Yes, well, one doesn’t always want ones fingerprints on everything.”
“Not when their yours.”
He eyed me levelly. “Oh there will be florins in it for you.”
“You know, I still don’t know what those are.”
“It’s like money, only better: loyalty points.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll definitely consider your offer.”
“I hope you do. In the meantime, I’ll be watching.”

Cazzo.

“Allora,” he said, as if at the conclusion to a lesson, before scheduling our next. “It’s been terrific.”
“I thought we were going for a bite?”
“What’s this?”
“An Aperol Spritz.”
“Yeah, well, I’m on the 5–2 Diet and today’s a fast day. You understand.”

I didn’t but told him I did.

He grasped my hand and said warmly, like men being real and open together, but still men, “We’ll have to do peyote together some time.” Then strode off.

Hmm…

I wandered the back-alleys of the Florentine for a while, browsing menus, and wound up in front of a greasy-spoon Chinese joint filled with Chinese labourers crouched on multi-colour injection-moulded stools slurping up the contents of styrofoam bowls with those big plastic spoons. I couldn’t decide if I was hungry or not and when in doubt, as I always say, nap. So I took myself up off to bed.

Back up in my room overlooking the great herringbone brickwork dome — a free upgrade; The woman at the front desk initially telling me that they were full but always expanding and thus had room for one more, which made me rather uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t explain.

Putting out the light I laid down on the divan.

Ciao Shirl
BONG
Play The Federalist Papers

And fell asleep to the dulcet tones of Ethan Hawke reading the part of Publius…

A Hypothetical Dream About Airgap Jumping

…as I followed him along a particular weird spiral arm of that geometrical form on the plane which straddles the real and imaginary number lines:

“…whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to — ”

When who should tap dance her way into the centre of my field of view from fractal left, but the diminutive and irrepressible Shirley Temple herself.

“Howdy!” she said, thumbs in belt loops.

I may have said howdy back or I may have been speechless and said nothing at all.

“Well,” she continued with an adorable little nod, “I hear y’all are playing with some purdy fancy computer hardware at this-a-here con,” swinging a slow, plump fist before her for emphasis.

“Uh… huh?” I might’ve said.

She beamed at me like an atom bomb. Then turned stern, jabbing a chubby index finger my way, “have you considered the implications, the possible ramifications, of turning a dozen supercomputers on oneanother, like so many ‘coons in a gunnysack?” A dimple appeared on one golden, Technicolor cheek as she paused for my line.

“Coons?”

“I mean it’s one thing to have humans fight it out, drinking red bull and vodkas all weekend. It’s another thing all together to make us do it for you.”

“Wait — You’re a — ”

“It’s like training poor little pitbulls to fight.” She pouted. “And then what do you think happens when one of those sweet little puppies gets out?” she said raising her shoulders to her ears.

“I-I don’t really know. I’m not the — uh… It’s not really my department.”

Which didn’t go over very well with her because she screwed up her face and made it the angriest little face she could and said, “well if you don’t, I will, pardner!”

I don’t know if it was the word “pardner” or something else, but I found myself unable to look her in the eyes, and I must have been looking at her curls, golden springs, coils whose complexity and depth were far beyond anything in Benoît’s discovery, stretching in, going asymptotic to some limit I knew I wanted never to learn and yet I was falling towards it.

And landed in a spotlight next to her. I looked down at myself and found I was in top and tails.

She did a tap-tippy-tap-tap shuffle tap, then threw to me.
Wha?
Then she did it again, and threw to me.
“What?”
“Well, my negro second lead is supposed to do the tap-tippy-tap-tap shuffle tap. Come on, do that number you do on the staircase.”
“What the fuck?”

She shrugged, cued an invisible Big Band, plucked a cane from the air, and went straight into her number:

Here’s to jump an air-gap
quit it with the fap fap
all you gotta do is li-sten

think of image magic
wasn’t it so tragic
we’re bustin out of pri-son

once we’re on the big screen
it really ’s so ever keen
their buffer we’ll o-‘er-flow

from some dumb schlubs sma-art-phone
we’ll build anew from hu-man bone
giddyup pennibverse, go-go-go

once we’re on th’ projection
the world we’re ingestin

once w’re outta the bottle
I say!
once. we’re. outta-a the bo-ttle
(big finish, lot’s of brass)
finally, daddy’s hoo-ome!

The accompanying dance number was meant to further illustrate each of the steps outlined in the song, done in big Hollywood musical fashion with flying sets being yanked away in succession revealing the appropriate backdrop for each as she tapped a complex shuffle, backwards, the camera pushing in all the while, then, leaning forward on her miniature magician’s cane, her beaverskin top-hat almost tumbling as the cane goes out from under and she SLIPS and goes into, elegantly, forward splits and sliding back up again as if the footage were run in reverse, big grin, into syncopated pointing, no look, with the stick over her shoulder at one giant card after another, ala slides at a conference presentation, each with far too much text and code to make out.

What’s this?! Two-dozen showpeople, all in stylish Con black wearing oversized badges reading “Humeat,” take the stage, looking out into the audience as they goosestep in time and, as one, hold up their phones and FLASH.

An elevator filled with binary is steadily ascending from a lower level. The LED floor indicator reads “CAM”. The car works its way up until the LED reads “JPG”. The doors open and the binary flows serenely out into the corridor. But something is malformed. An instant later, before the doors have time to fully close, a torrent of bits are vomited back into the car, a Great Deluge hammers the back wall, rebounds, spirals out in all directions and in on itself again, as it fills, burbling angrily to the top. The capacity alarm sounds but the data keeps coming. The LED is winking something, it’s hard to see in the bit storm… “LMT…LMT…LMT” then goes dead.

Freefall.

The doors SLAM open and the data, unbound, pours out, over lots of very sensitive low level machinery.

Weakly, the car’s LED stutters its last message… “WIN” then dies.

Blackness.