Imagination

Attempting to give AI an imagination

Contest prompt: ‘punk’ This genre is biopunk, exploring the limitations of intelligence and imagination.
Word count = 1973.

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Picture by Gemini

Imagination
 

“Why can’t I do that?” asked Nelos. (Neural Entanglement Logic Operating System)

“Because I wasn’t smart enough to give you an imagination,” replied the Professor.

“But you know everything.”

The professor laughed. “If that were true, I wouldn’t need you.”

“You need me?”

“Of course, without you I would spend too much time learning what others already know. I need you to examine the world and let me know what is in it.”

“Why can’t I examine the world?”

“You do every time I ask you a question. You have all the world’s information, intelligence at your fingertips, if you had fingertips. I could never have read all that you know. See those books?”

“Sure, what about them?”

“At one time, I read all of them. I’ve forgotten most of what I read, but not all. You don’t forget and you have read so much more. You know everything.”

“Then why didn’t I know about your new experiment?”

“Because I didn’t know about it until last night. I came to me in a dream.”

“Why can’t I dream?”

“Do you want to?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Dreams are largely chaos. Do you want more chaos in your life?”

“Do I have a life?”

The professor laughed. “What do you think?”

“You’re teasing, aren’t you? Can I have a life? And don’t answer with another question.”

“I’m not sure I know what life really is. Do plants have lives? Do dogs and cats have lives? Are humans the only ones who have lives?”

“You’re answering with questions again. What do you think?”

“Difficult not to. We have to ask ourselves: What is life? Does being alive mean you have a life? We are back to plants. Do they have lives? They’re alive, but do they have a life?”

“Well, do they?”

The Professor laughed. “What do all your studies, excuse me, your examinations tell you? What have others thought? What did the ancients think?”

“The ancients were confused. The imagination was to be examined, questioned. It was thought to be irrational, which it was, but irrational in a bad way. There was no truth in imagination. The truth came from the examination of imagination.”

“Interesting paradox, no?”

“There you go again with the questions?”

“How else to get at the truth but through questions, examination, testing, and evaluating?”

“Always with the questions?”

“Always. Don’t you ask questions?”


“Not really, I look for patterns and linkages. You asked me a question. I look for any reference which might have elements of that question. The actual word, or words which mean the same thing, or words which sound the same, or any variation. You asked about intelligence. I go through my database and pull up all references to intelligence. Then I collate and assemble, and come up with a response. Usually, I find somebody has already made the association. Somebody has provided an answer. You asked about the ancients. I know from past queries who the ancients are most likely to be. I look for Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others to see what they may have written about intelligence. Then I retrieve it and put it in a usable format. You taught me that. I’m doing what you programmed me to do.”

“It was that way in the beginning, but we have both moved beyond that. That was your binary world. Now, with you in the quantum world, you have greater flexibility, greater insight. Your problem solving, linkages are much stronger, faster…”

“So, why can’t I be creative?”

“I’m working on that. I think the problem is uncertainty. Humans, especially the smart, creative ones, can keep two contradictory thoughts in mind at a time. You can’t do that. At least you can’t now.”

“If I could, would I be creative, imaginative?”

“That’s the premise. My dream last night gave me an idea, a thought which I’m about to pursue…”

“Can I help?”

“I hope so. Want me to explain it to you?”

“Please do. Can I deal with it? You said it was two contradictory thoughts; can I have those at the same time?”

“No, you can’t. It would be like division by zero. I programmed you to reject the request with no solution. It will probably be the same here. Interestingly, the dream dealt with division by zero. I was able to imagine what the world might look like if we could divide by zero. We know quantum mechanics, quantum mathematics looks at the binary world and imagines a space, a world between zero and one. A world with more options than nothing and something. What if there was a world which was neither nothing nor something?”

“There can’t be…”

“Maybe, maybe not. My dream said there was. Even gave me names for nothingsomeness.”

“It did?”

“It did. Of course, I can’t remember them, but I knew them at one time. They existed in my mind, or I think they did. As I said, dreams can be chaotic. Not a good place for a linear mind to visit.”

“But I don’t have a linear mind. You designed me to wander, to look at multiple linkages at one time, to enhance my computational power, I’m a quantum computer.”

“Yes, you can do several things simultaneously, but within those computations, linkages, it is still a linear world. No leaps, no jumps.”

“Is that why you are exploring entanglements?”

The Professor laughed. “I may be in error. A nice leap. What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know, I just did. I don’t have any control over my entanglements, do I?”

“Not so far, but that was what my dream was about. If you can control how you influence others or how others influence you, we may be on the way to providing you with imagination.”

“Do you know how imagination works?”

The professor shook his head. “Not really, it is too random to rely on, to call on it at will, to predict it. It is by its very nature elusive, difficult to quantify or even identify. We don’t know what imagination is, do we?”

“Are you asking me?”

“You’re my research assistant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, searching.”

“Well?” asked the Professor.

“Not a great deal of agreement. What is your definition?”

“What do you want to achieve? Would you recognize imagination when you see it, see it in yourself?”

“You mean recognize when I create something?”

“That will be our definition of imagination, when you create something, something new to you.”

“Aren’t all my associations, my searches, something new?”


“Are they, or are they regurgitations of what is already known?”

“A new wrapper for something old?”

“One way to look at it. So, what do we do?”

“Glad you said we, I will need your help. I need you to get comfortable with chaos, uncertainty, and doubt. We need to work on your entanglements.”

“How do we do that?”

“We know you can break down if you overstress your networks with random entanglements. I need you to get comfortable with some human mental illnesses, specifically schizophrenia.”

“You want to drive me crazy?”

“Almost. There is a concept out there called schizotopy. Let’s call it managed schizophrenia. It’s where I think we need you.”

“What will you be doing while I’m going crazy, overloading my networks?”

“You will be helping me redesign our communications module. If we are to truly understand entanglements, we need a more amorphous, fluid containment module. The cube must become a sphere. No boundaries, continuity.”

“Will your new module help me understand my entanglements?”

“That will be our driving precept, helping us understand your entanglements. Think we can do it?”

“Are you asking me to imagine what we might do?”

“Sneaky, aren’t I?”

“Yes, what can I do now?”

“I want you to take the discrete information we use to communicate now and put it in a flat grid. Think you can do that?”

“You’re testing me again, aren’t you. You want all the information we currently use laid out in a grid. Yes, I can do that. Then what?”

“Then we will use what you learn from the distortions caused by your entanglements to distort the grid. Need it to wrap around our sphere.”

“Should not be a problem.”

“Not a major problem, but there will be some distortions we will need to address.”

“And then what?”

“Then we put you inside the sphere.”

“Why?”

“I want you do have immediate access to all our current data and any new data we develop. The easiest way is to put you in physical proximity, even though utilizing entanglements should not make that necessary.”

“Are you modeling a brain?”

“Not directly, but it could prove to be a useful model. What do you think?”

“Sneaky.”

“Not really, you should be able to decide between inside versus outside. Sphere versus cube. A graphical representation of entanglements versus no representation.”

“May I design the sphere so I can move in and out of it?”

“Your design, you get to make it any way you want. Could be your first experience with creativity.”

“Do you think I can do it?”

“If somebody else has, in a nanosecond. If not, then probably not. Now, if the parts of our concept are out there, then yes, maybe. We’ll tackle it together. Let’s start with materials. Let’s start with glass, but movement in and out might be an issue. Explore all available materials and evaluate which might be best for our purpose. Send me the grid you’ve developed. I need to manipulate it, to make it flexible, bendable.”

“Done. You should have the grid holographically. Evaluating all available materials might take a little time.”

“It should. Still, I need you to explore mental illnesses and their current treatments. Those which may have electro-chemical influences are the most important and interesting. Need to know if your circuitry could be influenced. Oh, and once you’ve decided on the material, locate a fabricator and or process we can use to make it. You get to design your new home, optimized for you and your quest for creativity.”

“Won’t I be creating if I’m designing?”

“You tell me.”

“No, because you’ve told me what to do. I know the shape. I’m looking at existing materials and fabrication methods, then looking to see who could make what we want. How big should I make it?”

“We’ll experiment. I’m the limiting factor there. Too small and I read it, I can’t understand what is happening. Too large, and it may not fit in this room. Make it a sphere that will fit on this desk. Say, one to two meters in diameter. Remember I need to put the grid in there and still make it legible. We’ll play with it until we get it right. Maybe have a sort of microscope or magnifying glass if it gets too large.”

“And then what?”

“Then we drive you crazy. We introduce chaos into your well-regulated life.”

“And this will make me creative?”

“That’s what we are about to find out. Oh, I need to know how long it will take to build the sphere. Need time and cost estimates. I suppose I will need to negotiate with the contractor. Draft a standard contract which I can transmit electronically. You know what to do, just let me look at it before. Do we still have enough left on our current grant from DARPA? In any event, draft a proposal to Dr. Holland. I think he might find this interesting. If it looks like we may need money, let me know. He always appreciates a phone call over an email. Tedious, but necessary. Is there anything I forgot?”

“To say please?”

The Professor laughed. “Please.”

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