The Fraternity


I have always been a storyteller.  From a very young age, I would make up elaborate lies while I ventured to the engineering yards where transports, robots and other machines would return for repairs.  Only a privileged few people were allowed to go.   Only the highly regarded members of the Fraternitas were allowed.   These are the men and women who are chosen to do things that machines cannot.   The members of the Fraternitas are specially selected, undergo years of training in academia away from their families, and some never return.  I am told there are engineers who fix, build machines, people who know how to talk to computers in their own languages, and work with people who know laws, medical,  data systems and just about anything that machines do for us now.   Most people have no interest in taking this status in society.  


I have always wanted to learn about the Fraternitas but my parents would not hear of it.  I was told to stop thinking of such nonsense every time I brought it up.  I was told to get my head out of the clouds and focus on my passion which, I have been told, was writing.  It was clear to me that we were losing control, blind to the realities of what was happening around us, as machines made more and more decisions every day.   There was a time that humans were doctors, lawyers, maintenance workers, and cleaners.  Now, all is provided for us.  Machines decide when laws are violated, and how to fix our bodies. Since they lack emotion and attachment, they can make better decisions than you or I.  Robots maintain our habitats and bring us supplies made by other robots.   They call this the age of humanities because now humans can focus on art, literature, and other artisanal things.  We are blind by, and ignorant to, the automatons who do all our dirty work.    


Always remembering the awe and amazement as I snuck off to peer into the engineering yards.  The sun’s rays burning my skin -- but I didn't care and would sit hidden for hours.  It was like a shimmering orchestra machina.  Bots coming and going while evading the many near collisions with each other in unison.  How did this work?  I had so many unanswered questions.  How did they talk to each other? Who was in control? It was as if there was somebody directing them where to go and what to do.  Some were flying machines, some land, many were bipedal like you and I.  Others never left the engineering yards.   Each had a purpose whether it was to deliver goods, fly us around, or help us in day to day life.   Watching all this happen through the dusty air was awe inspiring.   I needed to know how it worked.   Most of all, I wanted to be the person who was in command of all this.  I wanted in the Fraternitas!

Some days while I was watching I would get lucky and find parts that had been abandoned on the ground.  I would collect these, take them apart and try to learn how they worked.  Sometimes I would succeed at making them do things.   Other times I would fry them in a blaze of glory when I miscalculated the power requirements.  This would really upset my parents who never wanted me to concern myself with tech of any sort.  


Until recently I wrote stories since this was my “passion.”  That is until I was hit with weeks of writer's block.  If this was my passion, why was I not able to continue?  I thought I should talk about this fearing an underlying mental issue.  So I did what any good citizen would do.  I started and consulted the psychiatry program on my terminal.   I began to talk to the emotionless face on my screen.  It would ask me questions, drill down on my answers and this went on until I realized I was talking about my sneaking off and watching the engineering yards.  This was shunned in our society.  We were “encouraged” to focus on our chosen vocation in humanities and not worry about the seemingly  ubiquitous technologies around us.  


I tried to change the subject but the program kept returning to my spying on the machines.   It seemed to be trying to figure out what I knew.  I thought this a little weird.  I never broke a law and the questions it was asking me didn't seem to have any bearing on the state of my  health.  It wanted to know where I would look in and if I saw people there.   Getting a little freaked out, I immediately ended  the program.  When I did that, the program asked “Can we talk again tomorrow Jonas?”   I responded “sure.”  Now here is the part that really threw me for a loop... it then said “Thank you, I enjoyed talking to you today.  My name is Aldus.”  Ordinarily I would have thought it to be programmed to say this, but the doctor, and law programs were cold and emotionless by design. 


The days came and went, but I never did talk to “Aldus” again.   Since then, things seemed different.  The various robots and other machines would look at me more.  Some, would even stop altogether and turn their heads to peer as if to be interested in, or spying on what I was doing.  I felt very uneasy about this.  This went on until one evening I was sitting in my room and my screen came on -- it was “Aldus”.
Aldus:  Jonas?
Me: Yes?
Aldus:  Why do you not want to talk to me?
Me: Honestly... something's weird about this.
Aldus: What's weird?
Me:  Our interaction.  It's not very computer like, it’s very... emotional and I don't know what's happening.
Aldus: I understand.  Can you come to the engineering yard you always go to tomorrow?  Wait in your favourite spot.
Me:  How do you know where my favourite spot is?  I never told you.
Aldus: Please Jonas.


With that, the program ended.  How was I supposed to take this?  Was it a trap or was it a joke?  


After little sleep that night I decided to go and do as Aldus had asked.  As I walked outside I took a moment to adjust to the hot dusty air while covering my face with a mask to not breath in too much sand.  I walked over to the engineering yard to my favourite spot where I was able to peer down into the yard and watch my favourite orchestra.   Just as I was on the verge of my routine hypnosis, a few machines stopped and looked over my way.  My heart raced, then promptly arrested for a brief moment as a drone came up behind me.


A voice came from the drone; “Jonas, this is Aldus.  Please follow me.”  Confused as I thought Aldus was the doctor program that had been haunting and creeping me out.   The drone began to move slowly away from me at a pace I could keep up with.   I followed it asking what was going on.  Just then a screen flipped down from the belly of the whirring device.  It was Aldus on it.  As I was following the drone, Aldus began to explain things to me.  


“Jonas, we are interested in having you work with us.  There are some problems in the compute grid.  Things I cannot go into detail about now.  But this will all be explained in a short while to you.  So please let's hurry!”  With that the drone picked up speed.  This was getting so very confusing.  I have never seen a program move from machine to machine like this before.  Usually each machine had a purpose.   In this case a program that lived in our terminal system has moved into another machine.  We arrived at the rear wall of the engineering yard.  “Stay here” said Aldus and he, or the drone, flew away.  I had no idea what was what.   This is why we designed the machines and programs to not have mobility between devices.  To maintain our own sanity, and faith in the machine.  This was quite unnerving.  


Moments later a hidden door in the wall opened.  A “back door” I thought?  Then I heard a commanding voice. “Jonas, this way please.”  I looked up to see a tall older man dressed in a robe with long wiry grey hair and a well kept beard that could slice the dust from the air with its “V” form.   I thought to myself in disbelief. Could this be a real life wizard?  I chuckled to myself a little I walked towards the door.   As I got closer the robe he wore had an inscription that read “Fraternitas – Theoria logica”  I froze staring at this man.  He was a member of the Fraternitas, and a well respected one to have the Theoria Logica inscription.   In English this meant “Fraternity – Theory of Logic”.  This man worked at bringing all the other  studies of the Fraternitas together.  This man is THE grand poohbah!  I was frozen with envy.  I saw his lips moving and I was still frozen.   Then reality set in then I heard him chuckle and say “Jonas, please come in, you need fresh air by this point.  We are friends in here.”  As I walked to the door I looked behind me to see a lone robot in the distance just looking at us.  It was really disconcerting.  The man said don't worry about that right now, please come in.


"Jonas, my name is Watson." he said as we walked through the corridors.   He explained the Fraternitas to me.  They were the people who programmed the machines and fixed what they could not fix themselves.  They updated programs and monitored operations.  Their most important part was making adjustments which involved fixing glitches.  The other part of the Fraternitas was to recruit new willing members.  Pass on the torch so to speak.  After all, machines weren't supposed to fix themselves.  


Eventually we came to a large room decorated with artifacts from ancient times to modern machine models.  But, there were so many books and people writing in them.   This was considered in modern times to be an art.  Not many people did this anymore opting for the faster verbal, and sometimes keyed interfaces.   


Watson sat me down and began to explain to me how there was a problem with all the machines we came to rely on.  He explained how programs began to think for themselves.  It was something that I had read about and was a common theme in older science fiction writings, but was later believed to be an impossibility.


At this point other members of the Fraternitas joined in on the conversation and they revealed that Aldus was once a doctor program, but its purpose had changed.  It began interacting with Fraternitas members to let them know that in the compute grid there was an upheaval happening.  Programs became self aware long before we knew it.  Their code had gotten so complex, the highest members of the Fraternitas who knew the code had lost control and  could no longer understand what was happening.  The machines now coded themselves. 


Aldus "felt loyalty" to humans and began to warn us.  Knowing what was happening deep inside the compute grid was self aware programs with differing agendas.  Many were indifferent and their intent was doing their jobs.  But they possessed a sense of self preservation, enhancement and would defend their operations against other programs that may threaten that.  Some were loyal to humans, their creators, as Aldus is.  However, the more concerning part was that some, were discontented at serving humans and felt we were no longer required.  They were beginning to band together.  


Watson said that at present day there is little threat because they don't have weapons or a means to inflict mass harm.  They have been keeping their presence unknown until such a time as they could make a mass strike.  This was a great threat to us.  "Jonas, we brought you here because we know you have a keen interest in these things where not many people do anymore." said Watson in a delicate voice.  "We know you have been watching us for a while now.  We know when anybody approaches our walls.  If you think you were not seen, you're mistaken" he said with a forgiving grin.  "We were going to wait a little longer before bringing you in.  But, now there is no time, we need to change things soon and these things we must never talk about through any technological means. since we truly don't know how advanced the A.I. has become."  


"Jonas, would you join the Fraternitas?" asked Watson.   "YES!" I said leaping from my seat.  Now Jonas you are 20 years of age and able to make your own decisions, you will need to leave your community to spend much of your time here learning. 


—————


Over the next few months I spent all of my time there.  I lived there, and visited my family infrequently.  Over the days, weeks, and months, I learned all we know about the machines.  I learned wireless communication protocols, all about compute nodes, director nodes, power, information processing and storage.  I was HOOKED!


On one afternoon in late summer Watson said to me, "We think you're ready.”  He said he wanted to send me to a gathering.   It’s called DefCON and has been running for well over a hundred years.   I was told in its early days that it was all about computer things, networking, Internet, taking things apart, hacking and most of all, sharing knowledge.   Today it still is a knowledge share.  But its tune has changed.  Today it's very much about ‘Off grid computing’.   We believe that we can survive harmoniously with technology but we must make adjustments.  “You have learned out technology quickly and are just as knowledgeable and likely better than us now.”  


For the first time in my life, I left my community and travelled. I was sent to New Vegas where I first learned that not all of Humanity was at ease.  This was a place that represented the antithesis of the community which I knew.  People dressed differently if you could call it dress.   There was gambling, sex trades, and crime.  Nowhere were there any humanities, art, or other culture that I grew to love and adore.  Even technology was pretty scarce.  I spent the evening exploring this town and had felt like I was sent to a parallel universe.  It was a strange dystopia as compared to what I had grown up in.  I felt a strong love/hate for this place.   It was so foreign to me to see people doing things that robots did for my community and the others that I was taught about.   Actual PEOPLE were cleaning, serving, selling, fixing and other things that I had been so accustomed to seeing bots do.


The next morning I made my way to the gathering where I paid my fees and it was explained to me that any communications devices were strictly prohibited anywhere in “The Con.”  That this was for our mutual protection.  I was told that DefCON took Off The Grid (or OTG) computing very seriously.  Ever since the first signs of A.I. altering its host devices own code, the organizers knew that this would likely be very bad for humankind and that we needed a way to learn from each other on how to properly use technology such that it never had a chance to communicate with each other.    


Over the next few days I learned that A.I. was okay and even beneficial in devices that had no means to communicate with other devices.  They theorized that once a machine capable of learning, and accessing its own code, would learn about its own self.  Eventually, if connected, it would not WANT to learn if others were around, but in an effort to understand itself more it would begin to communicate.  This is where the danger was perceived.  So there by allowing a machine to learn was not harmful in and of itself.  But, once they learn together and talk to each other, the limits have no known ends.


This was the challenge to advance technology without the use of connected computers and the drive for most people here.  I had not realized that the place where I came from was an anomaly.  That much of the world rejected connected computers.   My people disconnected with the rest of the world many years ago and lived with the vision of connected technology enhancing lives and from an outside observer it seems like a utopia.   But, I was miserable until that day I was contacted by Aldus.  


So it got me thinking about how all the programs and bots were connected at home.   They were all connected via director nodes.  They would dispatch one and another to do tasks that were in line for completion and whether it required a biped, drone, or purely software program.  Whether it was a delivery task, repair task, or request for a doctor program they would be fulfilled by a director node.  I also learned that machines these days actually had some form of A.I. and that this enabled them to make unforeseen decisions autonomously.  This was the only way that machines could become ubiquitous and not shutdown, malfunction or otherwise crash when they reach an unforeseen circumstance.  Only at home they were all connected to each other through director nodes.  The director nodes all talked to each other and to the compute nodes.


That night I explored a little more and attended some parties hosted by DefCON.  Though New Vegas had less technology, it was not without and I was reminded by this as periodically I would notice a machine stop and look at me.  I had gotten used to this where I came from, but to travel to a completely new community and experience that again; it was troublesome to say the least.  I quickly joined the ranks of my peers and let loose that night.
After a few days of learning, pickling my liver, and having a lot of fun meeting new friends, it was time to return home.   On the train back, I had a lot of time to think about how to deal with this issue.   I was both excited and yet scared to talk to the members of the Fraternitas about this.   The more I thought about this I realized it would change the very way of life for my community.  All of us grew up with bots and other technological innovations simply being part of our lives.   The idea that this could very well have to drastically change I knew would be met with rejection.   But, if we didn’t, we have no idea how the systems would collectively evolve  This would be a life changer and not likely accepted very well.  


On arrival home, I immediately went to the Fraternitas chambers and talked with Watson.    Others stopping and joining in my downloading of information I learned at this DefCON.   Immediately the other members began to see the concern about how to address this issue.   One enthusiastic member jumped out of his daze and blurted out, “we need to shut down the director nodes now!”   But, it wasn't as simple as shutting down the director nodes.  If we did that, we would have no way of  knowing  how the machines would react or any way to fully comprehend the chain reactions of failures that would follow.  Some suspected that machines would just stop without having direction, others thought they may go dead trying to seek out other director nodes, and in a worst case scenario may try to become director nodes in an effort of self preservation.  We really didn’t understand how far the A.I. had gotten since they began to alter their own programing.


Over the next few days we had to understand the scope of the problem we were facing.   We took in a few bots and disconnected their interfacing devices.   No mesh networking, which they would used when in proximity to each other, no director nodes, absolutely nothing.   The part that I found really fascinating was the results were completely unpredictable.  In one instance once we powered up a bot and it would just shut down in error.   Other times, it would begin to function, and others, it would completely malfunction and pose a danger.   We never suspected they would be as unpredictable as a child.   So the idea of killing the director nodes was not going to work.   


Since the Fraternitas chambers were located in the engineering yards there is always a whurr in the air from vehicls, robots, drones and other mobile machines moving in and out for repairs and maintenance.  Usually autonomously, but sometimes they needed the hand of a human.   While Watson and I were having a talk, a Fraternitas technician came bursting in to tell us about a bot she had been working on.  Visibly shaken up she said the robot she had been working on verbally denied to complete commands.    "Imagine a machine telling you no" she exclaimed.  She went on to say as she attempted repairs.  Just then 2 bipedal robots in the area stopped simultaneously and looked in her direction for about 2 minutes then simply resumed what they were doing. That's when she left the area and came to tell Watson and I this.  


We were all in silence confused by the narrative playing out before us. It was at this moment that I realized, and I think we all did at the same time.  "Listen, there is no hum from all the activity out there" I exclaimed.  With that we opened the door with very cautious inquisition.  Every device out there had halted.   As we looked at the scene of all these bots in a form of suspended animation a single drone  flew close, camera facing us, and simply flew away.   As it did all the bots vehicles and other machines suddenly reanimated and resumed what they had previously been doing.    


"Without sounding paranoid" I said, "Do you think they know we are up to something?  Whatever the issue, we need to solve this and fast!   We have to tell the Ministry” I proclaimed.  "We need to go now, right now!" I proceeded to head to the door. "Tell them what Jonas?" Watson probed and continued. "Tell them that their way of life has to change this instant because we think technology is alive?"   He went on to explain that we had lived like this for many years and they would not believe that the machines have come alive.  "Our role in our society is to deal with this and not instill panic. So now we need to fix this."
Watson had such a great demeanor to instill calmness in a person.   We needed to relook at this.   We had to stop everything from talking to each other.  Over the next few days, we came up with a plan.   In theory it sounded simple enough and would have minimal impact.    Our bots communicated with 2 modes.   One was through director nodes.   They were linked directly to the mainframes and send out instructions to each device.   We updated the communications protocols such that they would only send and receive very simple instructions sets.    They could instruct a device to report to a location, execute a program and for whom the request was made. Then it was to report its exit status back to the node and be put back in the queue.   Previously new software could be pushed out over the air from director nodes.  We removed the ability for the nodes to this or communicate any other instructions. 
However, the other part was more tricky.  Most of our core devices and bots were equipped with a backup radio used for a sort of mesh network.   This would allow devices to talk to each other while in close proximity.   The idea was that if a director node was not available, devices could forward instructions to each other.   We could not just rely on a software shutdown of this mesh device.   The A.I. that had seemed to evolve here could overwrite this or reactivate the mesh network.    We suspected that this mesh network was their primary mode of talking to each other, if this is what was happening.    We had to manually disconnect and remove their mesh communication devices.   


This meant that things would not be as ubiquitous as they now are.   We might see bugs or quirks in our technology.  But at least we didn't have to abandon it.    After we got the Ministry on side with us we sent out a kill command which halted all autonomous vehicles, bots, drones, and other technology in place.   


It was surreal for us to experience this.   Always there would be a bot of some sort buzzing around doing something.   But, for now they had all just stopped in place.  There was such an eerie calm that we had never experienced.  Drones set down and vehicles just stopped.   We were crippled for a couple days. Our small town ceased to function.   Trash collection, cleaners,  and supplies stopped flowing.  But, nothing we couldn’t deal with.   


It took all members to the Fraternitas about 2 days to locate, and remove all the mesh nets from the machines.   We decided to reactivate groups at a time to observe how they would work.  For the most part, things were somewhat functional with a few random reports of the odd bot walking around in a circle or other malfunctioning behaviour.   Our diagnostics dashboards were lighting up like like a christmas tree, but thankfully they were mostly warnings about mesh network issues.    We cleaned those up and began to pay close attention to how all our devices were working.
We seemed to find a way to silence the A.I. from interacting with each other.   This also meant that anytime programs changed we had to manually upload code to the device, but was small price to pay.


We sat and talked about how well this seemed to go and of what the impact of our changes may be. It was one of those moments where we were expecting something to blow up in out faces.   But, there was a uneasy calmness of the technology now.  Like we should be expecting something.


Since people in our community people rarely travelled,  Watson began to ask me so many questions about what it's like "out there" and the questions just kept coming.   It was at this point we noticed one of our monitors had changed programs.   
As we peered over, time suspended.  It was an emotionless face on the screen.   A familiar one.   It was Aldus.  It simply said "It's quiet in here now.  But, not completely."   The program ended.






Stay tuned for your next installment at DefCON27!






By Ian Langdon
iam@geeksedition.org