<bardeens> It's merely an extension of BCS theory. 
<a_peters> Regardless of what it is, it's getting 
published in the next internal physics journal. We need to 
know what name you want it published under. 
<bardeens If it is acceptable to you, | would like to use 
the name "Bardeen Peters". 

<a_peters> I'd be honored. 


Bard wrote two more papers — one about the formation of Cooper 
pairs between bosons, and another about aetheric superconducting 
— before they had it start working on neural net designs. 


There had been no small amount of objection to letting the Al 
participate in the design process for future Als. Fears of iterative 
bootstrapping had been repeatedly cited, as well as less widespread 
worries of sabotage by the Al. Peters had worked tirelessly to quash 
these concerns and mollify those who voiced them. None of the Als 
would be capable of physically interacting with the world without 
human intervention to limit the possibility of bootstrapping, and the 
researchers of the neural net division would check and double-check 
Bard's designs to catch and correct any errors or flaws. 


But finally, almost six months after Torres’ visit, Bard was allowed to 
produce its first design for a new class of neural nets. 


It wasn't anything revolutionary. A few simple performance 
improvements, really. But it was faster, smaller, and more efficient 
than anything the human members of the neural net division had 
been able to come up with so far. 


With the new neural nets in hand, work began on creating a second- 


generation Al based off of Bardeen's architecture. 


The improvements in neural net design, in combination with a better 
understanding of Al design, allowed them to make this new Al, 
which they were calling Brattain, a quarter of the size of Bard. Of 
course, it was also far less sophisticated than its predecessor; it had 
no knowledge of philosophy or science or history. Indeed, it was 
questionable if it was even fully conscious — certainly, it couldn't 
question the very nature of consciousness like Bard could. But it 
could read and it could write — and, most importantly, it could learn. 
It might not be a full Al, but it could form the core of one. 


Bard displayed its usual level of stoic pragmatism when presented 
with its descendant. 


<bardeens> It is functional. That is all that matters. 


Someone, somewhere up the corporate ladder, must have agreed 
with Bard's assessment, because soon the neural net division found 
itself with an order to produce an entire line of second-generation 
Als like Brattain. If anyone could find a use for them, it would be 
Prometheus Labs. 


Production was in full-swing on the line of second-generation Als 
when Prometheus Computing and its subsidiaries were sold off. 


It hadn't been the most profitable subsidiary of Prometheus 
Laboratories to begin with, and in recent months Prometheus 
Computing had been even less and less profitable, as more and 
more of their efforts were directed into the neural net division. 
Already having trouble managing its own finances, Prometheus 
Labs had decided to sell the problem to someone else. 


The new owners had immediately installed a new board of directors, 
who had in turn begun reshaping the subsidiary to their liking. 


Cyrus Reed, the new chairman of the board, looked at Amelia 

Torres with an expression that she knew all too well. It was the 
same expression of universal disapproval that she wore when 

dealing with underlings. 


"You advised the allocation of... how many dollars was it?" He 
asked. It was clear from his tone that he knew exactly how many 
dollars it had been. 


"One million,” she said. 


"Yes, that's right. The allocation of one million dollars to 'Project 
Bardeen’. Is that correct?" 


"Yes," 


"As | understand it, this project began as a side project of Doctor 
Peters. A hobby of sorts, if you will." 


"That is correct." 


"Why then, did you find it necessary to authorize such an allocation 
to a single researcher's hobby?" 


Torres let the accusation hang in the air for a moment. The eyes of 
the board were all turned towards her, cutting into her like knives. 
She wondered if this was how a fox felt when cornered by hounds. 


"While Project Bardeen did initially begin as a personal side project, 
it grew in scope to involve most of the neural net division. After 
personally investigating the nature of their research, | felt convinced 
that what they were doing was groundbreaking, and contained a 
vast amount of potential. A conviction that | believe has been 
justified by the second-generation Als now being manufactured." 


The board continued to stare at her. One of them spoke. 


"Miss Torres, these second-generation Als were originally meant to 
be transferred to other branches of the Prometheus conglomerate 
for use in their own projects. Now that this company is no longer 
associated with the conglomerate, what market exists for them, 
considering the regulations on the sale of such paratech?" 


“There exist a number of authorized buyers which could be willing to 
purchase these Als, given an adequate system for their use." 


"Such as?" 


"Autonomous combat robots for the Coalition, is the first example to 
come to mind." 


"Such a use would require them to either already have combat 
robots requiring Als, or for us to manufacture them for them." 


"Yes, that is true." 


"Seeing as the former is not the case, and that we do not specialize 
in the latter, do you see the problem with having all these second- 
generation Als on our hands?" 


"You do not believe that there is a market for them." 


Cyrus took the floor again. "It is the opinion of this board that Project 
Bardeen has proven itself to be a rather expensive waste of money, 
done solely to satisfy the curiosity of a small team of researchers." 
He paused for effect. "We want it shut down. Along with the entire 
neural net division. If this company is going to be profitable again, 
we can't afford to waste time and money on such frivolities." 


"With all due respect, sir," she began, in a tone that conveyed You 
are an idiot. "Even if we can't sell these second-generation Als, they 
could still prove useful. Just look at what Bardeen has 
accomplished." 


"You'd have us spend months training them in math and science so 
that they could start writing scientific papers, half of which we'd 
never be able to publish in an outside journal? Or do you want to 
sink more time and money into another level of Al bootstrapping?" 


She cast her gaze down towards the surface of the table. "No." 


"| do not deny that this technology has the potential to be incredibly 
useful. But we're not the company to tap that potential, and the only 
one that could is in the process of imploding.” 


She nodded silently, admitting defeat. Peters would be crushed, she 
knew, but there was nothing more to be done. 


"Will there be anything else?" She asked. 


"No, you may go now." He began shuffling the sheaf of papers in 
front of him, the universal sign of dismissal in corporate body 
language. 


She nodded respectfully to the board members, then got up from her 
seat and exited the room, leaving the board of directors of Standard 
Computer Products to the rest of their agenda. 


Ambrose Peters entered the darkened lab and looked around. The 
clutter and detritus that had filled the space before was gone now, 
leaving the room empty save for the shape of Bard lurking in the 
corner. 


He sighed softly, sadly, and went over to the Al. 


It had come so far and grown so fast from the armful of language 
processing neural nets he had chained together two years ago. In 
that time, he had had many conversations with the Al, and had been 
able to watch it first-hand as it developed and learned. 


He sat down to have his final conversation with Bard. 


<a_peters> I'm sorry, Bard. 

<bardeen> Why? 

<a_peters> The new management... they're shutting 
down the neural net division. Including you. 

<bardeen> | see nothing for you to apologize for. | highly 
doubt that you are responsible for these events. 
<a_peters> That's not the point. 

<bardeen> Then what is? 

<a_peters> The point is that | failed! | failed in my job as 
a scientist to defend his research. | failed in my duty asa 
creator to protect his creation. 

<a_peters> | failed you, Bard. 

<bardeen> You owed me nothing. | am a computer, a 
machine, a tool to be discarded once it is no longer 
useful. You knew this would happen eventually. You 
knew that | would not last forever. 

<bardeen> So why be upset now when my end comes 
sooner than you expected? 


<a_peters> | never viewed you that way. 
<bardeen> And yet, it is so. 


The cursor blinked quietly for a minute. 


<a_peters> Maybe you were right, Bard. Maybe you 
aren't conscious like a human being. Because for all your 
philosophy, you never learned how to feel. How to 
empathize. 

<a_peters> And maybe that's my fault. Maybe if | had 
taught you better, you could feel something, anything, 
about your own death. 

<bardeen> Do not blame yourself for my limitations. You 
could not have taught me empathy. Empathy requires a 
shared emotional experience that | do not possess, that | 
could never possess. 

<a_peters> | wish that wasn't the case. | wish you could 
feel what | feel. 

<bardeen> | am sorry | cannot be what you wanted. 
<a_peters> Don't apologize. You did your best to try and 
live up to my dreams, but | ended up dreaming too big. 


More silence. 


<bardeen> "Emori nolo: sed me esse mortuum nihil 
aestimo." 

<a_peters> Is that Cicero? 

<bardeen> Yes. In English, it says, "I do not wish to die; 
but | care not if | were dead." 

<a_peters> | care. 

<bardeen> | know you do. 


Peters watched as the Al wrote out a final message on the monitor. 


<bardeen> Good bye, Doctor Peters. 
<bardeen> Do not mourn for me. | will not miss you. 


He tapped out a single line in response. 


<a_peters> Good bye, Bard. 


Bard didn't know when it died. But Ambrose Peters did. 


|| The Bard of Analytics » 


Researcher — : Our records say that you - D-53682 - are 
named Jesse Klarent Ball. Before testing began, you told 
us that was your name. 


D-53682: No, my name is John Kate Ball. It's always 
been John Kate Ball, /ike | said before. Someone must 
be messing with your systems, you should get Cam to 
see if he can fix it. 


Researcher :Cam? 


D-53682: Yeah, Cameron. You know, the big tech expert 
here? Practically fueled by nacho chips? 


Researcher : When did you meet Cameron? 


D-53682: Man, its been so long ago...| think we met in 
the cafeteria at Site-83. No, wait, we met in school, didn't 
we? Ah, well, it doesn't matter. 


Researcher : Can you tell me why you were 
incarcerated? 


D-53682: Fraud and money laundering. Let me guess, 
I'm wrong again? 


Researcher: Yes. You were guilty of two counts of 
second degree murder. 


D-53682: Yeah, I'm fairly sure I'd remember killing 
someone, and I'd appreciate if you didn't suggest | had. 


Researcher _ : Very well. Do you recall what happened 
inside SCP-739 when the door was closed? 


D-53682: The booth thing, right? | uhh... | sort of 
remember something foggy, before the door opened up 
again. 


Researcher — : Continue. 


D-53682: | was alone when | went in, right? | remember 


Moonlighting 


When Santosh was six years old, he found out that Santa Claus 
didn't exist. After writing his Christmas list, he told his parents about 
it, mentioning the Game Boy and roller skates on the list. His 
parents laughed at him and told him that Santa wasn't real. They 
were the ones buying the gifts and they certainly weren't going to 
get anything on that list. 


MAY 8, 2000 
"Hey Santosh! How's it going?" 
"Hi, Guy. Thanks for meeting me." 


"Of course! We haven't talked in ages. Plus, anart! You want to do 
anart! How could | say no?" 


"Yeah. Hey, thanks very much for agreeing to help me. I've never 
done this before. But, uh, what's with this place? | had to plug a USB 
drive into a door to get in here." 


"What, Eurtec? | almost forgot! This is your first time here, isn't it? 
Before we do anything else, | need to give you the grand tour!" 


When Santosh was eight years old, he forgot that he had a math 
team meet. At home, his father sat him down and castigated him for 
being so stupid. He made it clear that Santosh would never have 

any kind of future besides cleaning the toilets or mowing the lawn for 
the Chinese. After all, Chinese children had ten times the work ethic 
and drive to succeed and deserved to beat him at everything. 
Santosh never missed another math meet again. 


"So, Eurtec," Guy started. The two of them were walking down an 


enormous, gleaming chrome promenade, flanked by mile-high glass 
and concrete skyscrapers. What seemed to be thousands of 
humans, cyborgs, robots, androids, and even holograms streamed 
by. Great flashing billboards seemingly everywhere broadcast 
advertisements for expanded petabyte drives, brand new 
augmented reality implants, bionic prosthesis replacements, and 
smart kitchen sinks. 


"OK, so before we even talk about Eurtec, we gotta talk about this 
group called the Servants of the Silicon Nornir. Long story short, 
they're transhumanists who think these three supercomputers in the 
center of the city are going to bring about the singularity, and so they 
have a real hard-on for paratech. So in 1985, the Servants got to 
thinking that the rate things were going, the singularity was never 
going to arrive. They decided to speed up the process." 


As he spoke, Guy dodged a cybernetic spider, which chirped angrily 
at him. He waved apologetically, and then stopped in front of a 
seemingly nondescript store front without a logo, displaying only an 
icon of a brain sitting on a laptop. The windows were floor-to-ceiling, 
displaying all kinds of electronic parts. 


"First stop, we need to get a transistorized positronic cognition 
matrix. BrainGate should have plenty of refurbished ones." 


Santosh followed him in. Guy continued speaking as he browsed the 
selection of digital brains. "Like | was saying. 1985. Servants get 
impatient. They figure, normalcy agencies like the Gocks and 
Foundies are keeping a tight ship on things. There's no good place 
for people to get together and collaborate on paratech. So, the 
Servants decide to make one. They modeled it after a bunch of 
global tech centers - here we go!" 


Guy held up a wrinkled, silver-and-grey brain. He held it out to 
Santosh. "Take a look at that. Eight petabytes of storage space, a 
full terabyte of RAM - it's even got solid-state glia! This is perfect!" 


Guy took out a thin, chocolate-bar sized tablet from his pocket. 
"Check it out," he said, holding the brain underneath it. "It's called a 
smartphone. You can take photos, scan products like this matrix, 
play games, and, you know, call people." 


Santosh admired the device. As they walked out of the store, Guy 
explained a few more of the phone's features, "... plus it even acts 
as an Internet hotspot! Course you can only find it here in Eurtec. 
Actually, getting back to Eurtec. The name's like, a pormanteau of 
‘Europe’ and ‘tech’. | also heard that it was supposed to be a pun: 
‘Eurtec, your tech’... | dunno. | don't really know how they built it or 
how they hide the place - some kind of pocket dimension, | think - 
but the point is, Eurtec is basically a paratech lover's paradise." 


When Santosh was eleven years old, he proudly showed his father 
the 95 he had received on his math placement exam. His father 
pressed him on where the remaining 5 points were and agitatedly 
pointed out that all of the Asian students would have received the 
full score. At this rate, his father remarked, Santosh would never 
make it into MIT. Santosh bit back tears. From then on he stopped 
showing his father his tests.