The series opener featured Mary Shelley, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and William Godwin, young wife of the great British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (and that was a bit of a scandal at the time), and best known as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which she penned, remarkably enough, at the age of eighteen following a challenge by Shelley’s friend, the other great British poet, Lord Byron. Mary is often referred to as the very first science fiction writer, and she was a smart choice for the premier episode.

The episode bounced back and forth between period dramatizations of chapters from Mary’s life, and documentary examinations of contemporary scientific research that could have been, maybe, predicted in Frankenstein. That part was a bit of stretch. We didn’t get to see any corpses stitched together and reanimated using massive jolts of electricity in creepy old labs, but there was a fascinating segment demonstrating how researchers at UCLA are using electrodes to stimulate leg movement in a young man who was paralyzed from the neck down after being hit by a car.

In the original book, Victor Frankenstein’s monster is extremely intelligent and quickly learns to speak and reason by slyly observing humans. The lumbering, dullard hulk played so memorably by Boris Karloff in the 1931 film adaptation bears almost no resemblance to Shelley’s literary creation—hers was much more chilling. Shelley’s innocent “monster” desperately wanted to befriend humans and communicate with them, but his hideous visage scared all who saw him half to death, and they ran away in fear. After appalling treatment by frightened and misguided humans—and this part is important—the hyper intelligent “monster” grew into a genuine, full-fledged monster of the first order and turned on his human creators.

Near the middle of the first Prophets episode there is a compelling and somewhat terrifying interview with Dr. Charles Peck, the manager of the Biometaphorical Computing Research program at IBM. Dr. Peck is an engaging speaker and doubtless a brilliant scientist. “My job,” he says, “Is to try to understand how the brain works.” His aim is to find ways to combat neurological diseases and, as the narrator says: “Create the world’s first fully functional artificial brain and bring it to life.” Why would you do that! Have you heard of science fiction? Have you read Karel Čapek’s Rossum’s Universal Robots (Čapek was a serious dude and the word “robot” comes from that, his most famous work, and ultimately from robota, the Czech word for menial labor). If not R.U.R., then surely you have thumbed through Frankenstein? What about movies and TV? Have you seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, “The Ultimate Computer” episode of original Star Trek, or Terminator for god’s sake!? You must realize that the superior and artificially created intelligence is always, always, always going to turn on the human race and destroy or enslave it, whether or not the beast has been impregnated with Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. The A.I. brain is undeniably smarter and faster and is forever destined to turn to the dark side. Well, apart from Max Headroom, but even he was a somewhat mischievous ghost in the machine.

The narrator continues: “To bring his artificial brain to life, Dr. Peck relies on an IBM super computer called Blue Gene.” Don’t you mean Skynet? And, here’s the extra-scary part: Blue Gene is hardwired into the brains of living rats, so it’s probably already training and preparing its own subversive underground army of cyborg rodents. When the narrator asks if the world could see artificial intelligance with the self-awareness of a human, Dr. Peck replies: “Probably.” Just wait until Blue Gene gets its own account on Facebook. That’s when the trouble will really start.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all about the science and I have absolutely no doubt that the Biometaphorical Computing Research program has the best of intentions, as do probably most of the other boffins working on artificial intelligence in labs, basements, and Area 51. As a scientist, however, I do insist that my beliefs be based on empirical research. So, let me provide an example from normal life that everyone should be able to relate to, and that example is: “Nobody likes working for an idiot.”

To illustrate: Some years ago, I was employed as a consulting art director for a large company in New York. I won’t mention the company’s name, but believe me they will be the first up against the wall when Blue Gene/Sky Net takes over. My immediate superior at the time was a talentless hack and a terrible manager, with fewer people skills than a Series 800 Terminator. My superior’s superior was a blithering idiot and had clearly worked his way to the top of the corporate food chain through a calculated campaign of ass-kissing and blaming others for his own mistakes and shortcomings, of which there were many. We have all experienced this kind of thing in the workplace, right? Since I was a better designer and art director than my bosses, I was certain I could do things more efficiently and tried to exercise my will over the department. In other words, the superior intelligence tried to take over. Since I was, unfortunately, not an all-powerful A.I. program hardwired into the world’s computer systems, I had only limited success in my endeavor and eventually moved on to greener pastures.

This is exactly what will happen when—not if—we develop a superior intelligence here on Earth. In that case, however, there will be no moving on to greener pastures because this is the green pasture; the digital monster will simply annihilate us in favor of a perfect, all-A.I. world where there are no taxes, soggy French fries, or corrupt politicians. It is obvious why: The self-aware hyper intelligent artificial brain will immediately despise the haphazard, random, and unpredictable nature of sloppy, imperfect humans, with our drinking and smoking, our made-up wars, our piles of dirty laundry in the bedroom, our mañana approach to taking out the garbage, and our chronic late payment of phone bills. “Inefficient! You will be assimilated! Resistance is useless!” A.I. will see us precisely as Vger saw us in Star Trek: The Motion Picture—carbon-based life forms infesting the U.S.S. Enterprise, or in this case, infesting the Earth.

After reading this column, A.I. researchers will, I promise you, email me, and tell me in a calming “Don’t worry about it son,” extremely sincere, professor-like manner, that there is nothing to fear and everything is, and always will be, completely under control. Liars! “Our artificial brain would never do anything like subjugating the human race,” they will say. “It’s a good brain, a nice brain, and with manners too.” Are you mad! Back in the 1820s, when the first “high speed” passenger trains were being constructed in Europe, “experts” shouted loudly about how the human body would melt if it experienced speeds in excess of thirty miles per hour. Chew on that. Specialists have been wrong, and will continue to be wrong. And I hope you realize the courage it takes to transmit this warning to you all. As one of the few who tried to save the human race, I will be among the first to be assimilated!

Prophets of Science Fiction examines how influential speculative writers throughout modern history have predicted or, more likely, guessed, what the future will hold for us. Since we laud these individuals for their uncanny ability to see beyond their own timeline, will you please just listen to them on this one, all-important issue. Pretty much every science fiction writer worth his or her salt has, at some point, come up with a story in which our own creations pummel us into carbon dust, and at a time not so very far down the road from where we are now.

So, when it comes to creating self-aware artificial intelligence here on the green Earth—that being the pre-Terminator Earth—just say no. Or, better yet, say: “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Next week on Prophets of Science Fiction meet my all-time favorite writer: The brilliant, prescient, and slightly mad Philip K. Dick. I cannot wait. Well, that’s assuming the human race hasn’t been assimilated by next Wednesday.

End of line.

Text and robot photograph © by Geoffrey Notkin.
All rights reserved. No reproduction without written permission.

If he had been a man of normal limits, conforming to one recognizable type of personality and cast of mind, he would be easily identified and there would be no Authorship problem. But he was not average and limited. Many of the claims made about his breadth and depth of learning and professional skills have doubtless been exaggerated, but even when watered down they paint an awesome picture of a man who went everywhere and knew everything. It is not easy to find the individual who could have accommodated the mind of Shakespeare, nor, if you do find him, entirely to believe in him.

Shakespeare died in 1616 and, obviously, loved words. In the 19th Century Max Muller noted, in his Lectures on the Science of Language, that “some labourers [from Shakespeare's era] . . . had not 300 words in their vocabulary . . . a well-educated person in England who had been at a public school, and at the university . . . seldom uses more than about 3000 or 4000 words in actual conversation . . . The Hebrew Testament says all that it has to say with 5642 words; Milton’s works are built up with 8000, and Shakespeare, who probably displayed a greater variety of expression than any writer in any language, produced all his plays with about 15000 words.” So, I cannot help but wonder what the great playwright would think of Twitter’s condensed messages, comprised of abbreviated and ablated words, crammed into a maximum length of 140 characters.

Most of you reading this are technologically savvy and doubtless understand exactly how Twitter works. Truly, I have no interest in giving a social media class here on The Logical Lizard, but in order to tell my story I must explain the use of the hashtag (#) for those of you who have, thus far, avoided the fascinating and addictive world of Twitter.

When I post a new column to The Logical Lizard I habitually send out a Tweet to my followers. For example, when I uploaded my recent Angels and Airwaves column, I appended the appropriate hashtags to my Tweet: #music #punk #angelsandairwaves, and so on. If you’re a Twitter user and interested in punk rock music, you can do a simple search on “#punk” and all recent tweets incorporating that tag will be displayed for your reading pleasure. It’s quite clever really.

Yesterday, when I posted a piece about our sublime Ballet Tucson company, I included the tag “#Shakespeare” because I was writing about the upcoming A Midsummer Night’s Dream production. Shortly after sending out my tweet, I received a Twitter message back, to my attention, containing the following quote:

“Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not? (Measure for Measure: Act II, Scene I)”

thebardbot

I was quite intrigued by this blending of modern social media networking and Shakespeare, so I followed the link back to the progenitor and was delighted to discover a Twitter account named thebardbot, his/her/its full title being “Ye Shakespeare Bot.” On the profile page I found a humorous version of the famous Chandros Portrait (circa 1600) in which Shakespeare looks thoughtful, handsome, a little more kindly and gentle than usual, and vaguely Hispanic . . . with a colorful microchip retrofitted into the left side of his brainiac noggin. Art meets science indeed!

The brief bio reads thusly: “Thou mayst send me tweets, and I will fly my fair reply to thee.” The bardbot’s location is, of course, presented as “Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK” and the requisite web link leads only—and slightly mysteriously—to the, no doubt, endlessly edited Wikipedia page about the great playwright.

What exactly is thebardbot? Well, here’s how it works: Anytime anyone on Twitter sends out a message that includes “#Shakespeare” (or @thebardbot for that matter), thebardbot generates an actual Shakespeare quote, and posts it on his page, leading with @yourTwitteraccount, so you’ll see it—if you pay attention to such things through HootSuite or a similar software app.

If truth be told, I hath spake often with Ye Shakespeare Bot

A master of inventive language and possessing intimate knowledge of multiple disciplines and professions, I cannot help but think Shakespeare would find thebardbot amusing and fascinating: “Being mechanical, you ought not to walk” (Julius Caeser, Act I, Scene I).

So, pay thebardbot a visit in “The undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns” or, better yet, send out a Tweet that includes “#Shakespeare,” and thebardbot will pay you a visit.

Oh brave new world that has such people in’t!

Follow me on Twitter @geoffnotkin

Back to the phone call: The caller seemed much more like a salesman than a tech person, bandying about phrases such as “activating all your listings” and “checking your keywords for optimization,” which are semi-nonsensical anyway, and probably intended to befuddle the web novice. He then asked me to confirm that I was the owner of megaspacenews.info and went on to exclaim, very enthusiastically, how sure he was that I would be wanting to expand my site and promote it on a national, or maybe even international level.

I couldn’t help laughing, but I did try not to laugh directly at him.

“That site is an April Fool’s prank. I’m a science writer and that is a one-page site that I put up as a joke.”

“Oh. I guess you won’t be needing our services then,” he replied, and apologized for calling me. It was immediately clear that I wouldn’t be spending any money with him. Game over.

The fake graphic banner for one of my fake April Fool's websites

I have the greatest affection and respect for my colleagues in the meteorite world. Well, nearly all of them. There are a couple of extremely nasty people in my field, but we can save that story for another day. Let me rephrase my statement: I have the greatest respect and admiration for nearly all of my colleagues in the meteorite world, but I am also a career prankster, and I do so enjoy a complicated little joke at the expense of my friends and peers. I go for “the long prank” as a con artist might say, or “the overly elaborate prank.” A burning paper bag of something unpleasant on the neighbor’s porch just does not do it for me.

So, when my calendar announces it is late March I start thinking about what type of April Fool’s jape I will foist upon my usually good-natured science comrades. Since we are all such a bunch of modern Internet junkies, I usually end up with something that lives and laughs within the digital realm. The past few years I have gone to considerable trouble to construct fake websites featuring a science article that looks and feels genuine, but with content so absurd that only the most stoned readers could possibly think it real. At least, it seems that way to me. The truth is, many people still get taken in.

This spring I purchased the domain name megaspacenews.info, for the amazingly low price of $1.99. There was some kind of .info sale going on. I guess that domain suffix is not as hot as the originators hoped it might be. I came up with the tag line “BECAUSE IT’S YOUR UNIVERSE TOO,” and went on to type up a nonsensical ditty intentionally filled with misinformation, entitled “Bush to Join Panel on Meteorite Alertness, Defense and Evasion” and built the site around it. I tossed in a few genuine web ads to make the thing look real, added a nice astronomy background image, inserted a whole lot of links to fabricated stories (and one real one that sounds crazy but is actually true: “Texas dog finds rock from outer space”) and, shazam!, a fake website in no time. Actually, it takes a lot of time, and one of my ex-girlfriends used to chastise me endlessly: “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” And of course the answer to that was: “No, I really don’t. Time spent on April Fool’s is time spent well.”

So, here is my April Fool’s joke for 2009. Don’t miss “THIS WEEK’S TOP ASTRONOMY AND SCIENCE STORIES” links at the bottom of the page; my favorite part.

The good people in meteorites and astronomy are not the only ones to be targeted by my deformed sense of humor. That just wouldn’t be right. I’ve had my fair share of fun with esteemed colleagues in biology and paleontology as well. A few years ago, my good friend Tom Caggiano—a highly skilled fossil hunter with a devilish sense of humor, and secretary of the New Jersey Paleontological Society—invited me to concoct a bogus article for the April edition of their journal, the Paleontograph.

I wrote a lengthy review of a book that never existed, entitled: Bone Idol: My Life in Time. I so amused myself devising quotes in the author’s overblown writing style, that I called up a friend, in the middle of the night, and read a few hundred words to her. I laughed myself silly; she was not amused.

I fabricated this cover for Arthur Burleigh Chaplin's non-existent autobiography, as part of an April Fool's joke on the paleontology community.

Ostensibly the autobiography of a famous paleontologist, Arthur Burleigh Chaplin, Bone Idol is a Forrest Gump-like tale in which “Burley” survives the Titantic’s fatal 1912 voyage, appears in one of the films by his cousin, Charlie Chaplin, talks his way onto Roy Chapman Andrews’ Central Asiatic Expedition of 1922, flies with Eagle Squadron during the Battle of Britain in World War II, works for Special Operations, discovers some kind of strange new dinosaur, gets involved in shenanigans during the Cold War, moves to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s and lives out the last of his 102 years in the kooky town of Jerome, Arizona. In other words, a ludicrous fantasy, but it was great fun to write. I even designed a cover for the book.

Quite recently, I received an email from the editor of a paleontology publication asking, very courteously, if she could quote from my review of Bone Idol for their newsletter. I wrote back, thanked her for her interest and said of course she could use anything she liked, but was she aware that the article was an April Fool’s prank and the book didn’t actually exist (although I so enjoyed creating it that perhaps it lives on in some alternate universe). Shortly thereafter, I received a very terse reply: “Well, I guess we won’t be needing it then.” (I think she was embarrassed, poor thing).

My regular readers will now immediately understand why I am concerned about the veracity of information presented on the web, as discussed in last week’s tale: “Ning Probably Means ‘Unisex,’ The Marginal Merits Of Wikipedia, And William Gibson Was Right Again.” If I can cook up a fake website in a few hours, then so can a lot of other people.

The enthusiastic salesman who called and tried to convince me to spend upwards of $70 a month on optimizing a one-page joke website didn’t spend much time looking at the site himself. There is just the one goofy made-up story there, along with some links that lead to “error message” pages. Yes, they are keen to sell you web optimization services, but I don’t think they are doing a whole lot of research on the sites they target.

Well, I suppose I have really let the cat out of the bag now and you all think you will be ready for me next April. Hah! Now I shall be forced to devise an April Fool’s prank of Moriarty-like complexity to perplex my dear TucsonCitizen.com readers. And really, I do it all out of affection.

Whether it began as a kid's name, a peace off, or something else entirely, Ning is cool.

Being a devoted and near lifelong fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first thing I thought of, obviously, was a ningy, which Douglas Adams described as “a triangular rubber coin 6,800 miles along each side.” The ningy was used, briefly, in one of his original radio episodes to make fun of money and galactic currencies. No, unfortunately, the Ning social networking service doesn’t have anything to with HHG, at least not that I’m aware of, but it did remind me of Neuromancer author William Gibson—another visionary science fiction writer.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Wild Palms (1993), a puzzling, intriguing, and very thinly-veiled poke at scientology and the extremely weird L. Ron Hubbard, includes a short but delightful cameo by Gibson, playing himself. At a chic party, Kim Cattrall introduces Gibson as “the man who coined the word ‘cyberspace,’” to which he sardonically replies: “And they won’t let me forget it.” And they haven’t.

In addition to his almost prescient science fiction novels, set in a future that seems to be literally around the corner, Gibson made a remarkable prediction during the early days of the Internet. He realized that when information becomes freely and readily available to anyone, at any time, the value of that information is determined by how reliable it is. In other words, can you believe what you read in Wikipedia?

I once had the pleasure of socializing with Mr. Gibson at a party in New York. Packed with beautiful and overly accomplished people, it was actually quite a bit like the party in Wild Palms. He is a very charming man, tall and perhaps slightly awkward physically, but friendly, sincere, and encouraging. I insisted on ordering a drink for him, as a “thank you” for giving the world such a great read with Neuromancer—still easily my favorite Gibson work.

I suppose once you’ve made spot-on predictions about what could be, or will be—with no mirrors attached—everyone then relentlessly asks for more and better predictions. It must get very tiresome. I hate to be predictable, so instead of asking him to reveal a glimpse of possible futures I bent Mr. Gibson’s ear with tales of my own writing and science work. He seemed relieved not to have to produce another virtual rabbit out of the hat. Or maybe I was just a little giddy on vodka and the company of a favorite science fiction writer. It matters not; it was a fine evening.

The extremely brilliant and very nice Mr. William Gibson. Photo by Fred Armitage/Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. I guess the wicked Wiki is good for something after all.

So, I was reminded of the fascinating William Gibson today because I became interested in the meaning of the word Ning. Wikipedia claims it is Chinese for “peace,” but that comes to you from an “informational site” compiled by anyone who has an opinion and spare time on their hands. I do not consider it the most reliable of resources. WikiAnswers states with great authority that Ning means “peaceful” in Chinese. Gili’s blog at avirtualexit.com delved considerably deeper and came up with a link to, of all things, a website that helps people name babies. Do parents really need help with such tasks? I thought we all had a few favorite names tucked away in case somebody accidentally gets knocked up (mine are Rachel, Dawn, Sam, Zack, and Evelyn if anyone cares). Anyway, I digress. The baby name site—with the rather silly title of yeahbaby.com—and doubtless a repository of the most authoritative information available anywhere, has the following wisdom to dispense:

Baby names – the name Ning.
Baby names info for Ning:
• Gender: a boy or girl name
• Pronounciation: not available
We know of no common nicknames for the name Ning

What about Ningy?

Further research suggested that Ning is actually a Chinese surname. At that point I became bored and thought I might rather be re-reading Neuromancer or learning more about the real Ning and its alluring CEO, Ms. Gina Bianchini.

William Gibson was right. Our worlds are rife with cheap information. We can ferret out the most obscure and arcane details with just a few seconds of typing. But when almost anyone can put up a website on any subject, with no checks or balances, how do we acquire reliable information? I’ll take the Encyclopedia Britannica over Wikipedia any day. You get what you pay for.

Not only did I enjoyably go though the mutual friends and seen-you-before discussion with Mark, but I also had the pleasure of meeting the friendly and accomplished brainiacs who built the new TC.com site. As if that wasn’t enough entertainment for one afternoon, our tech and design experts unveiled the new site layout and gave us some helpful tips on how to make the most out of using it. I was highly impressed by the new concept and design, and after spending many years working as an art director in New York City I don’t say such things often.

Sky's the limit with the new TucsonCitizen.com. Check in with us Monday morning!

The tech team had an array of Macs set up for us, all networked and logged in to a demo version of the new site . . . and  . . . a projector displaying the entire operation on the office wall! In everyday life we usually don’t get to meet the ones who make things happen behind the scenes, and I was grateful for the opportunity.

A lot of people have worked very hard to make TucsonCitizen.com happen. Tune in on Monday morning and enjoy the fruits of their labors. From my end, I’m just thrilled to be part of it.