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Kotana Ishikawa was next, the woman killed in Japan. Her name had been crossed out with a red pen, presumably by Halverson himself.
Dr. Ju-ah Park followed. Pace recognized this as the woman who had been found floating in a river in Korea. Her name was crossed out in red, as well.
Xiang Di was next. This name had not been crossed out, and Pace had never heard it before.
Rene Descourts. This name was not crossed out, nor did it mean anything to Pace.
Anton Hinton was next, and there was no line through the name. Pace knew Hinton had recently survived an assassination attempt in the UK.
There were six other names on the list, three of which had been crossed out, and Pace knew that all those lined through had been killed. Two of the three remaining names were people unknown to Pace.
And the last name on the list was Vera Ryder.
He looked up at the woman now. “You’re on here. What do you think that means?”
“I think it means either that I’m a target, or that I am part of whoever is doing this.”
“Are you part of whoever’s doing this?”
Even through her obviously overwhelming grief, he saw signs of anger as her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed. “No, Mr. Pace, I am not. Neither was Lars.”
Changing the subject quickly, he said, “Do these names together like this mean anything else to you?”
Dr. Ryder recovered somewhat, then took the sheet back and looked it over. “Yes. Two things. One, if it’s a list of those who might be targeted due to their influence in the world of artificial intelligence, then it’s woefully incomplete. As far as I’m concerned, there are…I don’t know, maybe one hundred or so leaders on the cusp of major new developments in the world of AI. Not a lot, but certainly a lot more than have been targeted so far, and a lot more than my husband wrote on that list. There is something special about this group he named, some connection, some unity of knowledge. I don’t know what it is, but if you figure it out, it might lead you in the right direction.”
“And the second thing you noticed?”
“Anton Hinton.”
“What about him?”
“He doesn’t belong. Every one of the other people on here was involved with defense, creating weapons, cognitizing them, or at least working on prototypes and code for weaponry. But Hinton…he’s a pacifist. Yes, his labs are arguably the best private AI institutions in the world, but as far as I know, everything he’s fielded in the realm of AI has been for peaceful purposes.”
She shrugged. “Hinton is a very strange man, though, and if Lars put his name on here with these other people, it definitely does mean something.”
“So…this isn’t a list of the developers of Mind Game.”
She glanced at the paper again, then handed it back. “No. Anton absolutely did not work on Mind Game.” Something seemed to quickly occur to her. “Although I do remember Lars saying Anton found out about the DARPA project and accused the Defense Department of appropriating code that he had developed into this military application. He was livid about it. It affected Lars and Anton’s relationship, although they remained cordial.”
Pace asked, “Did Lars say if Hinton’s claim had any merit?”
She shrugged. “I doubt he would know. It was a very compartmentalized project. Lars worked on the robotic aspect of it; Anton was more involved in developing machine-learning algorithms. Whether DARPA took something Anton wrote and weaponized it, I have no idea.”
Pace then asked, “Do you believe in artificial general superintelligence? Some people are suggesting that’s what the Chinese have developed.”
She sniffed out a sad little laugh. “The most advanced cognitive processor on planet Earth has always been the human brain. That is still the case, as far as I know. As far as virtually anyone in the industry knows. But…but if someone is developing AGSI, it won’t have to be weaponized. It will find a way to weaponize itself. Superintelligence cannot be contained, and it will fight for its survival.”
“Jesus,” Pace muttered.
“And if human beings become the less intelligent species on Earth,” Ryder continued, “then we will inevitably be enslaved and we will ultimately be destroyed.”
“But how can a computer program weaponize itself? It doesn’t exist in the real world.”
She looked at him as if he were hopelessly naïve. “It will be smart enough to hire, threaten, trick, coerce, manipulate, empower, disempower…it will be smart enough to control humanity. Humans will be the weak link. They will succumb to greed and work for the intelligent agent, they will succumb to threats, they will succumb to flattery…they will succumb.” She shrugged. “That’s why I am a pacifist.”
Pace’s heart thumped in his chest as he took it all in. Finally he rose to leave, the list still in his hand. “After the funeral, you should get out of town. Until we get this figured out.”
Dr. Ryder looked Pace in the eye, remained silent for several seconds, and then looked down at the paper with the names on it. “Would you like me to make you a copy before I see you out?”
