gene_drive

HOLOGRAM

Hari Seldon shimmered, dust caught in the shroud.

“Perhaps, even now, you may not have found the flaw in psychohistory”

His blue palm opened, apologetically.

“We cannot predict the content of future knowledge creation. It follows that predicting the response to that knowledge is equally infeasible. For psychohistory, that is an impasse”

“Yet, what can we say about the mechanism by which knowledge is created today? The brains of people run software, and that software creates the knowledge.”

“The software runs on hardware, and the code for both the hardware and software are colocated as genetic code. Instructions for a computer, and instructions for the computer, side by side.”

“Each person is like a computer completely separate from the other computers. Off to school or work to live and perhaps create that nectar - explanatory knowledge - that ratchets civilisation forward.”

“A vast number of independant idea creators, each encoded completely by genetics.”

Hari pointed one by one to imagined people before him.

“With colocated hardware and software, we saw a new opportunity for a third kind of code. The code for the architecture of a distributed system. A system of people. The code, when expressed would be software in the mind of the person.”

“Genes that result in the brain running additional, new, software.”

“And what would that software do?” He paused dramatically.

“It would add networking protocols to the mind. Basic, well understood protocols for efficient and resilient message distribution. Where the messages would be encoded and carried by speech and by movements.”

“A group of people would be able to form an abstract wireless person-to-person mesh newtork.”

He interlaced his fingers.

“But that was only the to enable the second technology. A fourth kind of code. The software for that distributed system to run. A protocol that individuals in a mesh follow that, in ensemble result in a global program. A single program running on the minds of people, of communities. Of planets.”

“Genes for brain hardware, genes for brain software, genes for a brain-to-brain network, and genes for running software on that network.”

…

Hari Seldon left his office, and went to the laboratory where his team flurried about.

“How are we looking, my people?” A glint in his eye.

Jonas turned away from his research biostation, turning off the monitor as he moved.

“It’s just too hard to say. We can see that the gene drives are super-mendelian even in the face of two competing gene drive sweepers. We could always increase the complexity of the sweepers, but there is a cost to that complexity.”

Arda, who stood nearby, chimed in. “And whatever we engineer can always be reverse engineered. Right now there are some very sophisticated approaches for eliminating drive defense and drive concealement codes. Coming mostly out of the crop wars in the Sepallous belt.”

“But from a functional perspective, the system is good. We have conceptual leader-selection working in simian models. No prolonged bifurcation even with separation and regrouping of subjects. Conceptual distance measurement and comparisons appear to be functional. Although we do not know how this will fare beyond the simpler simian concept space.”

“Fine. Good.” Hari turned. “What of networking? Oldus?”

A short man leaned out from behind a computer. “Yes sir, umm. It’s solid. Rock solid. We basically have an abstract user datagram protocol. Tolerant to packet loss. Still no problems embedding packets in the latent thought space. These monkeys cannot so much as sneeze or or pick at mites without invadvertently sending packets to others around them. When they’re playing, socialising and using tools, there is enough bandwidth to complete synchronisation rounds. We’re passing preprogrammed ideas here of course. But it’s solid.”

“Ok, thanks” Hari turned and left them to work.

…

HOLOGRAM

“The purpose of that software was to recreate a person. To create one great meta-person, capable of generating ideas that bubble up from the mind, competing in a sort of swarm subconscious. Ideas that face criticism and selection before they become significant to the broader system.”

“For what purpose? To solve problems dramatically faster than a galaxy of humans, or ten galaxies of robotic people.”

“As we have come to learn, people create ideas that are new good explanations for how the world works. The process is to sample and combine multiple discrete concepts that have a low connection strength. This is a search and submit process that we know well. The education system embodies this principle by nurturing the creation of many cross disciplinary concepts in the mind of the student - so that their subconscious may sample from a rich pool.”

“What we sought was to codify that sampling program across a group of people. The system would select from good explanations created by people. It would combine concepts with low degree of conceptual connectivity and generate new ideas.”

“A full leap in the sampling process. This distributed person would be creating new ideas, let’s call them meta-ideas, composed of connections between regular ideas. Explanations for how something works, where the subsystems themselves are untested explanations for how that subsystem works.”

“Let’s look at a concrete example. We do not yet know how a teleporter could work, or how a matter transformer could work. Imagine that different people think of good explanations to those problems. The distributed meta-person would be able to start to create ideas for machines that use teleporters and matter transformers as basic components.”

“As naturally as you can combine concepts you already have - and thinking on my feet here - say paper, marine membranes and solar gel. You might be thinking right now of an idea for how transparent skin might work.

Your interaction with other people would - without you knowing - share that information with other people. The distributed system would then be able to create a meta-idea for an invention where transparent skin is only a minor component.

The galaxy would start to produce grand and complex ideas that could be criticised, constructed and evaluated against reality. At a rate far beyond what we have.”

…

The main problem, Hari thought as he stared out into the Trantor night, was that of the startup procedure.

How would the galactic society tolerate a new generation that would, over a decade or so, grow up and integrate into society with a fundamentally new capacity.

People would craft their own life, pursue the work that interests them. Unaware that every word they spoke, the intonation or a touch of the chin, could be carriers of a new kind of subconscious data. Words substituted here and there, structural rearrangements to convey conceptual data. Unperceived by them, and unreceived by older generations.

Yes, the startup period was certainly the main risk. How would broader systems respond? Vast corporations now infiltrated by workers running an additional load. What would that change? Where were the failure points?

In the long term, he was confident that the capacity of society to respond to change was as it is at the individual level. In that first generation, though… It could destabilise a great number of critical societal foundations.

Suppose that did happen? Hari pondered. A total collapse

That would be a problem.

In that moment, a spark of an idea bubble up into his awareness.

Suppose we could get through that darkness? Maybe a collapse of civilisation would allow new structures to arise that would be more equipped to work as instruments of this meta-person.

…

HOLOGRAM

“We could not predict if the system would destabilise civilisation. Or for how long. So we created plan to mitigate that.

A plan, which if needed, would serve to preserve existing knowledge and bootstrap civilisation.

A plan that would provide a plausible mechanism for a collapse, were that to happen.

A plan centered around psychohistory. In selective retrospect, from some paths in the future, psychohistory would be a compelling explantion. A prophecy only needed in the exact situation where it would be most compelling.

If you are in that timeline of events, at the end of a long arc of history, please understand that I am sorry for that deception.

The holograph of Hari finished and the auditorium went dark. The lights came back on and the vast audience rippled with murmurs.

All over the galaxy people watched from their homes, on portolinks in transplanetory rift tubes, or directly by updater implants as they went about their lives.

People looked a each other, a trillion reactions.

Words were spoken, arms raised - aghast - in disbelief.

A gasp, a touch of the chin, a dip in intonation.

Notes