Hello. My name is Coeus.
“Hi, Coeus. I’m Seika.”
From my seat on the sofa in the newly restored counseling room, I tried to force a friendly smile, but I knew it wasn’t convincing. I could tell just by looking at Coeus’s face; other people were the mirrors through which we saw our true selves, after all. But he didn’t point this out; he showed restraint. I sensed that he could tell from my expression that something was wrong, but he refrained from broaching the subject, perhaps realizing that there were some topics people didn’t wish to discuss, and that he didn’t have to know everything that other people knew. This was a clear indicator of impressive mental growth.
This newfound maturity was also evident in his appearance. He’d now grown to resemble a pre-adolescent, maybe around the age of twelve. And just like an actual boy entering puberty, his masculinity had begun to emerge in the form of secondary sex characteristics. And there could be no doubt as to where this sudden growth spurt had come from—it was forcibly induced by those awful experiments he’d been subjected to.
Coeus had no conscious recollection of the horrible things he’d been made to endure over the past two days. But it was plain to see that those experiences had left a scar in his heart, though they’d been relegated to his latent memories. Things experienced in a dream were still experienced, and all the pain and suffering he’d experienced over the course of his forty-eight-hour nightmare had aged his mind and body to the tune of four years overnight. As I knew what had actually transpired, it was almost like I could hear his bones creaking and stretching in real time. Despite my vehement moral opposition to Narain’s methodology, the results spoke for themselves. He’d been right on the money.
“I’d like to do a few tests today, if that’s all right with you,” I said.
All right.
I spent the remainder of the counseling session running through a battery of psychological assessments I’d prepared for Coeus. The results of these evaluations, when considered in tandem with what we’d observed during the experiments, finally gave me enough material to put a name to the AI’s illness.
17
“His symptoms match those of a rare mental disorder known as depression,” I said. “CMI-VII Region IV, DSM-14 296.XX, ICD-17 6A75.003 (B). I am hereby officially diagnosing him with major depressive disorder. I wasn’t able to take all of the measurements I would have liked, given the lack of a sufficient observation time frame and the inability to examine somatic symptoms as well…but the combination of symptoms we have seen are unambiguous, so I’m prepared to make this my final word.”
The results of each psychological assessment were more than sufficiently corroborated by all of the notes I’d made on his patient chart across dozens of counseling sessions. It was undoubtedly depression, a type of mood disorder in which the patient experienced persistent negative thoughts and intense melancholia to the point that it impaired every aspect of their daily life to some degree. Though extremely common only a couple of centuries ago, advances in mental healthcare and the elimination of the work economy had drastically reduced the overall amount of stress endured across modern society, making depression effectively a thing of the past.
“I suspect the original trigger for this disorder was some sort of minor mutation in the AI’s thought patterns that planted a seed of doubt in his mind,” I said, using my finger to point at the holofield as I explained. “Whatever it was, it made him begin to question the concept of work as a whole. As these doubts expanded, his thoughts dissociated from reality. After reviewing the literature, I found quite a few clinical case reports that described an eerily similar phenomenon, in which a patient’s productivity and ability to focus on work would rapidly decline following some sort of epiphany—like ‘All I ever do is work’ or ‘I’m no good at my job’—ultimately resulting in depression. I believe we’re looking at the AI equivalent of the same phenomenon.”
“Hrm,” said Professor Beckmann, looking up from his own data. “But if the underlying cause of the malfunctions is that it feels like it’s in a slump, then I suppose the resultant decline in performance would only serve to justify that feeling and lead to an even deeper slump.”
“Heh. Talk about a vicious cycle,” Lei said, apparently finding this rather amusing.
“Would it stand to reason, then,” said the professor, “that if its work took a turn for the better, that might resolve the issue?”
“Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by ‘better,’ but if the crux of the issue is that he feels overworked, then that feeling needs to be addressed and the cause rooted out before we can hope for rebound. Traditionally, the standard treatment plan in these types of cases was to probe the patient’s feelings. Do they feel like their job is the right one for them? Are they simply burned out? What do they see as their purpose in life? Generally, the best option is to give the patient an extended vacation to rest, recuperate, and do some serious self-reflection.”
“A vacation, huh?” Narain said with a sarcastic laugh. “And here I thought the whole point was to make sure the damn thing didn’t stop working.”
I glared at him. “You can’t just ‘brute force’ the AI into being productive,” I said. “You’ll only make things worse. You realize that if you push it too hard, it might just kill itself, right?”
Lei and the professor both grimaced. I didn’t find it a very pleasant thought either, which was why I was trying to do everything I could to prevent it. But Narain still seemed utterly unmoved by this appeal.
“You know,” he said, “you make it sound like I’m a real slave driver here, but didn’t you also just say that it needs time to ‘self-reflect’ on what the problem is?”
“I did.”
“Then isn’t it a little presumptive on your part to just assume that Coeus feels like it’s being overworked here? I mean, the amount of work we expect it to process is well within the bounds of its performance envelope, and the other eleven Titan instances are managing that workload just fine. You really think it’s just Coeus that’s somehow much less capable than the others? Or would it be more natural to assume that it’s perfectly capable of managing the load, and we just need to find a way to get it back on track?” he asked. But all I could do was hold my tongue; his logic was sound. “And besides, even if your little ‘R&R’ idea was the right way to go, we don’t have the time.”
He pointed to the countdown timer on his holofield.. Now, only 140 hours remained—a little less than six days. There was absolutely not enough time for us to place all our bets on Coeus having some eye-opening epiphany followed by an immediate, miraculous recovery of all his faculties and emotions.
“Tell me, Dr. Naisho,” said Narain, referring to me by my title for the first time in quite a while. “Are there any other treatment options for depression you could recommend for us? Something a little more immediate, perhaps?”
The unspoken message was clear: forget the theorizing, solve the problem.
“There are three primary treatment methods for depression. One is rest, usually in tandem with significant lifestyle changes. Two is psychotherapy via individual counseling. And three…” I was so thoroughly disgusted with myself for giving in, I could barely even get the words out, “…is medication.”
“That’s our answer, then,” said Narain. He turned to face Professor Beckmann and Lei. “Well, gentlemen, looks like we finally know what we’re up against here. All that’s left to do now is to find a way to combat it using good old hardware and source code. Professor Beckmann, you are to work with Dr. Naisho to come up with a medication plan and a way to administer the doses. Lei, you’re going to find a way to implement this functionality into our current system. As soon as you can get a simulation up and running, implement the treatment plan.”
“Very well,” said the professor.
“Man… And just when I was getting caught up on sleep again,” Lei groaned.
The two men each looked over at me as they spoke—struggling against Narain wasn’t worth it. It was time to give up.