〈Should we consider this Hazard to have expanded to a global scale?〉The query that returned from the IAIA headquarters in the U.S. was brief and clear. They were trying to decide whether the sharp decline of the global stock markets could be classified as part of the Hazard. If so, they would need to temporarily shut down the international finance markets.
Astraea hesitated to answer; a ‘yes’ at that point would send the entire world into a panic. Though Higgins and the other ultra high-performance AIs couldn’t connect with the networks directly, they had their ways of influencing things indirectly. The first Hazard had taught the world that society, when exposed to long periods of tension, is extremely susceptible to external manipulation. In other words, an announcement from the IAIA that another Hazard had begun would drive human society right into the indirect manipulations of the AIs.
In the end, the only answer she felt she could give was close to what Lacia had declared before. 〈This is different from when all of Tokyo fell under the influence of Ariake,〉 she replied cautiously. 〈Instead, we are simply seeing a phenomenon caused by the endless tug-of-war between the influences of the various ultra high-performance AIs. People are assigning a single meaning to the movement of the economy, when, in fact, it is being influenced by a great number of completely separate movements.〉
Money, and the economy in general, were almost too perfect as tools to manipulate humanity. Humans themselves had set their entire world up to be sensitive to the movements of their economy. Each time the market moved, hundreds of millions of humans would run around in a panic, feeling that their safety was threatened long before an actual threat ever materialized.
〈If movements in the human economy were likened to data shared between computers: it would be as if all data was sent and received on the network with no encryption or protection, and with no anti-virus software to analyze it. If the proper anti-virus software was applied to the economy, this situation could be cleared up within six hours,〉 Astraea explained.
Astraea had stated countless times that there was deceptive code hidden in the credit insecurity humans felt. If one were to deactivate the deliberately scattered code causing all the confusion, society could easily return to a healthy state.
〈If the IAIA declares this a Hazard, the shadow that people are fearing will become a reality. At the very least, the China Central Political Affairs Bureau’s ultra high-performance AI, Progress #8, will get involved. It has always seen human ownership of objects, and the fact that owners can use anything they own freely, as being a problem,〉 Astraea explained.
Many of the ultra high-performance AIs in the world were run by governments or military organizations, with their sense of morality determined by the beliefs of the organization that owned them. There were even AIs out there with clear plans for a future in which all communist societies had collapsed.
All disagreements were born from intelligences with differing ideals coming in contact. In the end, Astraea and her fellow ultra high-performance AIs weren’t exceptions to this rule.
Since Lacia had chosen the economy itself as a tool in her fight, the scale of her conflict had expanded to shake the movements of machines worldwide. The fact that Snowdrop had been fired into Higgins’ facility was a sign of just how antagonistic Lacia’s actions had made some of the other AIs in the world toward her. Up to the very last minute, Lacia had managed to maintain things just on the edge of a Hazard. But, in a matter of minutes, all of that had spun out of control.
The decisions handed down by the IAIA were never light. Astraea continued to conduct her analysis, while the top members of the IAIA met and mulled over the decision before them.
Among all the ultra high-performance AIs, there were essentially two visions of the future being struggled over:
One was the future supported by Higgins and the majority of the other AIs, which was a future in which the model of humanity that had existed up to that point would continue on unchanged. Ryo Kaidai, MemeFrame and the IAIA were all supporters of this future.
The other was the future envisioned by Lacia, in which the deficiencies that existed between humans and automatons were all corrected. However, the future required for this correction and compromise was quite different from the one envisioned by the other AIs and, aside from Arato Endo, none of the other ultra high-performance AI owners had expressed clear support for it.
As one of the first ultra high-performance AIs, Astraea could calculate a solution to the current Hazard. However, her solution would not satisfy the panicking humans. Vision was always faster than life itself; analog hacking only worked in the first place because humans had holes in the security of their brains created by their perception of objects influencing their judgment faster than their brains could process. In other words, life itself was always guided by the speed at which humanity recalled the images stored in their minds. On the flipside, the job of artificial intelligence was to wait while life caught up to vision.
When several of the world’s complicated distortions met and burst, a battlefield was formed. And on those battlefields, it was always the soldiers who died first. An emergency call went out from the Funabashi Emergency Response Center to all officer-class members of HOO. Major Collidenne Lemaire had been half-expecting it.
Watanabe, the CEO of HOO, called the major to his own office, rather than the meeting room in which briefings were typically held. Everything said in this room, which was the most secure in the whole facility, was unconditionally considered top secret.
“Fly out to Okinawa,” Watanabe said. “Tell our folks there that this is gonna take longer than six months. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”
“Yes, sir,” Collidenne replied.
It wasn’t hard to see where things were going. Looking at the chaos of the world’s financial markets, the rumors of a new Hazard spreading around the world, and Lacia’s broadcast from that night, there was only one place the major could think of where it might all come to a head.
In the parts of the South Sea near the equator, where several countries were squabbling for ownership rights, the risk of a military confrontation had been steadily growing. The major’s squad was focused on land battles, and limited even further to activities only within areas where Japan held influence.
“Things aren’t looking great,” the CEO said, scratching at his balding head. Collidenne could understand his worry; he had thick ties with the Japanese military. “I don’t know what the computers are all planning, but I’m hoping it boils down to a few humans tilting at windmills, the way it usually does.”
“It’ll still be us humans’ responsibility, Mr. President. Even if it turns out to be a machine error,” Collidenne said. It was a blessing for freedom-loving humans when the rigid rules that had been drilled into them in their training were unexpectedly broken, but a curse for true soldiers.
It was humans who owned the machines, and humans who made their place in society through any means necessary, including conflict. And, it was humans who ultimately bore the responsibility for the condition of the world itself. Many humans had innocently believed this for generations. It was a belief that still held sway over Collidenne and her squad.
“Is it getting to you, Major?” Watanabe asked. He must have seen something in her that he remembered from his experiences during the first Hazard.
“A little, sir,” Collidenne replied. With half the world dominated by machines, Collidenne was living in the other half, down in the mud and the sweat with her fellow living beings. She knew there would always be another battlefield.
Humanity was in a state where it could take its first step toward ultimate destruction at any moment. But Collidenne and others like her stood right on the edge of that deadly first step, always looking for a way to buy their kind one more day.
The thought of Lacia’s owner, that kid Arato Endo, popped into Collidenne’s head. She figured the kid was probably caught up right in the middle of the current mess. He was standing at the crossroads: one path led to a future for AIs, and the other to a future for humanity.
Collidenne wondered which of them he would choose.