Computers and science fiction – an essay - The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution - page 355

future of all serious malware, one increasingly concealed from detection by a
cloaking technology known as rootkits. 37
Cyberpunk and cyberspace
A related but much more anarchic view for the future is presented by “cyber-
punk” science fiction. This genre typically features a vision of a networked
world of information, avatars, and virtual reality together with a breakdown
of traditional national borders and social order. The plots usually involve some
combination of talented loner hackers, sentient computers, mega-corporations,
and cyber-gangsters. Blade Runner can be seen as a prime example of cyberpunk
as are the nanotechnology novels of Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson, discussed
in the preceding text. However, the novel that is most identified with the cyber-
punk genre is Neuromancer , written by William Gibson in 1984. In the novel
Gibson first coined the term cyberspace to describe the limitless collections of
data and connectivity and the merging of real and virtual worlds in the matrix:
“The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games,” said the voice-over,
“in early graphics programs and military experimentation with cranial
jacks.” On the Sony, a two-dimensional space war faded behind a forest of
mathematically generated ferns, demonstrating the special possibilities of
logarithmic spirals; cold blue military footage burned through, lab animals
wired into test systems, helmets feeding into fire control circuits of tanks
and war planes. “Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily
by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught
mathematical concepts.… A graphic representation of data abstracted from
the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity.
Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations
of data. Like city lights, receding.…” 38
The main character is Case, a once brilliant computer hacker who was pun-
ished for stealing from his employer by having his central nervous system
irreparably damaged. As a result he is now unable to access the global com-
puter network in cyberspace, the virtual reality dataspace known as the
“matrix.” Case and Molly, an augmented “street samurai,” are recruited by a
mysterious ex-military officer who offers Case new medical technology that
can cure him. They eventually discover that they are working for a powerful AI
machine called Wintermute . This is one of two AI machines - Wintermute and
Neuromancer - created by a mega-business entity that, under the Turing Law
Code , is not permitted to combine them to create a super-AI machine. Case is
called upon to use his “console cowboy” skills to get through the ICE defenses -
Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics - that prevent the merger of the two
AIs. The topic ends with the two intelligences merging to create the irst AI
computer with “superconsciousness.”
AI and sentient computers
We end this essay with a brief look at three modern portrayals of AI and
sentient computers. In their 1992 topic, The Turing Option , science fiction writer
Harry Harrison and computer scientist Marvin Minsky teamed up to write