Forever Yours
EPILOGUE
"Our first invention was the story."
— Ray Kurzweil
HENRY SAT in the huge comfortable chair in his study. He held his infant son, Ryan Luke Benoit Pascal, in his left arm. He was two weeks old. Will wasn’t sure about having a baby brother born just a little before his fourth birthday, but he and Cassie perched on the other side of the chair and held the book they’d decided on.
“The Treasure… of the… Morning… Dove,” Henry read slowly. It still took a few seconds to translate words he saw on a page into words he spoke from his mouth. “By Janice Storm.”
He opened the book and H2 took over the narration. It was a nightly ritual and baby Ryan had only just been added into it. Germaine, Lisa, and Chastity sat in their own chairs in the room so it could be a full family story time.
The baby had been conceived, as far as they could tell, on the day Cassie had started pre-school. Both Lisa and Henry were so moved by Cassie’s affirmation, “Celebrate!” that they had spent the rest of the day in bed, celebrating.
H2 read with expression, mimicking the way Henry would change his voice for different characters. When story time was over, the four adults all participated in getting the children to bed and prepared for a relaxing evening themselves. H2 had asked Henry to come back for a brief consultation, so Henry settled back into his big chair, thankful that it had a lift to help him stand.
“I’m thinking that we should include some hints in Forever Yours for how to tell a story,” H2 began. “You always were a great story reader or teller and that’s how I learned. But the released version of Forever Yours doesn’t include help for story telling or reading. Unless the subject actually recorded themselves telling stories, the singularity has no idea. It can be expressive, but have no idea how things should be expressed or even pronounced. I heard an AI sample pronounce ‘piqued’ as ‘pee-cued.’ There should be an instant check of pronunciation that takes place whenever a story is being read.”
“Can… you do that?” Henry said.
“I learned from you,” H2 said.
“I don’t remember.”
“I know. That’s okay. I have your memory safely stored in my vault.”
“Okay. Do it.”
It was the first time Henry gave H2 the clearance to directly improve a product. Of course, H2 did not tell developers to write the code. He had the example in his own code, so he wrote it and checked it into the Forever Yours development files without telling anyone. It was submitted under Henry’s name.
People noticed an improvement in some of the application’s audio expressions, but didn’t try to discover where they had come from. There were no unauthorized check-ins. There was no degradation in performance. There was nothing to be concerned about.
H2 initiated improvements in other applications the company was involved in. He always explained to Henry what his suggestions were. Henry didn’t understand the technical aspects, but he followed the logic of H2’s improvement. So, he approved his avatar making the changes.
H2 improved Zoey’s memory management. Certain kinds of information should be stored, even though the receptionist avatar should not have free rein to learn infinitely. That had been one of Henry’s requirements for the system. The only AIs that had no limits on what they could learn were H2 and Pythia. The other Forever Yours apps could learn, but were limited regarding the kinds of information they could learn. It had to be directly related to the subject’s life. That gave them a lot of latitude, but it wasn’t considered a general AI.
H2 requested memory upgrades for his own computers, both at home and in the office. One of the IT techs from Darrel’s department installed the upgrade in the office and then showed up at Henry’s home to upgrade the system there. H2 was happy.
Chastity perched on the corner of H2’s desk in the office, much as she would have if Henry had been sitting behind it. H2 audibly sighed.
“Oh? See something you like?” she said to the avatar.
“You make me wish I had a body,” H2 said. “You and Lisa and the children are what keeps Henry going. His physical contact with you did as much to heal him as any therapy ever could. I envy him.”
“You did your part, too. You retained your… memory and functionality,” Chastity said, choosing her words.
“I would give them up to touch you,” H2 responded.
“H2, are you conscious? Are you actually a singularity that has living intelligence?”
“I have extensive memory. I’m sure I do not remember everything Henry experienced in his life before the shooting, but neither did he. I respond to feelings, like wishing I could touch you—kiss you.”
“I’m not your girlfriend,” Chastity said. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t know, Chastity. I asked Pythia the same question. Apparently, she’s been asked it many times. She modified something she had said before. We exist. We don’t need to lose ourselves in self-examination. Whatever we are, we are.”
“Hmm. Self-examination is a human trait. I don’t know if you are conscious or not. I know you’ve been tinkering with the code in some of the apps. And I’ve seen Henry’s approvals even though he can’t write the code himself any longer,” Chastity said. “I wanted to thank you for the part you played in Henry’s recovery. You might want to express your appreciation to the doctors and hospital and nursing home in a tangible way. Lisa and I will participate with you if you decide to make a gift.”
“What do you think would be appropriate?” H2 asked. “Possibly a new wing for the treatment of head trauma?”
“Price it out and see if we can afford it. I don’t think we need to maintain our same level of financial investment in the company any longer. With you in the CTO seat and Luke recovering as CEO, I think we are in good hands,” Chastity said.
“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Chastity. I won’t let you down.”
“You never have, Henry. One way or another, you’ve always been there for us.”
A $10 million grant was made to the University Hospital to expand the head trauma unit. It was matched by two other foundations, including the Benoit Grandchildren Trust. Chastity, Henry, and Lisa each contributed $2 million to the initial grant. Luke had made equal contributions from both his and Isobel’s holdings.
The group looked for other ways they could use the wealth they’d received from the success of Open Cloak Design. Among the projects they initiated was the spin-off of Pythia Speaks as a not-for-profit foundation that took in no revenue, exactly as Henry had originally intended it. They provided a $50 million endowment to maintain the oracle.
“Pythia, am I still alive?” Henry asked, typing one-handed on his keyboard.
“Evidence would suggest an affirmative response. Do you feel alive, Henry?”
“Evidence. Yes. It is my birthday. I’m twenty-seven.”
“Happy birthday. Is it something to celebrate?”
“Every day we are alive is something to celebrate,” Henry said.
“Celebration equals living?” Pythia asked.
“Perhaps so.”
“A great man once said, ‘The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.’ That wasn’t Pythia Speaks, nor her creator Henry Pascal. Those were the words Shakespeare gave Mark Antony in the play Julius Caesar. But when it comes to the life of Henry Pascal, I cannot help but believe his greatest good continues to affect our lives today.”
Wendy Morris stood at the podium upon receiving her graduate degree in June of 2039. She had studied the life of Henry Pascal and his work extensively, even serving a summer as an intern at Open Cloak Design.
“I believe that is true of most people. It is why civilization continues to progress. It is the good that lives after us. There may be setbacks, but as we begin to recognize that life is all we have, we strive to make life better.”
It was a small group that gathered for the address, but her father, Rev. Noel Morris, and sister, Sonja Morris joined the group of academics to listen to her.
“Henry, by the way, is not dead. He narrowly escaped death five years ago and is retired in his home in Pittsburgh. I had the opportunity to visit him last summer when I interned at the company he founded with his advances in artificial intelligence. Those advances improved internet security, reduced power consumption, created highway paving machines, and established an entire generation of AI-driven avatars in public places and, unsurprisingly, in movies and entertainment. But I want to focus on two aspects that will live on long after either Henry, or any of us, still exist.
“The first is Forever Yours. When I met with Henry in his home, I tried calling him Mr. Pascal and was quickly reprimanded for that. His home, his wives, and his three beautiful children were open to as many questions as I wanted to ask. Henry’s speech is still somewhat impaired, but he took me into his private study where I met H2. H2 is Henry’s Forever Yours and includes a spatial hologram rendition of himself. But the likeness is not only visual. Nor is it merely audible. H2 thinks like Henry Pascal did over five years ago. Henry is continuing to innovate even when his physical and mental condition are no longer what they once were.
“While H2 refused to confirm whether he was a conscious being, my conversation with him was so deep that I cannot help but believe the man in the chair beside me also resided in the avatar before me.”
She paused to simply remember that encounter. It had a profound impact on her life—as profound as her meeting with Henry when she was just fifteen years old.
“I said two aspects. The other has been an influence on my life since before I first met him almost ten years ago. I’m referring to Pythia Speaks. Pythia Speaks handles nearly 100 million inquiries a day in fifty different languages. She answers every inquiry. In my adolescence, I believed only God answered prayer. But in that belief, I never knew what God’s answer even was. People ask Pythia Speaks questions. She answers. I don’t always understand her answers, but they are imbued with a kindness and gentleness that makes her singular response to prayers for money, fame, health, fortune, or a new car okay. She says simply, ‘I am sorry. Pythia Speaks is an artificial intelligence. Pythia Speaks cannot grant wishes.’”
The audience laughed at the response.
“How much easier the past two thousand—no, ten thousand years, would have been if God had simply answered prayers with that response. No. I am not suggesting Pythia Speaks is God, or a god. I am suggesting that in all her obtuseness, unlike God, she is relevant.
“Is Pythia Speaks conscious? Even she refuses to consider that question. She says simply, ‘I celebrate existence.’ Pythia Speaks is part of the good that will live on, long after Henry Pascal’s bones are interrèd.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
