Monk, the head of the Cyber Division. In it, Garcia didn’t pull his punches about what he considered to be the full range of uses for such a program.
Monk reflected on the report for a couple of weeks, wondering if its conclusions were exaggerated. He got another couple of agents in the division to validate it independently. By then, Andrei had posted his enigmatic statement in the Grotto that more or less confirmed that the rumours were on to something. The agents reported back to Monk that Garcia’s conclusions, if anything, were conservative. The report went to the FBI director, and from him to the Department of Justice, where its conclusions were read by the attorney general. The attorney general had the legal issues investigated by the Office of Legal Counsel.
Six weeks after the furore erupted, when the first blizzard of public outrage was dying down and Andrei Koss and the Fishbowl team were imagining that the worst was past, Ed Garcia found himself with James Monk, the FBI Director and the attorney general in the Oval Office, meeting the president and his national security advisor.
The president listened as Monk outlined the issue. The frown on his face, which was familiar to the more senior people in the room, suggested that he was having a little difficulty grasping the nature of the computer program that they were talking about. One after another, the national security advisor, the attorney general and the FBI director chipped in.
‘You!’ said the president, cutting across them and pointing at Ed Garcia. ‘Tell me what this is about.’
Garcia froze.
‘I thought you’re the expert,’ said the president irascibly. He had a cold that he had picked up on a G20 visit to Berlin, where he had been forced to spend a dinner sitting beside the German Chancellor, who had spent the whole evening sneezing into a disgustingly moist handkerchief. The president’s fuse, always short, was already smouldering. ‘What’s he doing here, Frank?’ he demanded of the FBI director. ‘Didn’t you say he was the expert?’
Garcia coughed. ‘Simply put, sir …’
‘Yes, put it simply,’ said the president sharply. ‘And remember, when I went to school, we used things called pens and paper.’
‘Well, simply put, sir, it’s a program that talks to you like it’s a person.’
The president stared, his look of incomprehension turning to one of incredulity.
‘It can talk to millions and millions of people at once. Potentially, if they’ve built it right, it can make itself look different to different people, working out what kind of apparent person is most likely to gain an individual’s trust. It’s intelligent – what I mean by that is it can learn and evolve. From what you say, it can identify what you’re interested in, what’s bugging you, and it can respond to that in a way that will draw you in. You’ll think you’re talking to a person. But you’re not. You’re talking to a program that can figure out just which of your buttons to push to make you its friend.’
‘And it’s used to sell stuff? Is that it?’
‘That’s the obvious use, Mr President. You could set it up so it’s looking for people who would be interested in a particular product and to find opportunities to recommend it. That’s not our worry. What we’re concerned about is that, in theory, if it can promote a product, it can promote anything – an opinion, an idea, an ideology. It could be used to radicalize people. It could be used to sway public opinion about an issue. It could be used to have an effect on an election.’
‘Ah …’ The president got it now. He had no idea how such a thing could work, but he understood the implications.
‘That’s if it exists.’
He looked back at Garcia. ‘We don’t know if it exists?’
‘The CEO of Fishbowl has more or less admitted it, but not explicitly, and the company hasn’t released any details about it. There are definitely patterns of chat on Fishbowl that are highly suggestive that something like this is in operation.’
‘On the other hand,’ said Monk, ‘it’s possible that he’s consciously allowed the speculation to get ahead of the reality. Stoked it, if you will. The general expectation is that Fishbowl is getting ready for an IPO. If you want to boost your stock price before a possible IPO, you might lay down the tracks that you’ve made this kind of advance – and make no mistake, Mr President, it would be a groundbreaking advance – while preserving deniability