Providence - Max Barry Page 0,75
it was spraying them like mist with no sign of stopping. We had lost all of the carriers and a third of the escort. I gave the order to retreat.”
She forced herself to stop. The room was silent. The screen paused its replay. It was awash with red, four small white markers arrowing toward the left corner. She took a sip of water, her hand trembling.
“This kind of engagement must never happen again,” Nettle said. “We can’t allow them to get close. You’ve heard of the Providence program?”
She took a shaky breath. “It’s a new class of battleship.”
He nodded. “If we can get funding approval, it will win the war.”
“The public was united before Fornina Sirius,” said the general. “Afterward, they were burning flags. Now there’s a pacifist leading the polls. We’re smarter than our enemy and better resourced, but we will lose if we can’t convince people they need to fight. The real war isn’t out there. It’s down here.”
“The design is truly remarkable,” Nettle said. “If they work like they’re supposed to, a handful of Providences may enable us to achieve total military victory with zero casualties. What do you think?”
She said, “I think our plan was zero casualties, too.”
“Indeed,” said Nettle. “But, to speak bluntly, your fleet was constructed in peacetime. This is a new generation of war machine designed specifically to destroy this enemy.” He turned to Bogart. “Would you like to present the software?”
Bogart cleared his throat. The main screen flipped to a diagram. “I work in Surplex Machine Intelligence, liaising with Service Strategic Command for—”
“I know who you are,” she said.
He nodded. “There were, obviously, serious performance shortfalls at Fornina Sirius, not only during the encounter itself but also at various stages leading up to it. Immediately afterward, Service and Surplex launched a number of inquiries into, one, establishing how these defects were able to occur, and two, recommending strategies for avoiding a repeat in the next generation of military hardware.”
“Take it out.”
Bogart’s eyebrows rose. “Ah . . .”
“It doesn’t work,” she said. “Remove it. That’s my recommendation.”
“With respect,” Bogart said, “it’s not practical to, as you say, ‘take it out.’ Software is integral to the military. It’s in every vehicle, vessel, and practically every piece of equipment. There’s no question that it will be present. The question is how much executive authority it should wield.”
She turned to Nettle. “Is this why I’m here? You know my opinion. Keep software out of command. I’d rather have nothing than have a computer I can’t trust.”
“That’s not why you’re here,” Nettle said.
“Now, we actually agree on this,” said Bogart, shuffling forward. “Because, and perhaps this will surprise you, we at Surplex find your actions at Fornina Sirius to be fairly reasonable, under the circumstances. But we also think our software was reasonable. In our opinion, what created a catastrophic failure was not software, or human command—”
“Not software?”
“—but the communication between the two.”
She jabbed a finger toward the screen. “Were you watching? Did you see the computers let that hive breeze up to our front door?”
“It was correctly categorized as an unknown object. The fact that no officer ordered a closer investigation—”
“Not one alarm. Not so much as a red light.”
“—is attributable to inadequate shared understanding between the human and artificial components of command.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.
“Our conclusion,” said Bogart carefully, “which I believe is shared by Service, was that Providence-class battleships should be commanded by machine intelligence, free from human input.”
There was silence. “Well,” she said. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“It’s not an idea,” Nettle said. “It’s happening.”
“If you’d like to review our simulations,” Bogart said, “you’ll see that software outperforms human decision-making in practically all areas by orders of magnitude. It’s not even close.”
“Simulations,” she said. “Computers grading themselves.”
“Your reservations are understandable,” Nettle said. “You have more reason than anyone to be cynical about AI running command of a Providence. That’s why we’d like you to captain one.”