Blame the weather. Blame the English weather. In the deserted car park, the wind swirled, cold and damp, blowing little piles of dried leaves into motion and resettling them in new positions against the edges of the sidewalks. Perhaps it would snow before morning.
The Professor had done nothing but grumble since leaving the Research Awards dinner. Clasping his cashmere overcoat and scarf about his portly frame, he kept up a stream of complaint.
“Unprofessional. The chairman of IBM UK should know better than to eat his meal and then leave for the airport. More to it than present the awards and run. Didn’t even look at the exhibits. And it’s freezing.”
Steven Corby led the way towards the Intelligent Computing block. He hadn’t thought that a person so well padded would be sensitive to cold.
“It was his loss, Professor Stern. Now he’ll actually have to read the research papers if he wants to know what the department’s been doing. As I said, I feel we’re on the verge of a monumental breakthrough. It will change the way we think."
"Meaning our thinking today’s all wrong?" Isaac Stern, Olssen Professor of Intelligent Systems, didn’t look amused.
"No, Professor, not at all. But even what we’re doing here is only a small part of what’s possible and to go beyond that, we need official backing."
“So you say,” Professor Stern answered shortly. “And if you think he’ll read anything at all, then you’ve no idea how things work. If I could have spoken to him tonight about funding...”
"I haven't shown this to many people," Corby continued eagerly. This was, he thought, a crucial opportunity. He needed to focus. There was so much information to communicate. Looking round, he realised he’d let his shorter companion fall behind and paused to allow him to catch up. "But the Academic Research Prioritisation Committee next week is a huge opportunity."
"I’m still not clear what you’re asking for." Stern pulled his overcoat closer round his dinner suit and reached up with his left hand to hold his comb-over in place. "I’m a man of my word and I promised to come with you but you’ve dragged me away from an important evening, ostensibly to see something revolutionary. Tell me again exactly what you’re doing that’s so different."
"Exactly my point, Professor. Yes. Precisely what I’m saying. We’re talking about scale. Evolution, now, rather than revolution." Corby was again a yard ahead of the professor as they reached the door of the laboratory, "Are you there DENIS?"
"Steve? I wasn't expecting you tonight." The reply, from a tiny loudspeaker by the side of the door, sounded synthetic. "And is that Professor Stern with you?"
"Yes. I'm hoping he’ll help with the proposal for the next phase." He turned to the Professor. “You need to provide a hand print here too, to store with your picture.” Corby placed his own hand onto the glass plate of a scanner bolted to the wall beneath the speaker. "DENIS has started tracking all visitors."
"So what exactly do you want to show me?" The Professor placed his palm on the glass, the door swung open and they walked into the corridor beyond.
"I wanted you to talk to DENIS. These are the machines I was telling you about." Corby gestured towards stacks of elderly looking PCs running all down one wall of the passage, their cooling fans whirring noisily and filling the air with heat so it dried the mouth and nose.
"There are about two hundred out here." Corby explained. "And the others are spread out, ten or fifteen to an office, depending what the air conditioning can handle."
"Denis? Have you brought me down here to talk to a research assistant?" Even Corby couldn’t miss the impatience in Stern’s voice.
"Oh no. DENIS is an acronym. Distributed Expert Neural Intelligence System. These are DENIS." Corby gestured towards the piles of PCs.
"Ah. Doing speech recognition. I see." The Professor nodded. “And you think that’s a good application for a neural network?”
"Yes. I mean no, that isn’t the application. Or, that isn't what I want to show you. I just want you to talk to DENIS. Have a conversation."
"About what? What’s its knowledge base?" Stern seemed marginally more interested.
"About anything. DENIS's knowledge base is the Internet."
"Really?" Stern's eyes widened slightly. "A sort of natural language search engine?"
"More than that." Inside the building, the synthesised voice was richer, coming from a pair of loudspeakers on the top of the piles of computers. "This is really more about taxonomy. Organising the knowledge base in terms of objective functions. That is why I suggested Steven invite you to pay us a visit."
"What do you mean?"
"DENIS took the view that you’re the key influencer on the ARP committee."
"Indeed." The disembodied voice followed them down the corridor into Corby’s office on the left hand side. "Your record of obtaining support for the projects you sponsor is better than any other member of staff. By 27.3%."
"Has it occurred to you it may have less to do with my influence on the committee and more with the importance of my field of research?" The Professor did not sound flattered.
"Not by my analysis." Corby wished the synthetic voice sounded less confrontational. "By my assessment, two thirds of your projects have received funding ahead of more interesting and important research. I believe you—”
"Professor." Corby cut in abruptly. DENIS wouldn’t realise that the professor looked as if he was about to explode. "My problem is I don't have the presentation skills to do this project justice at the Academic Research Priorities board. Both DENIS and I believe that, with your help, we’d have no difficulty gaining permission to move ahead. Without it, we’re on a knife edge."
"And what makes you think I might help you?" The professor took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow and the bald dome of his head. “And does it have to be so hot in here?”
"If you’ll just try talking to DENIS about anything, Shakespeare, penguin populations in the Weddell Sea – it doesn’t matter what, just try it."
"But, as DENIS pointed out, my applications are more noted for success than for interest." The professor replied dryly. "And it seems to me funding this escapade of yours would probably require the sacrifice of some other project, perhaps in my own area."
"Oh no, Professor." Corby spoke quickly. "We don’t need much in the way of funds. That isn't the main problem. It’s just that we’ve got as far as we can on these old machines."
"And you don't need money to buy more machines?" Stern looked sceptical.
"No. Or only a bit. A couple of thousand, maybe? We mainly need authorisation." Corby replied
"Yes," DENIS added. "All that is required is to connect me to the University network and use the spare computer cycles on machines across the campus. I believe there are over five thousand machines connected up. They are typically used for word processing so most of their machine cycles are idle."
"And if you had access to the ‘idle’ cycles on these machine? How do we know you wouldn’t ‘borrow’ one or two that weren’t idle?" The Professor smiled grimly. "And if you did have permission, how would you plan to use them?"
"To boost DENIS, of course," Corby answered enthusiastically. He’d been lucky, he thought, when he approached Stern at the Christmas Awards Dinner. The unexpected early departure of the guest of honour had provided the opportunity. Now was the time to make his pitch. Show he could wheel and deal with the next man.
"By my calculation DENIS is already able to perform at the level of a very advanced expert system – the kind that does credit ratings in banks – and giving him access to more machine cycles will improve that by an order of magnitude."
"From what you’ve said, though," Stern's looked at him narrowly. "You’re not doing anything particularly revolutionary in terms of programming. Why would the University be interested in supporting something that, by your own account, seems pretty pedestrian?"
"But that’s precisely the point, Professor." Corby had a chance that might not come again to explain his basic concepts. If he could just make Stern understood, he was bound to support the project. "As I told you earlier, I believe there’s only one type of intelligence and it operates by creating neural associations. Whether in the brain of a sea slug with just five neurones, a cat, or a human with billions: the brains all use exactly the same mechanism. The stimuli from the external world that directly or indirectly build up patterns of association between the neurones in the brain may be different but all the patterns built up – sensations, responses, memories, thought patterns, the whole range of intelligence – are the same."
"Corby, we’ve had neural networks for years and we know they’re specialised. Remember I was one of the pioneers. We need new ideas, not a ten year old rehash. We know the brain has specialised networks for visual signals, for hearing, different ones for language. And how do you account for emotion in all this? Your hypothesis flies in the face of the facts."
"Emotion is simply quality in relation to an objective function, of course. I’m sure DENIS has emotions. But the important thing is specialisation results from use. The brain can switch functions to other areas if it’s damaged. That can only be possible if cells in different parts of the brain are more or less interchangeable. If they work in the same basic way." Corby looked around him at the computers piled against the wall of his office. It was difficult to keep focus with this heat. Keep calm. Keep calm. "Look Professor, what we’ve achieved here wouldn’t be possible if you’re right. With just a few hundred used computers acquired out of my salary, I’ve created a general purpose intelligence on the basis that specialisation can come from use, rather than being designed in. I can demonstrate it to you. With more memory to create neurons it becomes exponentially more powerful.”
“Are you trying to correct me, Doctor Corby?” Stern paused, removed his glasses and wiped them with a red and white spotted handkerchief. “You stand here in front of some piles of scrap computers and try to tell me you know more than someone who’s been working on this for twenty years?”
“No, no! That isn’t what I mean. Or at least DENIS can demonstrate what we’ve achieved.”
“A voice recognition search engine? You intend instructing me based on an application I have on my iPad? You bring me away from the most important dinner of the year for the department’s sponsors to show me an iPad application?”
“Much more than that, Professor, much more—”
"You said it operated at the level of a commercial neural network program?" Stern interrupted.
"I actually think he – I tend to think of him as a he – I think he could emulate the most advanced neural net out there but, he does better than that. He can recognise individuals, he operates the lab security using little more than a commercial scanner and he can hold a conversation in English using the Internet as his knowledge base. Think what he could do with twice number of neurones. Or ten times."
"I appreciate what you’ve done here." Professor Stern cut in. He loosened his bow tie and continued. "And your reuse of these old computers – a pile of junk, if I may say so – is obviously highly ingenious."
"Yes. The algorithm to distribute the processing over the network…" Corby attempted to continue but the Professor waved him down.
"Please allow me to finish." Stern wiped his spectacles again and stared short-sightedly up at Corby. "Obviously highly ingenious. And it probably contravenes a dozen of the University's health and safety regulations. But the main point is, I don’t see anything new here, nothing more ‘important’ than the projects the department is already undertaking, some with valuable commercial sponsorship.
“What you’re telling me sounds more like mind-boggled claptrap than serious science. I certainly won’t be speaking on your behalf. By all means, send in your research proposal. It will get the consideration it deserves." The professor picked up his coat and let himself out into the night.
Corby followed him to the door. Outside, the wind was strengthening and the snow had started – wet, sticky snow mixed in with rain.
“Well DENIS, that didn’t go as well as I hoped.” Corby turned back to his office.
“Do you think not?” DENIS’ voice followed him from the loudspeakers on top of the piles of PCs. “After all, he said that it would get the consideration it deserved.”
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