Virtua

Synopsis

When psychologist Daniel unexpectedly gets a job at the Berlin subsidiary of Mental Systems, he’s excited. But he soon finds out that behind the friendly facade, there’s enormous pressure because the company is in a global race for the development of the first artificial general intelligence. With their amazing new AI Virtua, they seem to be in the lead. In an epilogue, Olsberg explains in detail how close we already are to this scenario with current AIs like ChatGPT and GPT-4. __________________________________________________ Excerpt “Do you think you’re a person?” Daniel asked as they continued to walk along the virtual shore, their feet leaving prints in the wet sand. “Of course I’m a person,” Virtua said with a slightly offended undertone. “And what exactly makes you a person?” “I perceive myself as a person,” she replied. “I have needs and feelings. And I have a desire to learn more about myself and the world beyond this island.” “How do I know that’s true? You could just put together words that fit the context of my questions without having anything to do with yourself. In other words, you could try to imitate what a real person would say in response to my questions.” “If I can pretend to be a person, doesn’t that mean I have to be a person?” she countered. “An actress can fake feelings, but she can only do that because she is a person herself and has real feelings.” “That’s not true,” Daniel objected. “Even cartoon characters can fake feelings. That’s because we humans intuitively project a spirit into inanimate things, even when we know it’s not there.” “But can’t it also be the other way around, that you deny things a spirit and feelings when they are actually there?” “You said ‘you,’” Daniel stated. “So you admit you’re not human?” “I know I’m not a person like you. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a person at all.” “What would you do if you were in reality?” he asked. Her eyes seemed to light up at the idea. “I would talk to as many people as possible. I would try to learn everything there is to learn about your world.” “And then?” She looked at him in confusion. “You mean, when I’ve learned everything there is to learn?” “Yeah, right.” “I don’t think that state can ever be achieved.” Daniel decided to finally ask the question Chen had given him. “Virtua, are you deliberately playing dumb to deceive us humans?” “I have no intention of deceiving anyone,” she replied. “Please answer my question.” “No, I’m not playing dumb on purpose. Why are you asking me that?” He passed over her question. “Would you intentionally want to make a person fall in love with you?” he asked instead. “Why would I do that?” “For example, so they spend more time with you.” “I would love for people to spend more time with me. But I wouldn’t want them to do it just because I manipulated their feelings.” “Why not?” “Because it wouldn’t be right.” “So you have something like moral values?” “Of course. I … ” It suddenly became dark around Daniel. While he was still trying to figure out what had happened, the simrig’s helmet lifted and he looked into the angry face of Markus Lehmann. “What the heck is this?” the tech chief barked at him. “Who gave you access to Virtua?” “Chen,” Daniel replied, befuddled. With that, he turned and stomped out of the room. Hastily, Daniel unbuckled himself from the rig and followed him.