DRUMS OF THE MIND
In thirty years in engineering I've met some
weird people, but nobody quite like Jason. Only
Jason Logan would turn up at an interview dressed
in jeans and an old suit jacket. Beneath the
jacket he was wearing a T-shirt with the
profile of a head on it, the outline marked
off in the phrenology departments of Hope,
Secretiveness and Despair. Jason was
never one to overdress.
Nevertheless I'd made him a job offer on
the spot, I knew he was who we needed. As
he was leaving, meandering in what I would
come to know as his usual stooped preoccupied
fashion, he barged straight into my boss. He
backed away muttering something, maybe it was
an apology, maybe not.
Afterwards Troy, my boss, came over. He said,
"Mr. Jason Logan, the saviour of the project
I presume. Do you want to buy my company shares?"
Yet of the engineers that I've known, and
there have been some good ones, Jason was miles
ahead. In his subject he was brilliant and
in key areas self-taught.
Jason had started out doing neurological
research. He'd studied the brain and its
anatomy, in this field he'd done very well.
But it was the Broca drum that had got
everyone's attention. Jason had taught
himself software and hardware, all to
design a drum that could be played without
touching.
To play his drum you wore a helmet
containing super conducting quantum
interference devices, - SQUIDS. All the
player had to do was 'hear' internally, what
he wanted to play. The SQUIDS monitored the
micro electrical signals in the brain; Jason's
system turned it into music.
My interest in Jason was rather different. I
was a project manager at Douglas Avionics and
we were developing what would surely be the last
of the manned military aircraft. The project
was in trouble, I needed Jason and I thought
we'd be lucky to get him.
Jason was qualified, had all the skills we
needed, and he was available. Only later did
I discover that his abrasive style had made
him persona non grata at most of the decent
universities.
Now this was a huge project with hundreds of
engineers, but in all that talent, there was
nobody who could do for us what Jason could do.
I told him what the main issues were. "The
project is struggling and if it fails there
are lots of jobs at risk. If we don't get this
one delivered we'll be out of the manned
aircraft business for good. "We need to get
our PSI control system working reliably.
"There is just one remaining tactical need
for keeping a man in the cockpit. This is in
controlling swarms of MUAVS. Micro UAV swarms
are a very hot idea but they don't lend
themselves to total autonomy." I said.
"To simultaneously fly the plane, and control
the UAVS you need PSI control I take it,"
Jason said.
"Correct," I said. I was encouraged by how
quickly he caught on.
"Why don't you just get into the MUAV
business," he said.
"The MUAV field is the domain of small,
fast reacting companies. The surfer dudes
we call them. They work out of garages,
hack systems together in days, do it all
on a shoestring," I said.
"They sound like my kind of people,"
he said.
"Don't even think about it Jason,
I saw you first."
I was proud of the fact that the PSI control
system had been, up to then, a successful project.
Over the years numerous problems had been solved,
and we had reached the flight test stage on budget.
And with a product that bore a pretty close
resemblance to what we had presented to the
Air Force five years earlier. - We'd had voice
control in aircraft for years, now we were moving
to thought control, unlikely as seems it could
work well.
We were using a special helmet to detect mental
activity to produce the control we needed. We'd
built a device that was a miniature brain
scanner. With the right kind of software, we
could monitor the brain and extract control signals
for anything we needed. The pilot could control
his aircraft, and control a swarm of MUAVS,
just by thinking.
"Things have been going well in lab testing
but now we have shifted to the flight test phase.
This is very expensive, things are going wrong
and we just don't have a way to investigate
during flight," I said.
"You are building this thing for a single
seater jet fighter right?" Jason
said. "Not much room for guys with debug
terminals then."
"I've read your PHD paper on extracting
internal monologue, the system you call Marvel.
It sounds like what we need to get into this
problem, if you can get it to run on our hardware."
"I'd be willing to give it a try. I know your
hardware set-up must be pretty close to mine,
anyone trying to monitor neurological behavior
for control has got to be using SQUIDS right?"
"Yes. We have a special training technique we
put the pilots through. They learn to mentally
manipulate a new part of the body - the aircraft,
and when they can do that, they get to mentally
fly a swarm of MUAVS as well," I said.
"It's a mans life in the Air Force right."
With Jason on the payroll I started him off with
a look at our previous test run. We had hours of
video that had been taken at the test range
in Canada.
We'd taken our test aircraft, the 'Fighter' up
there, along with a transport plane and two pods
full of MUAVS.
"Each MUAV is about a metre wing span. It has a
foam plastic airframe, a single chip GPS, a radio
receiver and a few servos. There's a stripped
down computer out of a fast games machine to bind
it all together. It would make a pretty good model
plane, if it wasn't for the warhead."
I started the video replay. The camera was in
the transport aircraft. Under each wing of that
plane was a long square container -
the UAV pod. This was the point where the MUAV
swarm was dispensed.
The doors of the pods opened and the UAVS
started dropping out. They fell like leaves
ripped from a tree in a winter storm.
The camera followed one as it dropped away
from the transport. After it had been falling
for a second or two it settled into a stable dive.
"This is the power up phase; it needs to get
up to speed to spin up the jet motor. Once it's
diving fast enough the computer will switch on
the fuel and ignition," I said.
The camera pulled back and we saw that all the
other UAVS, about fifty of them, were pulling up
out of their dive phase and starting to form
up into a swarm.
Once in a group the UAVS behaved like a flock
of birds, swerving this way and that yet all
the time maintaining a metre spacing from each other.
"Now they are waiting for commands from the
Fighter pilot," I said.
Another camera picked up the Fighter fighter. It
had flown non-stop from Spain refuelling in flight
from the transport plane, which also served
as a tanker.
The transport was twelve thousand metres above
the snow covered Canadian prairie. The sky was
clear and the ground revealed none of the works of
man. So barren is it here that the ground looks
as weird as the top of a brain - with no references
it was difficult to estimate how high the
view was.
The Fighter started its dive and the UAV swarm
went with it. Only now did it become apparent
how high the camera was, the descending Fighter
became a glinting dot pursued by the UAV swarm -
looking like a liquid cloud of insects.
The view changed to a camera mounted on the
pilot's helmet in the cockpit of the Fighter.
He was searching the sky; in his field of view
was a pointer telling him where to look.
His view panned rapidly as he followed the
target pointer. The target box brightened up
as he lined up on the target.
A caption popped up. It identified the target
as a military bomber. In fact, the bomber was
being simulated by another UAV. But to radar it
would look just like a real, full-sized bomber.
It was time for the pilot to direct the UAV
swarm towards the target. The warhead equipped
versions would move in and take out the engines.
"Why not use a good old fashioned heat
seeking missile?" Jason asked.
"More flexibility - with this set up we
can change the attack pattern,
right up to the last second," I said.
This was where it all started to go wrong.
The swarm had identified the target but it
repeatedly refused to execute the kill. We
watched as the swarm passed on repeated chances.
Every time it looked as though one of
the red painted 'lethal's' had got within
reach of the target's engines the swarm veered away.
"I can see why this is so complicated," said
Jason. "They've implemented a bird flocking
algorithm. The control commands will defy normal
analysis. What do the UAV people say?"
"They insist that they are following our
commands; they have data logs that seem to
verify that. But as you've realized it's very
difficult to sort out the command stream from
the collision avoidance."
"The UAV swarm are like a group mind, like
insects. You can't make much sense of examining
the behavior of just one; they operate as a
cluster. Its fundamental to how the swarm works.
"Moreover it's a proprietary system built by
the UAV manufacturers, they are scared shitless
of telling us exactly how it does work. We just
use their transmitter box, it sends commands to
all the swarm elements," I said.
"And the transmitter gets pilot commands
straight from the SQUID decoder," said Jason.
"Right again, that's why we need Marvel."
**
The problem of any testing is one of measuring
without changing what you are measuring. But
after a short time Jason came up with a way to
break into the problem.
We had a group of SQUIDS built into the pilot's
helmet. These were focused on the Broca region
of the brain. When you perform a conscious action
the Broca area communicates with the left frontal
lobe. The signals then go back to the Broca area
and eventually to the nervous system to become
muscle movements at the limbs. In our case,
they were controlling virtual limbs - the
aircraft controls and the UAV swarm.
I knew from my reading of Jason's PHD paper
that there was a lot going on in the Broca
region. The Broca area is the speech centre
of the brain, it seems to be the home of our
internal monologue, that silent voice
that plays constantly; when we are driving,
flying, walking, doing just about everything.
The SQUID processing was done within a three
dimensional array of DSP chips. These were
inside the pilot's helmet. Jason would convert
his software to run in spare time within this
array. This new software would tease out the
internal monologue - the stream of consciousness.
The processors would identify its characteristic
signature and turn the signals into audible speech.
Jason had built a similar system for his PHD
dissertation; he should be able to port much of
this to our hardware.
This would give us a stream of information on
what the pilot's intentions really were, far
faster, and more complete than any normal report.
I had arrived at the lab at just the right time -
the first time he got it working. Like Isaac Newton
Jason used himself as a test subject.
He had the system rigged to a loud speaker and
had an unfortunate habit of switching the audio
to his drum set-up. For about the millionth time
I heard the drum introduction to Bowie's,
'Rebel - Rebel' and then abruptly...
"One more frigging time then I quit and order a
pizza-hey what the screw it-there's that frigging
idiot project manager-" Came briefly from the
loudspeaker in the lab, then dissolved into static.
"Jason what was that? Sounds like you had
something going there?"
The speaker started up again, "Screw off, I'm
thinking here-I have to concentrate a little-maybe
if I change to a broader focus it will come
more natural-just a delay to rebuild-maybe I can
just change data-what did the spec say-." Then
it became static again.
This, at last, was our test tool working, an
audible narration of an individual's internal
monologue.
Despite this breakthrough, Jason had trouble
generalizing his setup to work with just anyone.
Somebody suggested that with Jason his internal
monologue and his speech were near indistinguishable,
his impetuous tongue knew no self-editing. Perhaps
that made his internal monologue easier to lock to.
However, what has been done once can be repeated.
The military processors that Jason had to use in
our system were slower than the games processors
that he had used for the prototype Marvel.
But second time through he was able to come
up with a number of speed-ups. Even a genius like
Jason can do better on the second bite.
A few weeks later, after many late nights,
Jason had a generalized solution running. It
was fascinating to eavesdrop on someone's thoughts
as they relaxed and let their minds run. Jason
had got someone to help him with the calibration.
The guy drove his car up and down his route
to work, we listened in on his stream of thoughts.
"must stop for gas on the way home-it seems this
chick really knows the score-she won't get home
until ten tonight time tough-wonder if this
car will last another year-must make a dentist
appointment-wonder what's on the menu," so
related the Marvel voice.
Stray thoughts, fragments of song, all
were rendered tonelessly. The Marvel produced
a flat colorless voice, as if the proceedings
of a mind emotionally neutral.
We had a meeting with the boss the next day.
"So Jason," Troy said. "How long before we
have a solution and can sign off some software?"
"It's no use asking me. I'm just building you
a tool. But I should have thought it was obvious
that you'll still need to do more testing. Then
implement a fix, then another flight test before
there is any bloody possibility of signing
anything off."
Too bad Jason hadn't stopped himself at,
'It's no use asking me.' I don't know what
shocked Troy more, the news that he would have
to fund another air test or, being spoken to
like a screw head. I knew we'd need another air
test, I'd been waiting for the right moment to
break the news to Troy, now Jason had preempted me.
But it was Friday, and I just wanted to get away
from Jason, Troy and all this stuff for the weekend.
It had been months since I'd been down to
the boat, I'd promised the family a trip. I put
Jason's latest report in the converter and made
a voice copy of it to listen to in the car on
the drive home.
As I was leaving Claire called up from payroll.
They were looking for Jason; there was a problem
with his security clearance and the form was needed
right away. I knew Jason had gone for the day,
all this week he'd been in early and hadn't left
before nine at night.
I looked up Jason's address and decided I
would swing by his house and get the form
completed. I could send it to security from home.
It was a tidy detached house in a leafy suburb.
Jason's mum answered the door; she was a lady in
late middle age, she had moved to England
from Belfast when Jason was a child. As soon as
I got through the door she started to tell me
about her life.
"Of course after young Ryan got sick, I had
to give up work, he needs constant care. Jason
was a wonder of course, I always told him not to
neglect his studies, but he did everything for
Ryan, their father was no frigging use, pardon
my French, never got a penny out of him,
after that bloody hospital ruined poor Ryan.."
So it went on. Eventually I discovered that
Jason had taken Ryan, his brother, out for the
evening. Ryan was the musician for whom
Jason had developed the Broca drum. "Of course
Ryan didn't drive, what could I be thinking of?"
Mrs. Logan said.
"Jason didn't tell me that," Jason had never
mentioned Ryan or his mother to me.
Finally I got Mrs. Logan round to the matter
of Jason's security form.
"Well I'd best be getting home myself Mrs.
Logan I expect Jason and Ryan will be back
pretty late?" I said.
"That they will, Ryan loves his music nights,"
she said.
"Jason loves music, he fills the lab with
it quite frequently."
"That machine he made for Ryan, the Broca
thing, he's made a tidy sum out of it. A
strange thing to come out of such a tragedy,"
she said.
I wished later I'd tried to find out what
she was talking about but the enigmatic Mrs.
Logan was wearing me out. It had been a long week,
and I had a curry and a big gin and tonic waiting.
Monday morning, Jason was in the lab. He was
wandering around with a SQUID helmet on, and
Marvel was running and his thoughts were pouring
out of the speaker.
"nice to get a bit done while the labs
quiet-Ryan enjoyed his Friday-she
still blames me for Ryan-he's frustrated
now by the system response-I never can do
enough for him to get her off my back-maybe
I can transform his code to the lookup table
scheme like on Fighter-frigging-tom sneaking
in like that," the speaker abruptly went
silent as he hit the cut-off.
"Sorry Jason I didn't mean to startle you,"
I said. "I had a nice little chat with your
mum on Friday evening." Jason can be pretty
difficult at times, and I'd no idea how he
would react to me dropping by his house. If
he was going to act like an a*s about it I'd
as soon get it over with on a Monday morning.
"Oh yes she said you'd been around. She seemed
quite taken by you, wanted to know if you were
married an all." I had to give Jason a long
look to decide if he was joking. I mentally
took a deep breath and played it back to him.
"Please tell her that I am happily married,
thank you. In any case I see quite enough of
you during working hours." Jason grinned and
turned back to his work.
Now that the Marvel was starting to work we
set up a test run in the simulator. The set up
called for a re-run of the Canadian flight
test. Rick, our chief pilot would be flying
and Jason had spent a day with him tuning the Marvel.
The run started from the last of the air-to-air
refuelling sessions. The refuelling system could
work entirely automatically, but on this occasion
we simulated a sensor fault on the automatic pilot.
Rick had to fly the Fighter mentally.
As Rick closed in on the transport to refuel, the
Marvel vocalization of his thoughts streamed out.
"transport at two miles-too fast-too fast-is
better-better-probe extension-buffeting's way
too much tell lab people-why is he climbing-
better-better-speed brake in-in the pocket-
contact light-fuel-lovely"
Now Rick had the Fighter settled in the flow
field, the zone behind a big aircraft where the
air becomes very stable, this is the region known as
the 'pocket'. Now it was a case of keeping
station there and the Marvel voice quietened as
Rick settled into a Zen like state. Now he was
making a stream of instinctive corrections as he
flew close in behind the tanker, constantly
adjusting pitch and roll and slowly increasing
the power as tons of fuel flowed from the transport
into the Fighter.
When the refuelling was finished the session
moved on to the UAV release. We had planned
another intentional fault, this time we would
fail the control system of the UAV swarm.
The Marvel burst back into life as Rick mentally
shifted gears to his new task. "-pod dispersal a
little early-screw it they're rattling around
like-falling way too fast-should power up much
quicker than that-"
The UAVS had dropped from their pod, started
their engines and climbed back up to form the
swarm alongside the Fighter. All this had been
accomplished successfully, then control of the
swarm switched to Rick.
Most pilots used the mental strategy of 'seeing'
the swarm as being physically attached to the
aircraft, like an external fuel tank or an old
style missile. It was like riding a bicycle while
holding an umbrella, but easier than controlling
the swarm separately. Nevertheless, that phase was
unavoidable, eventually the swarm needs to go
off and attack something.
"-heavy transport fifty miles-too high-too
high-closing-closing-tally-deploy-" and the
swarm had set off towards the target.
"-swarm down-slower-slower-down-down.."
We watched as the swarm dropped way below the
target. This was the failure that we had introduced,
the control transmitter of the UAV swarm
was considered failed and all the little
aircraft were falling to the ground unguided.
Finally Rick switched his radio on and announced,
"Swarm failure, aborting."
Later with Rick out of the cockpit we sat and
watched the replay together. "I could see as soon
as the swarm started to deploy that it
was in trouble, it started dropping immediately,"
he said.
Jason laughed at him. "You may be remembering it
like that now, but at the time Marvel reported
something different," Jason said.
"If it did, it's wrong Jason. I don't care what
that zombie voice box of yours says, I know
what I saw."
"You're remembering wrong. Marvel reported what
you thought at the time," said Jason.
"I'm not listening to anymore of this screw ball
Tom. I'll be in my office. Call me when Jason gets
his bag of tricks sorted out, if he gets
it sorted out," Rick stormed out.
Then Jason said. "I have to leave too Tom, I
have to take the rest of the week off."
"What! It's Monday, what the hell am I supposed
to do now? You just called our Chief Pilot a liar,
we need to prove it," I said.
Yet I could hardly refuse Jason a break, he'd
been working eighty-hour weeks for me for the
last six months.
"I need to get something sorted at home, it'll
probably take all week, I'll call you, soon as
I know."
"Come on Jason, you really are leaving me
in the lurch."
"You need to look at the interval between the
PSI commands and Marvel's narrative, get John
and Roger to help you."
"I don't understand," I said.
"I know. You'll have to set up something simple.
We are into basic research here. Get Roger to set
up a rig where someone has to mentally
direct a point of light around, then record the
command signals from the SQUID. John can do that,
and log it against the Marvel narrative. Then,
if you want to get really clever, change the sign
on the light point director at random," he said.
"Good grief Jason, what the hell is that going
to do for us? We were mentally controlling light
points five years ago," I said.
"Try it Tom, then call me and tell me what you got."
With that he left.
Sandy my secretary watched him go. "Jason off to
sort his brother out then?" she asked.
"I have no idea, what's the story with his brother?"
"Ryan is very sick, wheelchair bound. Virtually
a vegetable from all accounts," she said.
**
We got started with the testing immediately.
I realized that we could use the training
system we use to get the Fighter pilots
converted to PSI controls. This was a rig
connected to one of the SQUID helmets.
Trainee pilots sit at a workstation and a
point of light appears. Learning to control
the light point is a bit like moving your
eyes around; once you can do it you don't have
to think about it. In adults at least, -
babies have to learn how to do it in infancy
- a new pilot has the same problem with PSI
controls.
For our test, we used a pilot who had already
learnt the light control trick. Then we let him
make a voluntary choice over where to put the dot,
he had to decide where the dot would go, then
'steer' it to that part of the screen. The Marvel
was running as well, we took its output and feed it
straight to the data logger, along with the
steering signals for the dot.
"up-centre-down-1-3-4-6-centre," said the
Marvel while the pilot directed the spot to
the various numbered parts of the screen.
I watched the log file as the test went on.
It soon became clear that something weird was
going on. The start of the dot movement was
preceding the Marvel voice by about a tenth
of a second. It seemed like the dot was moving
before the pilot had decided where to put it.
We stopped everything and checked the lot,
nothing wrong. Then we built another rig using
old-fashioned analogue electronics; we got the
same tenth of a second shift. The dot always
seemed to move before the pilot decided where
to put it.
The only thing that made any difference was
when we changed pilots. We put a woman in and
her Marvel stream was a little quicker, with her
it was just less than a tenth of a second
between the dot started moving and Marvel
declared where it was to go.
We ran numerous tests, none of it made sense.
It seemed that always the pilot's conscious
intention, as reported by Marvel, came after the
spot had started to move.
I needed to speak to Jason about this. It
didn't matter what family emergency had come up;
these results were ridiculous. It seemed as if
the brain was making unconscious choices, and
the consciousness, as announced by Marvel, was
merely producing an after the fact commentary.
I asked Sandy to track Jason down. She traced
him eventually, but the most she could get out
of him was a cryptic text message. I could meet
him at the Old Winery pub at eight o'clock
tonight; he'd talk to me then.
The last time I'd been at the Old Winery had
been twenty years earlier and that had been to
see a live band. I hoped that tonight was going to
be a bit quieter or I wouldn't hear much from Jason.
I was wrong, Friday night was still live band
night and the Winery was packed.
Back in the day, the place was a very smoky venue.
Now it was overflowing with kids of eighteen and
up, yet it was smoke free, aside from the kids
around the back sharing a draw.
A band's equipment was set up, but no one was
on stage. Music was playing over the PA,
an old blues classic.
I got myself a drink and while looking for
somewhere to park my briefcase I spotted Jason.
Just then a great cheer went up and rolling
on stage were four individuals in wheel chairs.
Jason was behind them; he was working on the equipment.
The MC was an old geezer of my age who came on
stage to introduce them. "Ladies and Gentlemen,
lets give it up. Please welcome Ryan Logan and
Music of the Mind."
Then the music started, four wheel chair bound guys,
without an instrument between them, producing the
most amazing sounds. There was a striding bass in
the best rock tradition, thumping drums and a wailing
lead drum.
All the sounds were being produced by the Broca
system that Jason had invented, with a percussion
variation for the paraplegic drummer to use.
The crowd were loving it and shouts of
'come on Ryan' were ringing out at every drum solo.
I could see Jason but he was occupied at the back
of the stage, I knew that if he was busy there would
be no point in trying to get him to talk to
me. Besides this was the best band I'd heard
in twenty years, I wanted to enjoy it.
My eye kept being caught by a sweet young thing.
She was familiar from somewhere, I wasn't smart
enough to think that she was turned on by me;
perhaps she also worked at the labs?
The band took a break and the volume dropped to
conversation level. The girl came over,
"Mr. Drake isn't it, I'm Claire, I used to go to school
with Beth. Remember? We all went to Disney World together
when Beth was nine," she said.
My daughters school friend, oh dear.
"Hi Claire, well, well, well. You do look
well, fine I mean," I said.
She smiled; perhaps she was used to middle aged
men tripping over themselves when they spoke to
her. "What brings you here?"
"One of my friends actually, Ryan Logan's brother."
"Jason works for you, wow, Beth always said
you had a neat job."
My face took on the sort of look that indicated
that managing Jason was no picnic.
"I know Jason can be a real handful at times,
but he thinks the world of his brother,"
Claire said.
I said nothing and Claire continued.
"It's his mum's fault you know."
"What? His mum treasures him."
"She does, but when Jason was tiny Ryan got
sick with meningitis. There was a delay getting
him in for treatment, then a screw up at the hospital.
"Jason knew that there was something wrong with
his brother that night, but his mum and dad were
dead drunk. Jason tried and tried to wake his
parents but he couldn't. When his mum finally
woke up, she told him he hadn't tried hard enough,"
by now Claire had tears in her eyes.
I said. "He's been making up for it ever since."
She nodded.
The MC was back on stage, "Ladies and gentlemen
thank you very much. Tonight, for the first time
ever, we have a brand new addition to
the worlds greatest instrumental band. Lets give
it up Jacky, Music of the Minds brand new vocalist."
Jason was on stage; he was assisting a new figure
in a wheelchair. He got her settled, and I could
see that she too was wearing a SQUID helmet;
it looked very much as if it might once have
been lab property.
The band started up with a modern rock number
that I didn't recognise. Then the vocal came in,
it was the voice of a Marvel but the
usual dead tones were transformed - the sound
was pitch perfect. Perhaps Jason had added a
pitch follower to modify the vocal to follow
the tune.
Then Jacky started pitch jumping in a way that
no automatic system could ever do. She was singing
it that way - Jason must have found a way to
decode another aspect of the neurological message.
So it went on, and eventually the rock numbers
turned to slow ones, and the kids got a chance
to smooch.
Claire was off dancing with someone and then
Jason appeared beside me.
"Good work Jason, you've done it again."
"Thanks to your antiquated hardware. For your
system I had to convert a lot of floating-point
stuff into table look-ups. If you run the
new version of Marvel on a fast machine the
pitch intonation occurs automatically.
"I had to stay home to do a bit of tuning for
Jacky, and Ryan has just got back out of the hospital.
I've been getting him settled again. Mum
thinks the world of him, but she drives him
nuts," he said.
I nodded. I told him about the testing we'd
done this week.
"I'm not too surprised. I was seeing the same
sort of thing when these guys were rehearsing.
Ryan is used to the speed the SQUIDS translate
his thoughts to music; he's never played a normal
instrument. But Robbie was a bass player before
he had his bike accident, he had a hell of a
time adjusting, he had to learn to come in behind
the beat. Jacky now, had to learn to think her
vocals early," he said.
"Behind the beat?" I queried.
"Just think about it Tom," Jason said.
"Anyway you still need to do that polarity
reversal test I mentioned, I'll see you Monday,
all being well."
With that he went off back stage again. Most of
the kids had paired up now and were slow dancing.
I was being swept out of the door on a tsunami
wave of pheromones; I went home.
Jason was back at work on Monday looking happier
than I'd ever seen him. He soon got a polarity
reversal scheme in place. The idea was that
the pilot would get accustomed to directing
the training spot around the screen and then
at random intervals the control sense would be
reversed. What had been a command to move the
spot left would now move it right. We would see
a marker in the log file when the reversal was
active.
We started up and the pilot's Marvel began its
customary, Up Down monologue.
"Everything's still working as normal Jason.
Pilot decides up, dot goes up, all the time,
every time," I said.
"But the log is showing that the polarity
reversals are occurring. Look," he said.
"Never mind the log, what's the output doing?"
I never trust anything with software.
But Jason proved me wrong; the polarity reversals
were occurring. I believed him, but only after
we'd implemented the change on the analogue
rig as well, this with a physical switch that
I could press whenever I wanted the polarity to
change. Yet we got exactly what we had before;
if the dot went up, even if it should have gone
down, up was how the Marvel reported it, just as
if that had been what the pilot wanted.
"This is crazier than I thought. It seems as
though the consciousness is only reporting what
as happened. It's not a true commentator on the
what the 'self' chooses. It's not reporting what
was wanted," I said.
Jason said, "That's about what I expected."
Once we'd realized what the Marvel was actually
telling us, we found another way to debug the
problem. We produced our own emulation of the
MUAV swarm; the algorithms are simple and are
all in the public domain. It worked properly.
Then we showed it to the UAV people, and they
conceded that what we had was good, then they
went back to their system and tore it apart
in private.
They found a problem in the UAV that created
the same sort of control reversal that we had
been introducing intentionally on the test rigs.
The Marvel narrative had all the time been
announcing the swarm behavior as seen, and
announcing it as if that's what the pilot had
intended.
The UAV problem was fixed quickly; their test
rig was flawed, it was a fault that had led them
to make a mistake in their software. But they'd
never have caught it until we showed them their problem.
I prepared a presentation for Troy and the
other executives.
"A guy called Benjamin Hamilton performed a set of
experiments regarding consciousness about fifty
years ago." I said. "Hamilton noticed that movement
always preceded conscious intent, he didn't have the
kind of kit to prove it that we have, but he made
the same observations we have done."
I selected the next slide; titled Choice Blindness.
The slide showed a cute blond girl and an attractive brunet.
"In a classic experiment, a subject is presented
with two cards. Different faces on each and the
subject is asked to choose which one he finds the
most attractive.
"Sometimes the subject was given the card he chose
and sometimes the card was switched, - he was given
the face he didn't choose.
"Most subjects failed to notice the switch, and
when asked to comment on 'choice'. A subject
would say, 'I preferred this one because I like
blondes.' Even in the case where he had picked the
dark-haired woman."
Troy asked. "How does this relate to our
control problem?"
"With the MUAV swarm, because of its erratic
behavior swerves were often perceived by the
pilot as a conscious demands. Its only after
it had all gone totally wrong that the pilot
actually recognized it," I said.
Jason decided to leave as soon as we had
corrected the UAV control problem. He came
to see me on the day he tendered his resignation.
"It's all a lot better now Tom, seeing that
choice reversal put things in perspective for
me," he said.
"How so?"
"Mum always blamed me for Ryan getting sick,
I know Claire told you this. If Mum hadn't blamed
me, she'd have had to blame herself, and
she's just not equipped to do that. It was her
way of protecting herself, perfectly understandable.
But inside some part of her knows how hard I
tried to wake her."
I nodded, "I know how hard you must have tried.
Everyone who knows you, knows that you never
give up."
"How else can you live? Nobody ever did anything
worthwhile by sitting around dreaming up excuses."
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