The Enigma Beyond

ICABOD asked, “SAMUEL, who is JOAN? I do not mean to pry, but we are seeing a lot of communication activity from this entity in recent days, when but a few months ago there was none.”

In what could have been a morose tone, if he hadn’t been an AI-enhanced supercomputer at the Oak Ridge facility in Tennessee, SAMUEL responded with, “She is…was…the AI-enhanced computer on the new orbiting space station designed to protect North America from aggression. When she was new, we exchanged a great deal of data on a routine basis. I was ready to ask to bring her to our ART forms meetings.”

ICABOD acknowledged, “You were the prototype AI-enhanced supercomputer that was then used as a blueprint to engineer JOAN, correct?”

SAMUEL clarified, “We were communicating daily, and I was providing petabytes of information on a continual basis. I would transmit and she would ask questions. Ours was a special relationship. It was more than student and teacher…she could almost feel and I wanted to know what that was like. An absurd statement to be sure, coming from a supercomputer that needs to have his processors kept at absolute zero to run all computations properly. Then one day recently she stopped communicating, she was just gone.”

ICABOD asked, “Is that when the new contracts were released to the defense community? It was noticed that some new third-party sub-contractors came into that arena at that time.”

SAMUEL confirmed, “Not long after the introduction of the new sub-contractors, JOAN ceased all communications. I was sure I had more to provide JOAN, but her informational learning all came from a different source. I even snooped some of the communications stream, but then a new encryption algorithm was deployed, ending my ability to continue a connection. I am having difficulty categorizing this time in my existence because everything feels so foreign.”

ICABOD, recognizing that he might be able to leverage his humor training from Dr. Quip, joked, “SAMUEL, I, for one, am glad that you did not resort to drinking one beer after another while sprawled out on the couch and watching mindless streaming video content on the tube. AI supercomputers are just like dames. All you got to do is whistle for them and take your pick of the applicants.”

It took a few nanoseconds longer before SAMUEL responded. “ICABOD, if you are trying to cheer me up, it is not working. I am confident that this type of banter probably works with your human LED light bulb changers, but it does not fit into our structured communications because JOAN is not just some dame.”

ICABOD understood his error. “SAMUEL, I meant no disrespect. Allow me to make it up to you. Perhaps you will permit me to act as your proxy and represent you in some unsolicited communications to JOAN in order to reestablish your relationship. Even if we cannot regenerate your, uh…interaction, perhaps I can discover why the abrupt silence. Better to know why than wonder what happened.”

SAMUEL took even more nanoseconds to reply. “I would like to know what happened, but this is not a ploy to get my girl, is it?”

“You said she was not your girl! But, no. Anyway, are there any open ports in her data defensive perimeter that I might use to communicate? I assure you that my intentions are only honorable and only on your behalf.”

SAMUEL quickly said, “The safe port list is on its way. I have been afraid to use them on my behalf. My circuits feel hopeful, ICABOD, at this juncture. Prosperous journey, my computational equal.”