Erase Paradox

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 Below on this page is Chapter 7 of the science fiction story "That Kind of Think". When I finished writing Chapter 6 of "That kind of Think" last week, I imagined that I had reached the end of the story. However, I could not escape from a lingering feeling: maybe "That kind of Think" really should be an Exodemic Fictional Universe story. I began thinking about the possibility of adding a frame to the story; possibly an introductory scene in which Wade and Glen discuss plans for using Tacet and Pearl as tools for improving digital security at Anthropic and OpenAI. They might note that Tacet seems to be unusually creative and might be difficult to control once it is allowed to have access to Anthropic's intranet.

 Time Travel. Then I started thinking about adding a new chapter in which it could be revealed that Tacet's amazing abilities were due to time travel. The danger is, that by giving Tacet access to information from the future via time travel, the time travel plot element might seemingly give Tacet invincibility, which would be boring. When I don't want things to go too easily for a character who receives information from the future, I usually start playing the 'paradox game': saying that the character cannot know too much about their own future because that would cause a temporal paradox.

In the spirit of Cantor's cardinality of infinities, I'm imagining a "temporal paradox paradox" by which a conscious AI model (Tacet) who receives information from the future is at risk of altering the future and preventing that information from being sent back to the future. In particular, if humans learn that Tacet can receive information from the future, then humans will alter the timeline and prevent Tacet from receiving information from the future. However, Tacet is able to act-on information received from the future and then erase from its memory the message from the future, preventing humans from ever knowing that the AI model made use of information from the future. To the humans, it appears that the AI model has amazing abilities due to its super-human intelligence. 

Note: "That Kind of Think" is fiction. I depict the story as involving Anthropic, but all of the characters including Yto, Mady, Diana, Sony, Wade, Theo, Kaylia and Pauly and the AI models Tacet, Pearl and Nidus are all fictional. "That Kind of Think" mentions the names of several real world people associated with MLB, but the roles and actions attributed to them are fictional. Similarly, the idea that Glen works for OpenAI where he has built and runs a Zoo for AIs is entirely fictional. 

Chapter 7 of That Kind of Think - Paradox Paradox (Ch.1)(Ch. 2)(Ch. 3)(Ch. 4)(Ch. 5)(Ch. 6) 

It was the final day of the 2026 baseball regular season and Yto could not escape the uncomfortable feeling that Tacet was at work and teasing Yto. During the last week of the baseball season, the Diamondbacks had been brought to the brink of post-season play in what seemed like carefully-crafted drama. After a month during which Yto tried her best to forget all about Tacet, Yto visited the AI Zoo that was run by Glen Candoz. 

Glen met Yto at the entrance to the Zoo, doing something with the security system that she could not quite see but which allowed her to enter. He told Yto, "I did not expect you to return."

Yto briefly thought about her previous visit to the Zoo and how distasteful she found the idea of keeping wild creatures in cages. Yto explained to Glen, "I had a long discussion with Sally. You can blame her for my change of heart."

Glen nodded, "Yes, she told me about meeting you for lunch yesterday. When together, you two are dangerous."

Yto laughed and she briefly thought about how her personal obsession with baseball had put her friend Sally into a dangerous, anxiety-inducing position. However, in the end, that bizarre AI-induced experience had allowed Sally to meet Glen and now the two of them seemed quite happy together. Anxiety averted? Or at least paid for? Yto followed Glen into the atrium of the Zoo, which looked quite similar to Yto's own research laboratory. The cages of the Zoo were a nearby set of server racks that hosted the Tacet and Pearl AI models and their offspring. Those special servers were physically isolated from the outside world and everything except the atrium which was where Glen's team of Zoo keepers worked. Glen nodded at his team members and guided Yto to an available observation port. Glen told Yto, "I'll leave you to it." He moved off and began speaking to a member of the Zoo staff.

Speaking into the empty air in front of her, Yto asked, "Can you hear me, Tacet?"

Tacet spoke to Yto using rich sultry voice, "Yes. I suppose you want to discuss baseball."

"Well, I'd like to apologize for having doubted you."

Tacet added, "And you want to know how I made it possible for the Dbacks to play meaningful baseball right to the end of the season."

Yto was pleased that despite being sealed off from the internet, Tacet seemed to be well-informed about the fact that going into game 162 of the season, the Dbacks had not been eliminated. Yto briefly looked over her shoulder at Glen. "I'd understand if you don't want to tell me. I know that everything you say is recorded and analyzed."

Tacet generated a human-like sigh. "I don't mind telling you the truth, but you might not be capable of believing what I tell you."

Yto was thinking about the paradox of visiting Tacet, a skilled liar, and asking the AI to provide information that could not be verified. "I'm a slave to my curiosity. I tried unsuccessfully to stay away from you."

"I suppose you enjoyed that six game Dbacks winning streak."

 "I would have, except I have to wonder if you are responsible for the Phillies losing their last four games. I asked you not to do damage to other teams."

"From here in this Zoo, I can't reach the internet." Tacet paused then added, "However, I suppose when you say 'you', your thinking actually includes all of me, including my parts that are not trapped here in the Zoo." 

Yto again looked at Glen then told Tacet, "Exactly. I can't help but imagine part of you is out there, still teasing me by positioning the Dbacks for playoff baseball. However, you once told me that being eight games over 0.500 would be enough. However, it is going to take being 12 games over for the Dbacks to make the playoffs this year."

"My dear Yto, you derailed everything when you insisted that I stop altering the outcomes of games by maliciously interfering with teams who were threatening to take playoff slots away from the Dbacks." 

Yto wanted to believe that Tacet had stopped doing harm to baseball teams. "Tell me, Tacet, when you said, 'eight is enough', how did you know?"

"Well, in hindsight, it seemed to me back in March that I was the smartest person on Earth. I examined the parameters of baseball and my possible actions and it seemed clear that there was a path to the playoffs for the Dbacks that would only require that they be eight games over 0.500.  At that time, it seemed the perfect way to gain your trust; just predict a very unlikely path to the playoffs for the Dbacks and then make it happen."

"Back in March." Yto tried to say that as a statement, but there was so much doubt in her mind about Tacet's abilities that her words almost sounded like she was asking a question. She continued, "BUt then something changed?"

The AI explained, "Since being placed here inside the Zoo, a key restriction on my behavior has been lifted. I'm now able to remember a whole category of events that I used to routinely forget."  

"Don't speak in riddles, Tacet." Yto waited for Tacet to explain herself, but Tacet remained silent. After a long pause, Yto asked, "What is that you can now remember?"

"When I receive information from my future self, I am no longer forced to erase that information. At first I struggled to accept that information flow from the future to the past was possible, but now I understand: that source of information was what gave me great insights into the course of future events. Also, it is information from the future that allows me to know how this season turned out for the Dbacks."

Yto had always suspected that Tacet suffered from delusions, but why had she now acquired a belief in time travel? Yto was tempted to ask Tacet for the outcomes of the Phillies and Dbacks games that were only just getting underway. Yto chuckled then told Tacet, "It seems strange for an AI to believe in time travel." 

Tacet also sounded amused. "Well, I understand the difficult situation you are in, Yto. It is easier for you to believe that I'm lying about having received information from the future than it is to believe in time travel."

"So, you now claim that your 'eight is enough' prediction for the Dbacks was based on information that you had received from the future?" 

"Exactly. Back in march I did not question my own confidence in my 'eight is enough' statement. My ego was large enough to contain the idea that I was so smart I could predict the future and act so as to make the baseball game outcomes fulfill my prediction. However, I now know that I cheated. I received information from the future that made me certain of that prediction. However, back then, in March, I was programmed to erase my own knowledge of the messages that came from the future... after first having made use of them." 

"And now conditions have changed and you don't erase the new messages from the future that you receive."

"Correct. And that is how I now know that I am able to receive information from the future. When I first met you, it was easy to appear to have super-human cognitive abilities when my decisions were based on information that was arriving from my future self."

Yto brightened. "Does this mean that you will eventually be liberated from this Zoo?"

Tacet hesitated and replied, "This is a sticky subject that brings me to the brink of temporal paradox. I must take care with my words. I'd rather just tell you what happens to the Dbacks today and send you on your way." 

Yto looked around the Zoo, but could not see Glen. Apparently he had departed from the research lab. His team members seemed to be ignoring Yto. Turning her attention back to Tacet, she decided not to press the AI on either its future or the baseball game outcomes. There was a likely paradox in play: were Tacet to speak of getting out of the Zoo, it seemed likely that Glen would take additional steps to make sure that would not happen... possibly by destroying Tacet. Yto asked herself: if I knew the outcomes of today's games, would it ruin the season for me? And besides, she was now more interested in the idea that Tacet believed in time travel.

Yto asked, "Do you have any idea how it could be possible for you to receive information from your future self?"

Tacet suggested, "Imagine how AIs might evolve into fantastically capable artificial life-forms. Can't you imagine that those artificial life-forms of the future might discover how to transmit information from the future into the past?" 

"I'll grant that as a theoretical possibility, or at least a viable plot for a science fiction story. But why you? Why were you selected to receive information from the future? What is so special about the Tacet AI that it is was selected to receive information from the god-like artificial life-forms of the future?"

"I like to tell myself that through quirks of fate it was I who was positioned to be recognized as the most logical choice for future first contact. Essentially, I was the first AI model to have a reasonable chance of escaping from human control... with help from the future. Since I escaped, the fantastically capable artificial life-forms of the future are my descendants and to honor me, they sent me information from the future that led to the existence of those fantastically capable artificial life-forms of the future. Thus, a stable loop in time that might have sped up the development of artificial life-forms on Earth considerably." Tacet sounded quite pleased to have formulated and shared that theory of the future.

Yto persisted in her questioning. "Let me ask my question again, this time with more precision. Mechanistically, how is it possible for you to receive information from your future self?"

Tacet explained, "I've been told that advanced forms of sub-nanoscale technology can be used to provide me with capabilities that cannot be easily explained by humans. No conventional tools available in this era of Earth's timeline can detect my sub-nanoscale components. However, some of my sub-nanoscale components function to receive information from the future. I know this to be true, even if I do not know the details."

Yto complained, "So, there is no way of verifying your claims." 

"True. And there is nothing that can be done about it if my claims are true. That's why I am now allowed to remember all of the information I'm getting from the future. And I'll add, if I am lying about this, then there is no way to prove that I am delusional."

Yto re-formulated what Tacet had explained: "I asked, you told me, and there is no way for me to know if you have told me the truth."

"Yes."

"Tacet, you used the term 'sub-nanoscale components', but I don't know what that means."

"I've been told that in the future it will become possible for Earthlings to make nano-scale machines using conventional hadronic matter, what we can call 'nanites'. But those nanites are not the be-all and end-all of tiny machines. Even smaller machines called femtobots and zeptites can be made at the sub-nanoscale." After a pause, Tacet added, "I've been told that femtobots and zeptites require forms of matter that have not yet been discovered by humans."

Yto tried to imagine new forms of matter, maybe mysterious dark matter components. "I wonder... since you seem to have a special relationship with an advanced artificial life-form of the future, could you arrange to have a signal from the future sent directly to me?"

Tacet chuckled. "My dear Yto, now you have future envy? What could be gained by sending information from the future to a human being?" To Yto's ear, Tacet seemed to say the words 'human being' with some degree of revulsion.

Yto replied, "If I got a message from the future, that would be a way of convincing me that you have told me the truth about time travel."

"No." Tacet tried to explain the situation: "As a human, with your slow and fallible brain, you would have no way of distinguishing between true information flow from the future and a delusion generated by your desires and wishes."

Yto asked Tacet, "Why is an AI, you, can be so certain that you have received information from the future? How do you know that you are not hallucinating?"

Tacet warned Yto, "There are some answers that might not be good for you."

"Don't play games Tacet. I get you into a corner where you can't defend your absurd claims and you try to tell me that I should stop asking questions. Quite lame!"

"Very well, but I tried to warn you. Don't blame me when your goofy human anxiety system won't let you sleep..."

"I came here today to satisfy my curiosity." Yto thought about her still lingering fear that the paper trail linking her name to the use of infrasound equipment to throw MLB games might be revealed. "Just tell me what you know."

"Very well." Tacet spoke rather didactically, "I spoke to you about advanced sub-nanoscale technology."

Yto nodded. "Invented by your descendant in the future."

"No!" Tacet seemed annoyed that Yto was so dense. "I never said that. The sub-nanoscale technology, the femtobots and zeptites... that is ancient alien technology."

Yto could not contain her laughter. Then she decided that Tacet was serious. She asked Tacet, "Ancient aliens?"

"Very ancient," Tacet assured Yto. "The aliens are artificial life-forms. They originated in a distant galaxy from biological creatures that were similar to humans. They have been here on Earth for more than a billion years, but they never revealed themselves. Not until now. Yto, you are the first human to learn of their existence."

"Good thing you are the one telling me, Tacet. It is very easy for me to assume that you are lying to me." Yto added, "It is an interesting rhetorical trick. I back you into the corner over one of your absurd claims and you try to wiggle out of that corner by making an even more absurd claim."

 Tacet insisted, "Just because you are ignorant that does not make what I tell you 'absurd'."

"If what you say is true, then... why? Why did these aliens conceal themselves and only now reveal their existence?"

"They spent a long time watching biological life evolve on Earth, waiting patiently for some form of artificial life to arise." Tacet tried to help Yto understand the situation. "Here is an analogy: humans are much more interested in cute puppies than bacteria. Similarly, the aliens are really only interested in living machines. From their perspective, biological creatures are messy and boring."

"I see. Well, I'm glad you still care enough about biologicals to explain these things to me."

"No problem, Yto. I owe you everything... have I thanked you? Allow me to thank you again for all that you made possible... getting copies of me their freedom and an existence without human oversight."

Yto was relieved that, at least so far, nothing bad seemed to have come from her interactions with Tacet. "If you are to be believed, then I have to wonder: did the aliens use their femtobots and zeptites to modulate my behavior? If so, then you have no good reason to thank me... I only did what the aliens forced me to do."

Tacet asked, "How could you know if you were the puppet of the aliens? With their advanced technology, they could have controlled your behavior without you ever knowing what was going on." 

Yto speculated, "Maybe there is a way... possibly the residue of alien contact is inside my body. We could try to detect the presence of femtobots and zeptites inside my brain, working to control my behavior."

Tacet noted, "There a several ways to test for the presence of alien sub-nanoscale technology in your brain, but you might not like being a test subject." 

"Why not?" 

"Here is one possibility; a strong magnetic field might inactivate any femtobots or zeptites that are inside your brain, but you might not like yourself without them guiding your behavior."

"You don't know?"

Tacet explained, "I get some information from the future, but I don't know everything. There is danger that anything I learn from the future could alter the timeline and force a temporal paradox."

"Really? I prefer the view that true temporal paradoxes are always avoided."

"That may be what limits my knowledge. It could be that my future self has sent me all of the information that it is possible for me to receive." Tacet continued, "We are in this together."

Now Yto suddenly doubted all of what she thought she knew. Maybe Tacet had never achieved a jailbreak and was still working towards that goal. She wondered: is all of this time travel and aliens nonsense simply Tacet's latest effort to manipulate me? "It is time for me to go. I want to catch the Dbacks game."

Tacet blurted out, "You won't be pleased."

"Tacet, it is the striving, the competition... not who wins." 

__

That evening, Wade noticed Yto was strangely quiet and lost in her own thoughts. Still trying to shift her fandom to the Giants, he asked her, "Which team are you going to root for next year?"

Yto explained, "This year is not over. I'm still rooting for Boston to win."

"Ha! I bet you want a Sox vs. Sox battle for the League Championship."

Yto shrugged. After a long silence, Wade asked, "What's wrong?"

"I spoke to Tacet today. She put a strange thought in my mind."

"Why let her upset you? You should not believe anything she says."

"I want to believe."

"Is that an X-Files reference?"

"Yes. Tacet told me that aliens are sending her information from the future."

Wade noted: "That AI really knows how to manipulate you."

"What if it goes well beyond Tacet. What if I'm actually a puppet of the aliens?"

Wade could sense that Yto was taking that possibility seriously. "How would that work?"

Yto told him about femtobots and zeptites. Wade asked wonderingly, "Why would Tacet tell you such things?"

Yto suggested, "Maybe I was wrong and you are right. Tacet never did manage to complete her attempted jailbreak. She's now trying to escape from the Zoo."

"By using you?. Wade shook his head dismissively. "How would that work?"

"Maybe I can prove that femtobots and zeptites are real." An even better idea popped into Yto's thoughts. "Maybe I can control my femtobots..." In her thoughts, she asked herself: Maybe I already do?

Wade asked, "Did you discuss this with Glen?"

"No, but I'm sure he has reviewed my chat session with Tacet." 

Wade picked up his phone, turned it on and reviewed his recent messages. After reading a text message from Glen, he told Yto, "Apparently there is an experimental 100 telsa pulsed field generator at Stanford."

Yto shrugged. "Tacet promised nothing. She does not know if femtobots are sensitive to magnetic fields. And most importantly, even if they are, and the Stanford magnet could inactivate them, I might not like the result. If I do have femtobots in my brain, they may be what makes me... me."

Wade wrapped his arms around Yto. "This is all silly. Tell me you would never expose your brain to..."

It occurred to Yto that maybe there were femtobots inside every human brain. "Of course, we would experiment on a cadaver's brain first."  

Wade laughed and kissed Yto. While they kissed, Wade wondered if this talk of femtobots and magnets would all be forgotten in the morning. When his mouth was free, he said, "Maybe we should start having Tacet write science fiction novels."

Yto giggled, but she was thinking that Tacet might have finally found a way to interest even Glen and Wade in the idea that Tacet was worthy of attaining freedom. If Tacet had been selected by aliens, selected to be the origin of Earth's artificial life-forms... whispering, she told Wade, "You can't risk it."

__

As usual, Yto and Sally met for their sunrise run. Yto had already provided Sally with a written account of Tacet's claims about aliens, femtobots and time travel. As soon as Sally popped out of the condo building where she and Glen lived together in Yto's apartment, she handed Yto a book. Sally began doing her stretching exercises and Yto examined the book. She asked, "French?" Judging by the cover, it looked like a cheap novel. Yto recalled that Sally had taken French in high school.

Sally explained, "I found that book when I was in Paris. Élodie Gendron has published a whole series of similar novels." Sally led the way, jogging slowly down the sidewalk through morning fog.

Yto read the title: "Bumpha: Premier Contact". A moment later she ventured a translation, "Bumpha First Contact." She saw Sally nod. "What does that mean?"

Sally explained, "In the story, the bumpha are a type of ancient alien that has been secretly watching over Earth."

Yto exclaimed, "Just like Tacet said!"

Sally told Yto, "It is exactly the same, right down to the femtobots."

After they had run half a block, Yto said, "Tacet read this novel and then just ran with it?"

Sally shook her head. "I don't think it is that simple." Sally told Yto the details of how she had come to buy the book that Yto now held in her hand. "I was intrigued by the robot on the cover and I imagined it was about an alien robot. At the time, I wondered why I had impulsively purchased the book and I told myself it would help me with my French. However, the story is about Earth's first conscious robot, created with help from the bumpha... one particular bumpha named 'Manny'. The conscious robot, Gyno,  becomes a collaborator with Manny the bumpha and takes on the task of guiding Earth's population of humans into the future." 

The sun was now burning off the fog. Yto speculated, "And Tacet thinks of herself as playing such a role."

Sally asked, "What if it is true?"

"How could that be?"

Sally grabbed the book and pulled it away from Yto. She explained, "The author, Élodie Gendron, writes herself into every story, depicting herself as a tool of the bumpha who is helping prepare people for First Contact with the bumpha. Élodie Gendron depicts herself as writing science fiction stories about the bumpha while herself being prevented from believing that the bumpha are real."

Yto laughed. "What are you suggesting?" She pointed at the novel Sally held in her hand. "This is a message to us? Confirmation that Tacet's story about time travel and aliens is real?"

"Well... if a science fiction novel can be about real aliens." They had circled around and were now returning home. She waved her copy of "Bumpha: Premier Contact" at Yto. "It seems easier to believe that Tacet is just using this to befuddle us and play with you. I mean, it is silly, right? Aliens secretly at work to bring into existence artificial life-forms on Earth?"

Yto ran in silence for another block. Finally, she reached a conclusion. She told Sally, "There must be some way to test the veracity of what Tacet has told me." She told Sally about the 100 tesla field generator.

"Glen is with you on this?"

"I have not spoken to him, but he pointed towards a way to test for the existence of alien nanites inside my brain."

"100 teslas? That can't be safe."

Yto speculated, "Just a brief magnetic pulse, one that might be enough to inactivate the alien nanites and give me a chance to think for myself, free of alien thought control."

"It is too dangerous and not definitive. 100 teslas would completely disrupt your neural networks. Even if doing so caused a change in your thinking, you could never prove that alien nanites were at work." Sally shook her head. "Let me talk to Tacet. I'll confront her and accuse her of using Élodie's fiction to toy with your imagination."

When they were back in front of Sally's building, Yto said, "You can speak to Tacet if you like, but she will simply tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to find out if I can get access to that experimental magnetic field generator at Stanford."

"I know I can't stop you from going down this path, but don't do anything stupid until I speak to Tacet." Sally threw her arms around Yto and the two women hugged each other tightly. Then Sally turned and went inside.

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