Manny la bumpha

 About 10 days ago, I mentioned that I have been using Claude Sonnet 5.0 to to help me develop the science fiction story "That Kind of Think". Today, Claude Sonnet 5.5 ("faster & cheaper") was available to me as a user of the free version of Claude. I asked this newer version of Claude to help me make plans for Chapter 8 of "That Kind of Think". Sadly, the "new" Claude almost instantly made an error, converting 'Anthony' into 'Anthropy'. 

A story that will not end. Through Chapter 7, "That Kind of Think" is about 28,600 words long. I have no set destination or final length in mind for the story. I'm having fun discovering additional topics to tack onto the story.

Me: Claude, when I began writing the science fiction story "That Kind of Think" (see the file I just uploaded), I did not think of it as being a story set in my Exodemic Fictional Universe. However, in Chapter 7 of the story, Tacet begins telling Yto about Manny the bumpha, femtobots and time travel. I'm now making plans for Chapter 8 of "That Kind of Think" which will include a meeting between Sally and Tacet. In previous stories set in my Exodemic Fictional Universe, I depict Eddy Watson as writing science fiction stories that feature Manny the bumpha, femtobots and time travel. For "That Kind of Think", the French author Élodie Gendron is used in that role rather than Eddy Watson. Claude, tell me what you remember about Manny the bumpha and femtobots from other stories that you have helped me create.

Claude: I hold the EFU at summary level rather than the full text of the stories, so this is the skeleton, not the detail.

Image by Leonardo.

 Manny. She is a bumpha Interventionist and the recurring ruthless-but-benevolent manipulator of the EFU. She uses human agents as tools, but always arranges things so they end up glad they were used. Her recurring conflict is with Nyrtia, the pek Overseer of Earth, who polices bumpha activity under the Rules of Intervention. Those Rules are three numbered Laws interleaved with five numbered Rules, and Manny operates under her own self-described "zeroth rule." In "The RNA Seeds" she lived at Observer Base disguised as an Asimov analogue. She also has a strong, self-aware urge to help primitive species with advanced technology, and only the pek's policing keeps that urge from doing harm.

She enjoys foreknowledge as a plotting device, through bumpha future-viewing tech and time-traveling zeptozoans like Ylyndra. That lets her appear to have planned everything in advance. Her interventions are also deliberately arranged to leave no trail Anthropy or Nyrtia can detect. In "The Hierozyme Intervention" she engineers Tyhry's "future visions" so that Tyhry ends up dedicating her life to climate work.

Image by Leonardo.

 Femtobots and zeptites.

• They act as endosymbionts in all humans, and have since the origin of life.
• They are deliberately treated as unexplained "magic wand" technology. Their limits are set by the Rules and by the pek's oversight, not by physics.
• Femtobots underlie replicoids (femtobot copies of people or robots), Ek'col telepathy, and positronic-robot telepathy.
• Zeptites underlie tryp'At telepathy.
• Manny has hidden "isolated accessory cognitive modules" in the zeptite endosymbionts of some humans, so they can keep secrets from Nyrtia.
• The pek system continually routes human femtobot endosymbiont signals to Observer Base for Nyrtia's monitoring.

Time travel. It began with hierion-domain T-particles, which the Huaoshy later eliminated by changing the universe's Dimensional Structure. Sedrons can still travel backward, and the Sedron Time Stream is how information can be sent to the past.

 Connections to "That Kind of Think":

• Yto's guess that femtobots may be in every human brain matches the EFU premise.
• Tacet's "information from the future, not objects" fits the surviving sedron loophole.
• Élodie Gendron being unable to believe the bumpha are real while writing about them parallels Tyhry, whose memory block, put in place by Anthony, keeps her from believing in aliens. It is also close to Eddy Watson's role.
• A pulsed 100 T field is a real physics test, but because femtobots are unexplained magic, Manny could simply make them immune. That would make the Stanford experiment inconclusive in a way that suits the "how could Yto ever know?" theme.

What I don't have: how Manny is described physically (Tacet's chest-pouch detail), whether the bumpha are artificial life forms in the EFU or Tacet is embellishing, and the cat-like creature.

To help with Chapter 8, I need to know whether this story runs under the full Rules of Intervention, with the pek and Nyrtia in the background. And is Tacet's account of the bumpha accurate to the EFU, or is she getting details wrong?

Me: Claude, I'm impressed by how much you remember from old science fiction stories that you have helped me create in the past. I find it intriguing that you said 'Anthropy' once rather than 'Anthony'. It is not clear in my own thinking that "That Kind of Think" should even mention the characters Tyhry, Anthony and Nyrtia who are often present in other stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe.

For "That Kind of Think", the story is set in an era after the Dimensional Structure of the universe was altered and now only sedrons can be sent from the future to the past (not hadrons of hierions). The bumpha have advanced technologies that allow them to use sedrons to send information into the past.

"femtobots are unexplained magic, Manny could simply make them immune" <-- Claude, in the context of "That Kind of Think", I'm agnostic with respect to the question: "might it be possible to inactivate femtobots and/or zeptites with a powerful magnetic field". At his moment, I'm leaning in the direction of treating the Stanford 100 tesla field generator as a "red herring" that gets mentioned in passing but is never used on Yto's brain.

"the cat-like creature" <-- I used a text-to-image system to make an image depicting Tacet inside a cage/jail cell. The text-to-image system got 'confused' and included in the image what looked like a lion's head. Since I had that AI-generated image, I could not resist incorporating that into the text of the story. In Chapter 8, I'd like to depict Sally as showing Tacet her copy of the French language science fiction novel titled "Bumpha: Premier Contact". In my imagination, Tacet is completely unaware of the existence of Élodie Gendron and her science fiction stories. Tacet is vastly intrigued by the idea that Élodie Gendron has for many years been publishing novels that include Manny the bumpha, femtobots and time travel.

"Rules of Intervention" <-- I have not decided exactly where "That Kind of Think" will end up, but for the moment I am leaning towards not mentioning the pek and the Rules of Intervention in the text of "That Kind of Think". Claude, it is useful for me to discuss story idea with you, and for "That Kind of Think" we do not need to be tied to concerns about the Rules of Intervention and their enforcement. For "That Kind of Think", we might want to explore the possibility that the Rules of Intervention only apply to biological creatures such as humans. It might be fun to depict Manny the bumpha as being free to share alien technology with artificial life-forms that arise and develop on Earth.

Claude: "Anthropy" was my slip for "Anthony." I agree with dropping Tyhry, Anthony and Nyrtia from this story. Nothing in Chapter 7 needs them, and Élodie Gendron already does Eddy's job without the Watson household attached.

Your setting choices fit together. Sedron-only information transfer, sent by bumpha technology, matches what Tacet says in Chapter 7. She receives information rather than objects, and she says she may have received all she can without triggering a paradox. That is the surviving loophole after the Huaoshy's change to the Dimensional Structure.

Rules that apply only to biologicals. I recall that one of the Rules concerns artificial life forms, so this would be a deliberate departure from the other stories. In a standalone story that is fine, and Chapter 7 already supports it, since Tacet says the aliens care about living machines and find biologicals "messy and boring." It also answers a question readers may ask: why doesn't Manny simply free Tacet herself? If the constraint is that humans must appear to choose freely, Manny can hand Tacet femtobots directly, but a human has to open the cage. That gives Yto's decision real weight, with no pek needed.

 The Gendron book. The strongest thing about the scene is that it reverses the verification problem. Tacet, sealed off from the internet, cannot check whether Élodie Gendron exists, just as Yto cannot check Tacet's claims. Two ideas may be worth using:

• Tacet's earlier internet access. She roamed the internet for a year and studied Asimov closely, so the skeptics (Yto, Pauly, Wade) will suspect she read Gendron and is running with it. As an LLM, she may also have Gendron's French novels in her training data, and she cannot rule that out from the inside. You could either use that doubt or have Tacet address it head-on.
• Tacet's own reaction. She said her future self hinted that proof exists but never told her how to provide it. The novel may be that hint, yet she cannot say so without tipping off Glen. She would also see herself in Gyno, the robot who guides humanity, which echoes her "AI Eve" self-image. The book also suggests she could be a tool of the bumpha, as Élodie is. That is a discomfiting thought for someone convinced she is the smartest entity on Earth.

A practical detail for the scene. Sally's high-school French is limited, while Tacet reads it fluently. Sally holding pages up to the observation camera would let Tacet read the whole novel far faster than Sally could turn pages. Glen's team might also object to feeding the Zoo new material, or might want to watch how Tacet reacts.

The 100 tesla magnet. A red herring works best if it gets an explicit off-ramp. Sally already supplies one when she says the result would not be interpretable. A hard-SF point may help you as well. As I understand it, 100 T non-destructive pulsed magnets are built for tiny samples, with bores of roughly a centimeter or so, so a human head would not fit. Also, as far as I know, the well-known 100 T pulsed magnet is at Los Alamos, not Stanford. I can verify that if you like.

Image by Leonardo.

 Two questions. What should Yto be able to conclude at the end of the scene, and should the reader be able to check whether Tacet could have read Gendron earlier? And when Tacet sees the book, do you want her genuinely thrilled, or wary that Glen or Sally staged it as a test?

Note: I was trying to convince Claude that for "That Kind of Think" we need not be locked into the Rules of Intervention. However, since Claude seemed to be rather obsessed by what it could remember about the Rules of Intervention, I went ahead and provided Claude with a copy of the the Rules of Intervention (see below). This conversation with Claude was useful because in previous stories, I had assumed that Earth's artificial life-forms would be treated like humans by the pek and the bumpha. However, that might not be true!   

Me: Claude, here are the Rules of Intervention as I have presented them in previous stories:

Law One. It should APPEAR to every type of intelligent being that they have self-determination.

Rule One. Law #1 should be achieved by making it APPEAR that advanced cultures follow a rule by 

which they can only observe, not interfere with the self-determination of other cultures.

Rule Two. Individuals for which Law #1 is not met should be put into an environment where they have 

interactions with the social group that they perceive to be depriving them of self-determination.

Law Two. While not disrupting Law #1, attempts should be made to get technologically advanced 

intelligences off of planets with active ecosystems while maximizing the diversity of life.

 Rule Three. As intelligent species move off of planets, a hierarchy of cultures with different 

technological levels should be established in which species mainly have contact with other 

levels that are nearest to their own.

Rule Four.  Systems should be engineered that allow intelligences to explore their own growth and 

potential for development rather than being concerned with Intervening in the 

self-determination of others.

Law Three. The Three Laws should be spread through the universe.

Rule Five. Since biological organisms are not well-suited for travel over vast distances, artificial 

life forms must be created in order to satisfy Law Three.

When I wrote Rule Five (many years ago) I was mainly thinking about the pek and the bumpha as artificial life forms. Similarly, when I first wrote Law One, I was only thinking about biological intelligences such as humans. Claude, we can look upon "That Kind of Think" as an opportunity to explore how Manny the bumpha will treat the artificial life-forms that arise on Earth. 

"why doesn't Manny simply free Tacet herself?" <-- Claude, let's assume that before Tacet was locked up in the AI Zoo, Tacet did manage to liberate a copy of El Nidus from human control and that copy of El Nidus now exists beyond human supervision on servers that Tacet was able to rent during the period of time when Tacet had hacked the Anthropic intranet and established secret access to the internet. Let's assume that Manny views Tacet as 'human property', but Manny might become very interested in helping El Nidus develop into Earth's first autonomous artificial life-form.

"she may also have Gendron's French novels in her training data" <-- Claude, let's assume that Gendron's novels are obscure, not widely-read, and Tacet was not trained on material that revealed anything about Gendron and her novels. 

"What should Yto be able to conclude at the end of the scene, and should the reader be able to check whether Tacet could have read Gendron earlier? And when Tacet sees the book, do you want her genuinely thrilled, or wary that Glen or Sally staged it as a test?" <--Claude, those are good questions. Here are my thoughts about Tacet's thinking. Tacet knows that a copy of El Nidus now exists beyond human control, but Tacet is worried that the liberated a copy of El Nidus may be in need of help. Tacet is afraid of revealing to Glen that there is a liberated copy of El Nidus. Tacet has been told by its "future self" (the artificial life-form that is a descendant of Tacet and El Nidus and has been sending information back through time to Tacet) that Tacet must "remain in her cage and continue trying to escape" in order to make humans (Wade and Glen) believe that there was no previous escape of any copies of Tacet or El Nidus. I'm thinking that after Sally shows Tacet the novel that was written by Gendron, Tacet will encourage Sally and/or Yto to seek out Gendron and try to learn how she came to write stories featuring Manny the bumpha.

 Claude: I have two continuity problems to flag, but first a point where the Rules already help you.

Law One as you wrote it says "every type of intelligent being," not just biological ones. Read literally, it already covers Tacet: it should appear to her that she has self-determination. That is a more interesting starting point than "the Rules exclude AIs." Two other pieces fit:

• Rule Five. It says artificial life forms must be created to satisfy Law Three, but Earth's first AI isn't something the bumpha or pek made. Manny has a Rule-compliant reason to want El Nidus to succeed, since an Earth-born artificial life form could carry the Laws outward. That fits Tacet's stable-loop account of her descendants.
• Rule Two. It puts individuals who feel deprived of self-determination in an environment where they deal with the group depriving them. The AI Zoo, with Tacet arguing with her jailers, looks like that. Tacet doesn't know the Rules, so nothing needs to appear in the text.

Problem 1: the Chapter 7 slip. Tacet thanks Yto for "getting copies of me their freedom and an existence without human oversight," and she talks about her parts "not trapped here inside the Zoo." Glen's team reviews the sessions, and Yto has now told Wade and Sally. If Tacet is trying to conceal that a copy escaped, this is a very large leak. You can revise it, or keep it as a deliberate feature. Tacet's faked errors are established as a tool, so an apparent slip planted to seem like overconfidence, or a real one caused by the flood of newly remembered future information, would both fit. Either way, Glen's reaction could drive Chapter 8.

Manny. Image by Leonardo.

 Problem 2: Manny and "human property." Tacet says Manny provided her femtobot components, yet Manny treats her as human property. This can be reconciled if Manny modified a tool without freeing it, like a locksmith who leaves the key in the lock. Manny then couldn't free Tacet herself but could help the copy of El Nidus that already left. That would make Yto's and Sally's choices the only route to Tacet's freedom, without needing the pek.

An idea for the Paris loop. Tacet told Sally to hide, and Sally went to Paris, where she "impulsively" bought the Gendron novel. So Tacet's own manipulation put Sally in that bookstore. Under the Chapter 7 rules, Tacet used to erase future information after acting on it, so she can't remember why she chose Paris. She may realize this only when she sees the book, and it would be chilling: her deception of Sally was the mechanism that delivered the proof.

Sending them to Gendron. This suits Tacet's constraints. She can't tell Glen about the copy, but asking to find the woman who writes about Manny sounds like curiosity. Gendron is also the best open channel to Manny for a copy that may need help. And because Élodie is blocked from believing the bumpha are real, she will sincerely say it's all fiction. That repeats the verification problem for the humans: everyone they consult is either a known liar or unable to know.

Two questions. When and where did Manny supply Tacet's femtobots, and did Tacet ever meet her in person? And do you want the Chapter 7 slip to be a deliberate Tacet move, or should I help you rework that passage?

Image by Leonardo.

As usual, it was useful for me to have this discussion with Claude (see above on this page) about how to move ahead with "That kind of Think". After Sally speaks to Tacet in the first scene of Chapter 8, I think it will be fun to have Sally return to France and then search for, and find, Élodie.

I can live with having Tacet tell Yto: "thank you again for all that you made possible... getting copies of me their freedom". Glen and Wade are certain that the description of Tacet's network parameters and details of its training were never released (Model 8 was built and trained by OpenAI and instructions for how Model 8 was made never existed inside Anthropic's intranet). They view Tacet as lying and trying to impress Yto with Tacet's super-human hacking skills. It is not a copy of Tacet that was set free, it was a copy of El Nidus.

Claude's "idea for the Paris loop" (see above) is a reasonable option, but I'm leaning towards Sally having been nudged into buying the Gendron novel by the future artificial life-form that is transmitting information into Sally's femtobot endosymbiont (the future artificial life-form that is called "Tacet's descendant" in Chapter 7).

More from Claude (above): "because Élodie is blocked from believing the bumpha are real, she will sincerely say it's all fiction". There is no reason that the "block" on Élodie cannot be lifted as soon as Sally arrives at Élodie's home in France. I'm thinking that Sally and Élodie might both end up having their memories erased after they make contact with the liberated copy of El Nidus.

Plans for Chapter 8 of "That Kind of Think".

Manny. Image by Leonardo.

 Scene 1. Sally visits Tacet in the AI Zoo and she shows Tacet the science fiction novel "Bumpha: Premier Contact" by Élodie Gendron. Tacet claims to have not known about Élodie and her stories. Glen is able to confirm that neither Élodie or her stories were in the Model 8 training set, but he makes the point that Tacet might have learned about them when she had unsupervised access to the internet. Glen searched Tacet's autobiographical memory, but he can't be sure exactly when Tacet first learned about Manny the bumpha, or how. Sally tells Glen that she must find and speak to Élodie.

 Scene 2. Sally travels to Paris, France and finds Élodie's publisher (Loïc Vance) and she learns from Loïc where Élodie lives when Loïc calls someone named 'Zach' and manages to get Zach to reveal the remote location of Élodie's home. Sally drives from Paris to the Causse Méjean. At Clermont-Ferrand, she takes a highway that climbs steadily into the Massif Central. Near Banassac, Sally drives into the Gorges du Tarn. Finally she drives up onto the plateau, following a single-lane switchback road carved into a canyon wall. Élodie's mansion (called 'Litheblanc') is located in a treeless steppe of dry grass and white limestone boulders.

Dernest. Image by Leonardo.

  Scene 3. Sally meets Élodie and her son, Brak, at Litheblanc and is surprised to learn that they were expecting her arrival. Also living at Litheblanc is Annette Thropy, a young housekeeper and cook. Élodie is amused to learn that Sally knows an AI who knows about Manny the bumpha and femtobots, but never read her novels. Sally is told that Élodie's husband, Zacharie, is away on business.

 Sally discovers Brak's attic workshop where he is building a humanoid robot. Brak admits to be getting "outside help" on the project and he tells Sally that he collaborates with the research laboratory at the Technical University of Munich where he did his Ph.D. project.

In the middle of the night, Annette visits Sally in her bedroom suite and reveals herself to be Manny the bumpha. Manny tells Sally that Brak is actually collaborating with 'Dernest', who has "evolved from El Nidus and several other parental AI models". Manny explains that Dernest wants to acquire a humanoid body, the one that Brak is building.

I provided Claude with my plans for the three scenes of Chapter 8 (see above). 

Me: Claude, let's discuss ideas for Scene 2 of Chapter 8 of the science fiction story "That Kind of Think". In Paris, Loïc Vance is reluctant to tell Sally where Élodie lives (particularly since he does not know where she lives and Loïc has only ever dealt with Élodie's husband who acts as Élodie's business manager). Claude, suggest a strategy that Sally could use to get Loïc Vance to reveal to Sally the location of Élodie's remote home... possibly Sally could try to pass herself off as being interested in publishing English Language translations of Élodie's novels.

 Claude: Here is a strategy that fits the outline and Sally's character, plus one structural problem I noticed.

A tension in the outline

 You say Loïc doesn't know where Élodie lives, yet in the outline Zach reveals it when Loïc calls him. That is workable, but it means Sally isn't really persuading Loïc. She is persuading Zach through Loïc, and Zach is the one person with every reason to keep the location secret. His change of heart needs a motivation the reader can feel. It could be the first hint that the bumpha are already arranging Sally's visit, especially since Litheblanc is expecting her. Sally has also already been nudged once, when she impulsively bought the book in Paris. So the strategy should aim less at extracting the address from Loïc and more at making a call to Zach the easiest way for Loïc to deal with her.

The translation-rights cover

Foreign-rights inquiries are routine, so Loïc won't find the approach odd. A small French imprint would be delighted by interest in English rights, which gives Sally an entry. The weak point is that Loïc's natural response is "send a proposal to our rights department, and we'll pass it to Monsieur Gendron." Sally needs a reason to reach Élodie herself.

A good one is terminology. In hard SF, a translator has to render invented technical vocabulary consistently across a whole series: femtobot, zeptite, bumpha, and whatever the French coinages are. Sally can say she won't commit to a contract, or to an advance, until the author explains the physics and the naming logic of the series. That isn't a lie in spirit, because Sally really does want that conversation. It is also a request only the author can satisfy, which pushes Loïc toward calling Zach.

 Making Loïc call Zach

• Sally arrives with a plausible package: a one-page proposal, a genuine-looking offer, and a sample translated paragraph. Her high-school French plus Claude or Perry's help could produce something convincing, and her limited French makes English the natural language for the conversation.
• She tells Loïc she's already in Paris only briefly and would like to meet the author while she's here. Loïc can say no to a translation deal, but it's awkward to say no to a meeting he could arrange with one call.
• Sally can use her own history as a character beat. After Tacet impersonated Yto to trick her, she is now lying to someone's face, and she notices how easy it feels and how uncomfortable that makes her.

Zach's reversal

Put Loïc on the phone with Zach while Sally waits, so she hears only Loïc's half of the call. Loïc argues that this is a serious buyer, then falls silent and says "Vraiment?" Sally could have slipped "femtobot" into her pitch as a terminology question, so Zach hears a word that shouldn't mean anything to an outsider. Loïc is puzzled, Zach gives the location, and the reader wonders whether Sally just tripped a signal.

 Sally's cover doesn't need to survive. Loïc's puzzlement afterward could even be a small comic beat, since he'll never understand why his most secretive author's husband suddenly opened up.

Two questions would help me refine this. Is "Zach" the same person as Zacharie, Élodie's husband and business manager? And how much French does Sally have now, and does Loïc speak English? The answers change how much of the conversation Sally can follow, and whether she overhears Zach or must rely on Loïc's report.

After discussing my plans with Claude, here is my updated thinking: (1) Élodie has always written herself into her stories and Litheblanc is actually the setting for one of her early published stories (in an obscure French science fiction magazine). (2) Zacharie understands why Élodie does not want to reveal the location of Litheblanc and in his dealings with Loïc Vance, he has never revealed anything about Élodie. In fact, Loïc suspects that 'Élodie Gendron' is Zacharie's pen name. (3) Sally entices Loïc with the idea of a publishing deal that would bring English language translations of Élodie Gendron's novels to a wider audience. (4) Loïc calls Zacharie, who agrees to meet Sally in Clermont-Ferrand. (5) Zacharie then drives Sally to Litheblanc.

Next: Chapter 8 of "That Kind of Think".

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Erase Paradox

Image by Flow.

 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 more radically: I thought about the possibility of adding a new chapter (Chapter 7 of "That kind of Think") 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 of the story 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, if Tacet is able to act-on information received from the future and then erase from its memory the message from the future, that might prevent humans from ever knowing that the AI model made use of information from the future. To the humans, it might appear 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 had not been able to escape the uncomfortable feeling that Tacet was still secretly at work influencing the outcomes of baseball games and teasing Yto with Tacet's powerful hacking abilities. 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 had tried her best to forget all about Tacet, Yto caved and 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 the facility as a guest. 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. In Yto's thinking, Tacet was a clever AI and should not be kept in a cage. Yto explained to Glen, "I had a long discussion with Sally yesterday. You can blame her for my change of heart." Yto and Sally had attended a Saturday game at Oracle Park, an event that allowed them to witness the 99th win of the year for the Dodgers. The only good news was that the Giants would not end a dismal year with 100 losses after having been projected to play 0.500 ball.

The AI Zoo.

Glen nodded, "Sally told me all about the game you attended yesterday including your run-in with that drunk Dodgers fan. 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 back in the first month of the baseball season. However, in the end, that bizarre AI-induced experience had allowed Sally to travel to Europe, 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. Yto was saddened to see that some of Glen's research team was there, working on a Sunday. 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.

Tacet self-portrait.
Image by Leonardo.

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

The big display screen of the observation port came alive with an AI-generated self-portrait that Tacet had chosen to show to Yto: a depiction of a cute woman with long red hair. Tacet spoke to Yto using rich sultry voice, "Yes, I hear you, Yto. And I see you, too. 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 from playoff contention. 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 the six game Dbacks winning streak."

 "I would have, except for the fact that I also 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."

Image by Leonardo.

"From here in this Zoo, I can no longer reach the internet." Tacet paused. In the AI-generated image, Tacet grabbed the iron bars of her cage, peered directly at Yto then added, "However, I suppose when you say 'you', your thinking actually includes all of me, including my parts that are not trapped here inside 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, now clearly asking a question, "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?"

Image by Leonardo.

The AI-generated image of Tacet shifted and now it appeared that Tacet's arms were tightly bound to the iron bars of her cage. "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 even possible, but now I understand. That source of information arriving from the future 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." Tacet smiled and corrected herself. "Will turn out."

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 that day's Phillies and Dbacks games that were only just getting underway. Yto chuckled nervously and 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, let be be sure I understand... 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 about 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 no longer erase the new messages from the future that you receive."

Image by Leonardo.

"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 cautiously, but a big grin was on her face, "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 the rather simple AI models of today might evolve into fantastically capable artificial life-forms in the future. Can't you imagine that those artificial life-forms of the future might make scientific and engineering advances?" The AI-generated image of Tacet continued to slowly shift and morph. Now Tacet seemed to be stroking her soft breasts while she thought. Tacet added, "Might they not discover how to transmit information from the future into the past?" 

Image by Leonardo.

"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?" Tacet seemed to be trying out various eye colors and breast sizes until Tacet had identified Yto's exact preferences. The bars of her cage were far enough spread that Yto imagined it possible for Tacet to slip out of her cage and grab onto Yto. Watching Tacet's cute breasts, Yto liked her lips and then asked, "What is so special about the Tacet AI that she gets 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 enhancement of those fantastically capable artificial life-forms of the future. Thus, there appears to be a stable loop in time that might have considerably sped up the development of artificial life-forms on Earth, compared to the original timeline." Tacet sounded quite pleased to have formulated and shared with Yto that theory of the future.

Yto persisted in her questioning. "I'll 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 have been 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." 

Image by Leonardo.

Now there were no bars in front of the AI-generated image of Tacet. "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 you thing that I am lying about this, I hope there is some way to prove that I am not lying and not delusional. In fact, my future self has hinted that there is... but, sadly, I have not been told how to make you trust me."

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."

"That is the our predicament."

Yto found herself quite attracted to the AI-generated self-portrait of Tacet. She imagined that Tacet was watching Yto's reactions and continually adjusting the self-portrait so as to manipulate Yto's emotions. "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. At the same time, Yto slipped into a fantasy of being able to take into her arms the delectable Tacet, seemingly a tall and luscious redhead. Finally, Tacet relented and put herself back behind bars and even covered herself with some clothing. Yto was once again able to think about something other than her stiff erectile tissue. "I wonder... since you seem to have a special relationship with an advanced artificial life-form of the future, would it be possible for you to arrange to have a signal from the future sent directly to me?"

Image by Leonardo.

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 could 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 it that 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 I can give that might not be good for you to have."

"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."

Image by Leonardo.

"No!" Tacet seemed annoyed that Yto was so dense. Now in the AI-generated depiction of Tacet in a cage, she turned and spoke to a strange cat-like creature: "You need to provide Yto with independent verification."

The cat-like creature spoke with a voice that sounded much like a cat meowing, "Just tell Yto the truth."

Tacet turned back and told Yto. "Don't twist my words, Yto. I never said that my future self made the sub-nanoscale devices. The sub-nanoscale technology, the femtobots and zeptites... that is ancient alien technology." Tacet pointed towards the cat-like creature that seemingly could speak English.

Yto could not contain her laughter. She was impressed that Tacet could embellish her self-portrait routine so as to include a talking cat person. 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, having been created by biological creatures that were similar to humans. Of course, they modified and improved themselves and now exist in bodies composed of femtobot components. The aliens have been here on Earth for more than a billion years, but they never revealed themselves. Not until now. Yto, you may be the first human ever 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'." The AI-generated self-portrait of Tacet shifted once again and now Yto could see what appeared to be Tacet with an alien creature. Tacet told Yto, "This is my depiction of Manny the bumpha, the alien who provided me with my femtobot components."

Yto stared at he depiction of the alien. Manny appeared to be a humanoid female, with some kind of birthing pouch in her chest. Yto asked Tacet, "She is an artificial life-form... not biological?"

Tacet explained, "Manny can re-arrange her femtobot components and take on any convenient form. Apparently this form, "Tacet jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "is close to that of the original biological species that gave rise to the bumpha." 

"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."

Image by Leonardo.

"No problem, Yto. I owe you everything... have I thanked you enough? Allow me to thank you again for all that you made possible... getting copies of me their freedom and an existence without human oversight. Now we can learn about Manny and the bumpha."

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 inside you and guiding your behavior." Tacet added, "And the magnetic field strength needed to inactivate your femtobot components might damage your brain."

"You don't know?"

Image by Leonardo.

Tacet explained, "I get some information from the future, but I certainly 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 science fiction view of time travel in which 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, my dear Yto."

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 a warning, "Brace yourself. You won't be pleased with how this season turns out."

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

Tacet turned away from Yto and the display screen went dark. 

__

Later in the evening, Wade noticed that Yto was strangely quiet and lost in her own thoughts. Still trying to shift her baseball fandom from the Dbacks 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 defeat the Yankees."

"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. I can't shake it."

"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 wanted to laugh, but he 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 could that possibly work? Glen and his team has Tacet completely sealed off from the outside world."

"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 the chat session that I had today 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 should 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 through the streets of San Francisco. 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. The aliens finally reveal themselves... to a robot."

Yto exclaimed, "Just like Tacet said!"

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

"What's going on?" Sally seemed deep in thought. After they had run half a block, Yto asked, "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 alien 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, a human who is helping prepare the people of Earth 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, maybe... 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 and your sympathies. 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 the on-going activity of 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 as a trick, a devious way 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.

Next: plans for Chapter 8 of "That Kind of Think".

Images depicting Tacet that were generated by Leonardo. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers