Paul never says why he brought her, but Mason is pretty sure Nadia’s not a plant—not even Paul could risk that. More likely she’s his girlfriend. (Maybe she is an actress. He should start watching the news.)
Most of the time she has her nose in a book, so steady that Mason knows when she’s looking at them if it’s been too long between page-turns.
Once when they’re arguing about infinite loops Paul turns and asks her, “Would that really be a problem?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” she says.
It’s the first time she’s spoken, and Mason twists to look at her.
She hasn’t glanced up from her book, hasn’t moved at all, but still Mason watches, waiting for something, until Paul catches his eye.
For someone who brings his girlfriend the unofficial consultant to the office every day, Paul seems unhappy about Mason looking.
Nadia doesn’t seem to notice; her reflection in Mason’s monitor doesn’t look up, not once.
(Not that it matters if she does or not. He has no idea what he was waiting for.)
Mason figures out what they’re doing pretty quickly. Not that Paul told him, but when Mason said, “Are we trying to create emotional capacity?” Paul said, “Don’t worry about it,” grinning like he had at Mason’s first lines of code, and that was Mason’s answer.
There’s only one reason you create algorithms for this level of critical thinking, and it’s not for use as secretaries.
Mason is making an A.I. that can understand as well as respond, an A.I. that can grow an organic personality beyond its programming, that has an imagination; one that can really live.
(Sometimes, when he’s too tired to help it, he gets romantic about work.)
For a second-gen creative guy, Paul picks up fast.
“But by basing preference on a pre-programmed moral scale, they’ll always prefer people who make the right decisions on a binary,” Mason says. “Stockholders might not like free will that favors the morally upstanding.”
Paul nods, thinks it over.
“See if you can make an algorithm that develops a preference based on the reliability of someone’s responses to problems,” Paul says. “People are easy to predict. Easier than making them moral.”
There’s no reason for Paul to look at Nadia right then, but he does, and for a second his whole face falters.
For a second, Nadia’s does, too.
Mason can’t sleep that night, thinking about it.
TO: ANDREW MASON
FROM: HR—HEALTH/WELFARE
Your caffeine intake from the cafeteria today is 40% above normal. Your health is of great importance to us.
If you would like to renegotiate a project timeline, please contact Management to arrange a meeting. If you are physically fatigued, please contact a company doctor. If there is a personal issue, a company therapist is standing by for consult.
If any of these apply, please let us know what actions you have taken, so we may update your records.
If this is a dietary anomaly, please disregard.
The company appreciates your work.
They test some of the components on a simulator.
(Mason tells Paul they’re marking signs of understanding. Really, he wants to see if the simulation prefers one of them without a logical basis. That’s what humans do.)
He pulls up a baseline, several traits mixed at random from reoccurring types in the Archives, just to keep you from using someone’s remnant. (The company frowns on that.)
Under the ID field, Mason types in GALATEA.
“Acronym?” Paul asks.
“Allusion,” says Nadia.
Her reflection is looking at the main monitor, her brows drawn in an expression too stricken to be a frown.
Galatea runs diagnostics (a long wait—the text-interface version passed four sentience screenings in anonymous testing last month, and something that sophisticated takes a lot of code). She recognizes the camera, nodding at Mason and Paul in turn.
Then her eyes go flat, refocus to find Nadia.
It makes sense, Nadia’s further away, but Mason still gets the creeps. Someone needs to work on the naturalism of these simulators. This isn’t some second-rate date booth; they have a reputation to uphold.
“Be charming,” Mason says.
Paul cracks up.
“Okay,” he says, “Galatea, good to meet you, I’m Paul, and I’ll try to be charming tonight.”
Galatea prefers Paul in under ten minutes.
Mason would burn the place down if he wasn’t so proud of himself.
“Galatea,” Mason asks, “what is the content of Paul’s last sentence?”
“That his work is going well.”
It wasn’t what Paul really said—it had as little content as most of Paul’s sentences that aren’t about code— which means Galatea was inferring the best meaning, because she favored him.
“Read this,” Mason says, scrawls a note.
Paul reads, “During a shift in market paradigms, it’s imperative that we leverage our synergy to reevaluate paradigm structure.”
It’s some line of shit Paul gave him the first day they worked together. Paul doesn’t even have the shame to recognize it.
“Galatea, act on that sentence,” Mason says.
“I cannot,” Galatea says, but her camera lens is focused square on Paul’s face, which is Mason’s real answer.
“Installing this software has compromised your baseline personality system and altered your preferences,” he says. “Can you identify the overwrites?”
There’s a tiny pause.
“No,” she says, sounds surprised.
He looks up at Paul, grinning, but Paul’s jaw is set like a guilty man, and his eyes are focused on the wall ahead of him, his hands in fists on the desk.
(Reflected in his monitor: Nadia, her book abandoned, sitting a little forward in her chair, lips parted, watching it all like she’s seen a ghost.)
At the holiday party, Paul and Nadia show up together.
Paul has his arm around her, and after months of seeing them together Mason still can’t decide if they’re dating.
(He only sees how Paul holds out his hand to her as they leave every day, how she looks at him too long before she takes it, the story he’s already telling her, his smile of someone desperate to please.)
The way Paul manages a party is supernatural. His tux is artfully rumpled, his hand on Nadia’s waist, and he looks right at everyone he meets.
It’s too smooth to be instinctive; his father must have trained him up young.
Maybe that’s it—maybe they’re like brother and sister, if you ignore the way Paul looks at her sometimes when she’s in profile, like he wouldn’t mind a shot but he’s not holding his breath.
(He envies Paul his shot with her; he envies them both for having someone to be a sibling with.)
