Felicity 1.0
by Larry L. Richardson
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Our rented SUV pulled up in front of the house, the vehicle’s door slid open, and the three of us hopped out. Standing at the edge of the driveway, I watched Stan’s and Margo’s expressions, their eyes widening, Stan’s mouth dropping open. Their first reaction was as I had anticipated. They were speechless.
Margo was the first to say something. “Max, it’s... it’s...”
“Hideous,” Stan blurted. The structure, a two-story block of smooth, white concrete, featureless except for the dark glass of tall, narrow windows reflecting the straw color of neglected lawns and the dark greens of pine trees on the hillside across the road, inspired a repulsive awe. A second concrete block, a single-story three-car garage, sat apart from the house as if it were built as an afterthought.
There was no denying it; the house was ugly. Yet nearly a century before, when it was built, this style of architecture was considered beautiful in an avant-garde manner. It struck me as ironic that an object thought to be beautiful by one generation was viewed as a monstrosity nearly a hundred years later. I walked to the back of the SUV, its rear hatch door swishing upward. “You guys just going to stand there gawking,” I asked, “or are you going to help me get our things inside?”
Stan, his gaze still fixed on the house murmured, “What the hell were they thinking when they built this?”
“Mid-20th-century modern design,” Margo replied. “It reflects the societal anxieties of the 1950s, the fear of nuclear war. The solidity of concrete gave the occupants a sense of safety in a chaotic world.”
“Wow, that’s deep,” I chuckled.
“Yeah,” she said smiling. “I minored in sociology in undergrad school.”
Grandpa and Grandma had several houses in the western states. Growing up, I often stayed at the house on the Oregon coast, and had been to the house in Tahoe a few times. But this house, situated in the hills at the southern end of California’s Silicon Valley, I had never visited. Why they chose this house as my inheritance was a mystery.
During my years at Stanford, I had visited the house a few times. The power had been turned off for at least ten years. To get the electricity turned on, I would need to have an inspector from the State Energy Commission determine the house’s carbon footprint. This inspector could then issue a permit. He could also deny the permit if the house wasn’t deemed sufficiently energy efficient.
I thought about installing solar panels, which would again require an Energy Commission inspection and permit, as well as approval by the State Historical Commission, since the house might have historical significance. The Historical Commission would determine that.
If I could not obtain the State approval for reconnection with the power grid, and if the State refused to allow solar panels, I might as well have the place demolished. Naturally, a State engineer would have to approve a demolition plan, I would have to obtain an environmental impact statement, and I would need approval of the Historical Commission.
Someone suggested I sell the house. Just be rid of it. I would have if it weren’t for Grandpa’s will which required the house to remain in the family for at least fifteen years. It was clear I was stuck with the place for the time being, and for the time being I and Margo and Stan could camp out here until we found better digs.
* * *
The three of us first met at Stanford during our master’s programs. Stan’s program focused on the development of the physical materials and structure of humaniform robotic systems. Margo’s study was in the esoteric field of android psychology, that is, how androids would think if they had human-like thought patterns.
My master’s program involved android operating systems. I was particularly interested in the emerging field of noetics, a branch of AI that sought to create emotive behavior in androids. At the time, this was highly controversial. Some forward-thinking elements of society saw significant social benefits of an AI system which could reason like humans. Others considered noetic androids as an existential threat to humanity.
I don’t think it was the new technology that bothered people. For the most part, people liked servbots. But servbots were clearly machines, just sophisticated manikins, you might say. The noetic android, on the other hand, would be very close to human, and that scared some people.
Maybe that fear was a form of xenophobia, the fear of others different from ourselves, fear that those “others” would change the world in ways that we wouldn’t like, perhaps subjugate us to their will, or even enslave us. I didn’t share that dark view of noetics. In fact, I was excited to be on the ground floor of this new and developing field.
In my junior year at Stanford, I took an interest in the Mannix Corporation. The company, well known for its ubiquitous servbots, had been quietly buying up land in and around Brookdale, California. It was here that my grandparents’ house was built when the place was little else than a country store and a campground.
I had read a number of articles that described the city that Mannix planned for the Brookdale location, how the company brought in an army of construction bots and gigantic 3D-printers. A new corporation headquarters was created in a few months, followed by an apartment complex and stores. By the spring of 2047, Brookdale was becoming a city with new buildings going up each month.
In the final months of our graduate studies, Stan, Margo, and I applied to Mannix. We secured interviews the same week we moved into my grandparents’ place outside Brookdale. I was to meet that Wednesday with Mr. Nagasaki, the Mannix Vice-President for Research and Development. Seeing such a high-level company man led me to believe I was being considered for something big.
That Wednesday morning, I made my way to the Mannix building. “Welcome, Mr. March,” Nagasaki said as the door to his office slid open. “Please, have a seat.” He motioned with one hand to a gold brocade cushion on the floor across from where he sat at a low table.
I lowered myself onto the cushion just as two androids dressed in the traditional geisha manner glided across the room, one carrying a porcelain tea set, the other a silver tray of macaroons. As the one poured tea, Nagaski continued. “My sources tell me you and your friends have taken up residency at the place on Pine Forest Road. Such a beautiful house. I was interested in acquiring the place for myself. However, your grandparents’ estate had other plans.” He spoke in an unhurried manner that put me at ease.
“Yes,” I replied, “the house is quite a place, maybe a bit too much for me. Time will tell, I suppose.”
He smiled and we sipped the tea as though we had nothing else to talk about at the moment.
“I have,” he said as he set his cup on the table, “been in communication with your academic advisors at Stanford. They write about you in glowing terms regarding your work on noetic systems.”
“Their guidance in the master’s program was invaluable,” I said, smiling.
“We here at Mannix have been working in this direction as well,” he continued, “but I must confess our progress has been slow.” He waved a hand in the direction of the geishas. “Our servbots are a boon to society,” he said. “They’re in wide use and are a very profitable part of our business. But servbot technology is dated. There’s not much more we can make of it. Now we want to take robotics to its next level, to create a fully humaniform noetic android.” He paused, letting this much sink into my thinking.
Then he continued. “We are at the cusp of something big, to put it simply. If we succeed, and we believe we will, noetic AI will change society in ways we cannot now fully predict. We’re quite excited about the prospects.” Nagasaki paused again, studying my expression. “Mr. March,” he said, “what do you think of this idea?”
The interview went on for another thirty minutes, Nagasaki explaining the company’s project which was called Quasimodo. “I really don’t like that name,” he confessed. “The word doesn’t mean what some people think. Apart from that, there is a character in literature named Quasimodo, a misformed and sad creature. That isn’t what our noetic R&D is about.” He paused as if pondering, then asked, “Mr. March, what do you call your research project?”
His question caught me off guard, because I had not given my project a name of this sort. Did my project even need a name? Nagasaki seemed to think so. Without thinking further I said, “I call it Felicity.”
“I like it,” he said smiling. “It’s from Latin, meaning ‘happiness.’ I think that better captures the positive aspect of noetic AI research. Good choice.” I could see that Nagasaki was the sort of person who did not like to rush a conversation, so I said little more as I drank the last of my tea.
When we had finished our talk, Nagasaki instructed the geishas to accompany me to a vacuum tube leading to the roof where a company skycar was waiting. “I think you will enjoy a narrated tour of the city as seen from above,” he said to me as I stood. “You’ll be amazed at what we have accomplished in the past twelve months.”
* * *
Stan and Margo had already finished their interviews and were waiting for me when I stepped out of the vacuum tube. We climbed into the skycar, automatic seatbelts cinching across our laps. The motors hummed and we rose vertically to a height from which we could see the entire city, slowly cruising in a wide circle, the skycar’s baritone voice identifying buildings that were under construction, and those that were completed.
Among the dozens of structures, a financial center rose skyward like a giant chess piece. Five identical apartment buildings called The Dominoes were being constructed by gigantic printers. Across a thoroughfare, a swarm of construction bots were working on the multi-storied building that was to contain the Brookdale Mall.
The most striking structure, the center of the city, however, was the new Mannix Corporation headquarters. Resembling a Middle Eastern ziggurat, the building rose to an impressive height, the roof of each terrace landscaped with lawns, pools, and trees. Mannix intended Brookdale, especially the Mannix headquarters, to elicit high regard in terms of its architecture. Above all, the city was to be a showcase for a noetic android/human social coexistence.
After twenty minutes the skycar cruised toward the house, the three of us talking about our interviews. I told the others about Nagasaki and his geisha servbots. Nagasaki had shown real interest in my masters program project in noetic AI, I said, but he asked me just one question about the project. He wanted to know what I called it.
“I didn’t know you had a name for it, other than noetic AI,” Margo said.
“I didn’t,” I replied. “But it seemed that he expected something else so I said the project was called Felicity.”
“What?!” Stan exclaimed. “Are you joking?” When I didn’t answer, he went on in a loud voice, “You named your project after Felicity Moriarty, the woman who dumped you three weeks before graduation? I... I don’t get it.”
“Honestly, I don’t know why I said my project is called Felicity. But Nagasaki likes the name. I can’t change it now. Anyway, I heard she doesn’t go by Felicity anymore. She goes by her middle name, SueAnn.”
“It doesn’t matter, Stan,” Margo commented. “I think ‘The Felicity Project’ has a nice ring to it.”
Nagasaki said it would be a few days, maybe as long as a week, before he would contact me regarding the outcome of my interview. Margo and Stan were told this as well. “Since we’ve been placed on hold,” Stan said, “I need to go back to Stanford and get the things I couldn’t fit in the van the other day.” Margo offered to go along to keep him company during the drive. I said I might as well ride along, too.
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Larry L. Richardson
