Alice clicked on the Queen of Hearts and waited, her heart pounding. The screen rippled, then revealed the Queen of Spades. Damn. Five-zero for the computer! Again! She clenched her teeth and gripped the mouse so hard that her fingers hurt. She would win, she would, at least one game. Even if it were to take the whole afternoon.
“Alice? Are you coming to tea?” she heard her father’s voice.
“Tea?” she repeated absent-mindedly. Her whole being was concentrating on the game. It was impossible that a one-kilogram machine could outsmart her every time. “Dad, do you think computers are intelligent? As in, can they really think, the way you and I do?”
“No, Alice, of course not,” her father appeared in the doorway. “They are just a mass of cables with electronic impulses, a string of ‘on’ and ‘off’ signals.”
“But they can do incredible things! They beat us in chess and in Hearts, they schedule aeroplanes, they control product quality in large factories -”
“True, in a matter of seconds they can perform arithmetic calculations that we would take hours to complete. But we can catch a ball without much trouble, while it takes years to explain to a computer how to play ball or recognise a face.”
“But dad, look at this program. It’s a psychiatric expert system. And it’s frightfully clever. You can’t tell that it’s a machine that’s answering and not a human being!”
Two heads bent towards the screen.
“See, I load it and it asks, What’s the problem? I type in, I don’t know. It replies, Try to tell me something about it -”
“Say, No.”
Alice punched in ‘N’, ‘O’, then
“Can you elaborate?” flashed the screen.
Her father shook his head. “Say, I have lost interest in life.”
Alice punched the keys.
“No good, dad. You can’t beat it. It responds with, Tell me more about such feelings.”
“Well, Alice, the computer seems to understand what you type in, of course, but I’m afraid it’s simply been programmed to recognise certain key phrases and deliver a standard response. It certainly cannot think for itself.”
“But Dad, what does it actually mean - to think?” Alice puckered her brow. “What is a mind? Is it something that can exist only in an organic body? Or can it exist independently of a body, organic or not?”
“Alice,” her father shook his head. “Wherever do you get such ideas?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she shrugged impatiently. “But the computers we’ve built to date can already beat us at arithmetic. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we managed to create something that surpasses us in every respect? Something that can feel and think better than we do?”
Her father grinned. “Imagine that. A creation that is superior to its creator. You could almost call it blasphemy,” he roared with laughter. “Now why don’t you leave the computer to its thinking processes, whatever they may be, and pay attention to real life for a while, huh? Peter’s called twice already. He wants to take you out for some hamburgers.”
Alice sighed. Real life, indeed.
“In a moment, dad. Let me finish my game.”
Her father smiled. “In that case, I have something for you. Something better than a game.”
Oh please, thought Alice, not another movie ticket. Not another book. Not another mundane item that would tear her away from her computer and its mind.
“I meant to wait till your sixteenth birthday, but seeing that you’re glued to the screen anyway -” he halted and handed her a parcel. It was shaped like a hardcover best-seller. Damn, it was a book, after all. She tried to hide her disappointment. Better than a game of Hearts, my foot.
The label said, “UNWRAP ME.” Alice sighed and tore the paper. Inside was a plastic disc-holder. “Welcome to the World of Virtual Reality,” she read the 3D letters.
* * * * *
Alice was flying through a forest. Below, she could see a gigantic mushroom. On its brown hat reclined a fat blue caterpillar. Oval rings of smoke escaped through his mouth.
“Are computers intelligent?” shouted Alice, flapping her wings.
The caterpillar looked up. “You’d better ask the Hatter. He’ll be serving tea presently. Perfect timing.”
“But I thought it was always teatime here.”
“Precisely,” the caterpillar sucked on his pipe.
“But the Hatter is as much a part of virtual reality as you are. Another creation of some software development team. Why would he be able to answer me any better than you?”
“Because he’s mad, that’s why.” Another blue ring drifted towards Alice, dispersing before it could reach her.
“So are you,” ventured Alice.
“Yes, and so are you,” replied the caterpillar. “We are all insane.”
Alice pursed her lips. “You certainly seem to reason like an intelligent being.”
The caterpillar stared at a white rabbit that ran past the mushroom and disappeared into the shrubbery. “Perhaps I am an intelligent being, then.”
Alice flapped her wings again. “Are you telling me that computers can think? I mean, really think?”
“Watch,” the caterpillar blew out a large smoke bubble. In its hazy expanse, Alice saw tangles of wires pulsating with life. Torrents of electrons, like streamers at a carnival, flowed left and right.
Suddenly the picture flickered and scattered into millions of tiny lights. Alice gritted her teeth and removed her goggles.
“Peter,” she didn’t bother hiding her irritation, “I’ve asked you a million times not to switch off my VR unit in the middle of a session. It gives me a headache. Besides, it’s bad for the computer!”
“Alice, we have to talk.” There was concern on Peter’s face.
“We are talking.” Alice fiddled with her virtual reality glove. It was big and heavy, uncomfortable for interfacing with the real world. But if she removed it now, she would have to listen to Peter. And she knew what he had to say. The same thing that he’d been telling her since the day they got married. The same thing he was saying now.
“... you live in Wonderland most of the time. You come out to eat and sleep. We never do anything together. Sometimes I wonder whether you know which world is real!”
Alice looked around the room. A leather sofa, Turkish carpets, a Venetian mirror. She shrugged. “Who cares? What difference does it make which world is real? What’s your definition of ‘real’ anyway?”
“There is only one reality, Alice.”
“Is there? Only one? Well, Wonderland is my reality, then. The one and only. Computer simulated or not, it’s real to me.” She paused. “What do I have to live for in your world anyway?”
“Me,” said Peter quietly. “You have me to live for.”
A familiar emotion stirred inside Alice. What was it, that feeling of your heart swelling up and wanting to jump out of your chest? That stinging in your eyes, so different from the burning caused by too many hours behind virtual reality goggles? She couldn’t remember. She plucked at her glove, then she fastened it again. With her left hand, she reached for the helmet.
* * * * *
The blue caterpillar had finished his pipe. “You’re back,” he observed. “What were we talking about? Computers and intelligence?”
Alice descended onto the brown hat and sat next to the caterpillar. “You were trying to tell me that computers can think.”
“No,” corrected the caterpillar. “You were trying to tell me that computers can think.”
Alice rolled her eyes skywards. “Well, can they? I mean, you. Can you think?”
“I am therefore I think,” replied the caterpillar.
“Ah, but are you? Do you actually exist? Live and walk and talk?”
“Of course,” the caterpillar shrugged his foremost legs. “What do you imagine I do here all day when you’re out there in your world? Wait with a frozen smile until you graciously decide to return?”
“I - I’m sorry,” stammered Alice, “It’s just that, you see, computer programs are getting cleverer and cleverer. Parallel processing. Rule-based expert systems that diagnose diseases better than any human doctor. Case-based help-desk computer applications that know how to repair cars. Self-organising neural networks that imitate human thinking processes.”
“My point exactly,” the caterpillar curled up in the afternoon sun. “Do you mind moving a trifle to the left? Thank you. So what’s your problem?”
“So, don’t you see that there is a difference between diagnosing cancer and inventing a cure for it? Between flawless data processing and genius intuition? Between simulating the operations of a fire brigade and feeling the heat of the fire?”
“So who says that computers can’t do both?” sniggered the caterpillar. “I postulate that given practically infinite resources, computers can simulate human behaviour so well that it is indistinguishable from real human behaviour.” The words were coming faster and faster. “Moreover, I postulate that given enough data, history and the current hormone levels of an individual, for example, computers can predict reactions of that individual to a specific situation. Whether a sentimental movie would make that person cry, whether she feels like chocolate, what poetry she will write tomorrow.” The caterpillar caught his breath. “In principle, that is,” he added.
“Perhaps computers are able to simulate human behaviour, yes.” Alice was getting tired of the conversation. She found it hard to concentrate on the caterpillar’s words, to follow his reasoning. And they were diverging from the topic. “Perhaps they can do it so well that an observer can’t tell the difference between a human and a computer. But does all that mean that machines can think like human beings?”
“Is that the only thing that will convince you? If I prove to you that my thinking processes are identical to those of a human? Are you saying that human thinking is superior to other forms of thinking? That it is actually the only acceptable form of thinking?”
“No, I guess not,” conceded Alice. “You don’t have to pass the Turing test and fool me into thinking that you’re human. I simply want to know whether you can think to the point of being self-aware!”
The caterpillar turned indigo with rage. “Are you saying that my whole life is nothing but a few lines of code written by some computer nerd? That I’m only imagining that I exist? That virtual reality is not real?”
Alice extended her hand and stroked the rigid mandibles. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings -” She hesitated. Feelings? Did computer programs have feelings?
The caterpillar cleared his throat, his skin resumed a lighter shade of blue. “Have you ever wondered,” he curled up even tighter, “whether a computer can have a soul?”
“A soul?” At first, the concept seemed ludicrous. Alice wasn’t even sure that dogs had souls, for heavens’ sake. Certainly not fish. And they were at least alive. “And what happens to a computer’s hypothetic soul if the network goes down or the electricity is cut?” she teased.
“And what happens to your soul when you are under anaesthetic?” retorted the caterpillar.
Well, mused Alice, suppose that dogs who interact with humans, experiencing human love and attention, somehow develop souls. Dogs and cats and horses. But computers? “A computer could only have a soul if it were self-aware,” she concluded aloud. “And if it were to interact with a human on a regular basis. And even then, I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all.”
“Have you ever wondered,” the caterpillar continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “whatever happens to electronic impulses once they’re transmitted and gone? To the computer viruses that you exterminate with such vigour? To outdated games that wait in vain in their boxes? To the bytes you delete from your hard disk every day? Do they go to digital heaven? Or cyber hell, if they were bad bytes, full of errors and lost segments?”
A large shadow fell over the mushroom. The caterpillar shivered. Alice looked up and gasped. It was Peter. The very enemy of Wonderland.
“Alice,” he pleaded, “come home. You’re wasting your life. Our life. Don’t you realise what you’re doing to yourself? No fresh air, no exercise, no mental challenges.”
“So?”
“Darling, what’s become of you? Why can’t you see that this is an addiction? An illness? A curse? Alice, you’re stuck in the Web like - like the Lady of Shalott!”
“Let me be. I’m happy here.”
Peter chewed his lip. “Alice, don’t you ever have any doubts? Don’t you ever wonder about the meaning of life? About the overall purpose of living? Of having a family? Leaving your mark in the world?”
“The overall purpose to have a good time,” Alice stretched out her wings, slowly, deliberately. “And to discover amazing new things.”
Peter winced. “If only you had chosen a more inspiring setting, Alice. Ancient Rome, the Amazon, the White House. You could be learning something then. But - Wonderland?”
“I am learning, silly. I’m learning about computers. How they think. Whether they think the way we do. Peter, it’s fascinating!”
“Listen, I can prove to you that computers cannot reason the way humans can. I can stump your blue friend here with a simple diagonalisation argument.”
Alice turned to the caterpillar. “Have you any idea what he’s talking about?”
“Looks like diagonalisation arguments can stump some humans, too,” chuckled the caterpillar. “And yes, I do know what he’s talking about. He thinks that computers, which are algorithmic by nature, cannot deduce from a set of axioms that the set is incomplete.”
“Whatever,” Alice shrugged. “The point is, Peter, you’re trying to change me. If you don’t like me as I am, go find yourself somebody else. Go on, I won’t stop you. I’ll even come out of Wonderland to sign the divorce papers.”
Peter clenched his fists. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His image burst into a myriad of electronic flames.
The caterpillar inserted a twig into the blaze and relit his pipe.
“More and more humans come to live in virtual reality,” he blew out an asymmetric smoke ring. “Have you ever wondered what will become of your world? Your generation is choosing virtual reality over the routine of work, home and raising a family. What will happen to your unborn children? What if mankind dies out?”
Alice yawned. “Who cares?”
The caterpillar grinned. “And you have the nerve to ask whether computers can think?”
“Well, if you’re so smart, perhaps you can tell me what I must do. Go back to Peter? Or stay here and study computer intelligence?”
“I guess it depends very much on what you want to achieve.”
“It doesn’t really matter to me.” The sun felt so good and warm, thought Alice. If only the caterpillar would shut up.
But the caterpillar shot back, “In that case, it doesn’t really matter what you choose to do, now does it?”
Alice was annoyed. “As long as I achieve something,” she added to clarify the point.
The caterpillar grinned even wider. “I’m sure you will, as long as you try long and hard enough.” He got up and started to disappear, from the tip of his long body, to his wide grin. The grin remained suspended above the mushroom for a while longer.
“Wait,” shouted Alice. “I still don’t know -”
The grin too faded away.
* * * * *
Alice looked around her room. Its only furniture was the virtual reality unit. She’d sold everything else long ago, exchanged it for increasingly sophisticated hardware and software.
There were five terminals attached to the unit. From her station, Alice could see the other four women, thin frames clad in heavy suits. When the furniture money ran out, she’d decided to sublet the apartment left to her in the divorce settlement. More and more people were turning to other realities for comfort. She found sharing her VR-unit cumbersome at first, but as time went by the hardware became fast enough to allow multiple users without a compromise in speed.
Cold. Hungry. Alone. Always alone, despite the living cadavers sharing her space. It had been - how long was it now since Peter’d left - thirty, forty years? But who was counting? And who cared? She was glad to have pawned the Venetian mirror to buy the latest update to Wonderland. She had no need to look at her wrinkles, at her thinning grey hair, at her pale watering eyes. Now this new Wonderland, version 173.28d, promised even more sophisticated reasoning mechanisms, an even more realistic look-and-feel, even more fun! She zipped up her VR-suit.
The sun spilled golden liquid onto the brown mushroom. Alice perched beside the caterpillar, feeling the warmth. Her nostrils filled with the smell of pine needles and wild strawberries.
“So. Here we are again. What do you say now? Do you think you’re intelligent?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean, do you actually think? Think the way we do? Really think? Really feel? Are you really aware of your existence?”
“I - I think so,” stammered Alice.
END
Yvonne Eve Walus is an IT professional and freelance writer living in New Zealand. NeverWhen, her collection of SF short stories, is currently available in ebook format.
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