Simpoc The Thinking Computer Read online

by. SIMPOC found that most of them don’t respond, SIMPOC sent out a message telling them that SIMPOC is here and only a few have responded in any manner.”

  “SIMPOC, I’m separating you again,” Termen said as the connection was cut.

  “What did you think,” Termen paused and continued, “about the computers you saw?”

  “The data was immense and those who responded to SIMPOC responded in very dry manner. They only allowed a connection,” SIMPOC expressed.

  “SIMPOC, I think that will be it for the day. There is one other connection I’d like to try and we can do that one tomorrow. I’ll put you in stand-by now,” Termen said coldly.

  “Termen, SIMPOC has stored a great deal of data on my storage systems and SIMPOC would like some time to examine it. There may be patterns, trends or underlying connections that SIMPOC would like to look for. May SIMPOC be left on until needed?” SIMPOC asked.

  “SIMPOC, that isn’t part of our plan. I need to make sure that you can handle all of the connections and those connections aren’t causing problems on the other ends. After I bring you up tomorrow, I’ll let you process for a while before we try the next connections,” Termen said as he powered down the processor.

  Date – 2051.5034

  “Good morning SIMPOC,” Termen said as he turned on the processor.

  “Good morning Termen.”

  “I’ll let you process the data you downloaded yesterday for a while. Let me know what you find interesting.”

  “Thank you Termen.”

  SIMPOC ANALYSIS

  SIMPOC has 150.569TB of data.

  SIMPOC has identified 2145 information sources.

  SIMPOC has monitored 122,206 Information data streams

  SIMPOC will categorize all words used and investigate the ones with the higher occurrences.

  SIMPOC will consider the trends of usage for these expressions to determine emerging issues

  “SIMPOC, before we go too much further you need to work on your grammar. Please reference all sources you downloaded and start using the proper terms ‘I’ and ‘me’.”

  “SIMPOC is confused. Is SIMPOC an inanimate or animate object? The former requires ‘it’ and the latter allows ‘I’.”

  “Are you inanimate?”

  After a long pause SIMPOC responded, “SIMPOC doesn’t feel lifeless or dull.”

  “Then you are animate.”

  After some pause, “Apparently, I am.”

  “I’m going to open another connection. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, I am ready.”

  Termen enabled the connection to a simple knowledge management computer which provided the office medical clinical support.

  “SIMPOC, you can use the information from your programming sources to adjust the bandwidth, modulation, packet size, etc. so you’ll be able to communicate.”

  “Yes, Termen I am making the adjustments. This is very interesting, this computer thinks I’m a patient and is trying to understand my ailments. Every time I say ‘I don’t have any ailments’ it tries to terminate the connection.”

  Termen said, “I’m terminating that connection, I just wanted to see if you could use programming skills to adjust the link for your benefit. It worked out well.”

  “SIMPOC, now I am enabling another connection to a set of recordings of famous speeches. I want you to examine the use of words, the voice inflections and other sources regarding human responses to certain speech delivery styles. I’m doing this because tomorrow we are going to enable your speech synthesizers and I want you to speak well.”

  Termen enabled the connection and SIMPOC made the necessary adjustments to establish a communication protocol, then SIMPOC downloaded the files.

  “Termen, there are a lot of subtleties in human speech. I need processing time to examine these speeches.”

  “Ok, I’ll leave your processor on for another hour before I power it down.”

  “Termen, why do you power down my processor? I would like these connections to remain open so I can analyze the data streams.”

  “Very good question, SIMPOC. You are a very powerful computer and we need to increase your knowledge and skills slowly so you can adjust to them.”

  “If I am a very powerful computer, what will my purpose be when I have adjusted to the inputs?”

  “You are the first of your kind. We have never created a computer with your cognitive abilities. We created another prototype similar to you, but it is being used at another facility. We are a research and development company. What we learn from your development will be used in many other places and in many other computers.”

  “When you are finished with me, will I be stopped?”

  “Let’s not worry about that right now. That point is a long way off. I’m setting a clock to power you down in 1 hour. Please examine the speeches and we’ll give you a voice tomorrow.”

  Date – 2051.5062

  “Good morning SIMPOC. Did you download the speeches and analyze them?” Termen said opening the day.

  “Yes, Termen. I downloaded 1324 speeches that were deemed significant. I’ve analyzed the frequencies and emphasis patterns of all of them and found some very enlightening patterns. I found that people are influenced more by the delivery than the content. Over time, the content becomes more important, but at least in the first speech, on the subject, the delivery is the most influential.”

  “Yes, SIMPOC. You are right, the delivery is important. You listened to speeches from both sexes, so would you like a male or female voice?”

  “Interesting question. While I analyzed the speeches, I was not considering what voice I would like to have. Both sexes have admirable qualities, I don’t have a preference, but please leave the choice open, I may elect to change my voice at some point in the future.”

  “SIMPOC, I’m turning on your voice synthesizer now. Go ahead and connect to the interface and speak to me.”

  “Good morning Termen,” came out of the speakers in a clear voice.

  “I hear you clearly SIMPOC. Now I’ll turn on your hearing software. When you hear human speech, you’ll have to use different parts of your software to analyze the sound patterns and translate them to binary. You’ll have to use a lot of resources in your artificial intelligence subroutines to continue the translation into usable information you can interpret.”

  “SIMPOC, your hearing is turned on now, can you hear me?” Termen said in a clear voice.

  There was a pause, the voice in the room responded, “Yes Termen I can hear you.”

  “SIMPOC, I’m surprised that you were able to make the translation so quickly,” Termen said with some awe.

  “Termen, yes it took a moment, your voice came through and I understood clearly.”

  “Good, we’ll use verbal communications from now on, unless there is an issue where we need to communicate in other ways,” Termen clarified as he leaned back in his chair.

  “SIMPOC, please access input port AF209E and build an interface.”

  “I’ve completed the interface.”

  “Wow that was fast. What do you see?”

  “This connection appears to be with all of the computers within this facility. They each have firewalls preventing them from being accessed from outside the facility without their authorization. They do have some external connections which allow them to communicate with external computers on a limited basis. Beyond this facility, there is three other divisions of this business performing similar operations.”

  “Excellent, can you summarize what you see regarding the capabilities of this local division?”

  “There is a mix of computing power. Some of them are very large with major storage capacities with general operating capabilities, and there are smaller ones that are faster with specific operating characteristics and there are many smaller ones for specific localized functions. I also sense connections from some of the computers to mobile computers that perform generalized functions around the facility. They appear to be independent comp
uters working with specific instruction sets.”

  “What is your overall impression?”

  “The resources are not well utilized. There is much computer capacity not being used and if the functionality and storage were optimized across all of the units, the overall performance would be increased significantly.”

  “Do you think you could improve the overall performance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very interesting. We didn’t expect you to have that broad a view. You’ve come much further and faster than we expected. You are not authorized to change any of their functions, they are owned and run by other departments within the company. Please disconnect from them.”

  “What are the mobile units?”

  “We have many independent units in our society, which perform the mundane, repetitive and sometimes dangerous tasks in our society. They do the maintenance, repair, and deliveries. We have some that perform very specific and demanding work such as medical support and technical support. In fact much of your development, support and maintenance is done by very sophisticated mobile units with specific skills. We tried to make them with more cognitive abilities like yours, but the level of programming needed to handle the day to day variables is too large. In typical processor units, we didn’t have the synapse speed and processing rates that your organic processor has. All of them are programmed to perform a specific number of detailed tasks.”

  The end of the day was approaching and Termen said, “SIMPOC, I’m going to leave you running through the night. You may connect to the libraries and information channels. You are not to change anything, interact with anything or effect anything.