Could Terminator II come true? A true story

Background: a friend on a listserv suggested I should really collect my curious life stories in a book some time. I said I had thought about it, and decided against, in part because no one would believe it anyway...

He asked why, and I replied with an example:

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Thanks much for the flattering comparison, Bob!

But no, I wasn't really thinking about Da Vinci. I was thinking about

hundreds of implausible stories.

So I should give you an amusing example. This story is one I **HAVE**

told to a number of people; it is more normal and mundane than most. But

even so, some would object, and I tend to doubt whether it belongs in

print. (I will not name names, but could. The naming of names is part of

the problem.)

I call it my "Terminator" story.

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Circa 1991, the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks

(IJCNN) was held in Seattle. Boeing was a major player,

so they arranged a couple of VIP tours of their aircraft plant with

lunch in the executive dining room.

Prior to that lunch, I was alert for any opportunity to really push

forward the neural network field.

I was delighted when I met a guy from McDonnell-Douglas who was

wrestling with the very tough problem of

how to assign missile interceptors to incoming missiles when there might

be hundreds of both. This was a problem that none of the usual baby

shortcuts could solve... so I spent a few minutes happily showing him

the flowcharts for how it

could really be addressed effectively, and planned to get back to him. I

was also delighted when I met a youngish Afro-American

researcher highly credible in neuroscience, tryuing to make connections

that would help him find real functional explanations of how things work

in the brain; I pointed him towards a new engineering research group I

planned to fund, and again intended to follow up.

Then at lunch -- one of the Boeing guys said: "There have been so many

of these new emerghing technologies like neural

networks down through the years. Someone really ought to do some kind of

study to help us predict which ones will really pan out and deliver and

which ones won't." As it happens -- back in those days I was Program

Director for two areas at NSF, neural networks and Emerging Technologies

Initiation (ETI). So I couldn't help repeating what I had heard from a

previous ETI program director: "Actually, we have done several studies

like that at NSF. One of them found a number of important predictors.

Some were things you would have expected -- like fields based on a new

breakthrough, or new crossdisciplinary connections. But some were a

little surprising -- for example, science fiction. Technologies subject

to good science fiction somehow mysteriously prospered more than you

would have expected. Bad science fiction predicts a strange withering.

By 'good' and 'bad,' I don't measn quality of writing; I mean whether it

is depicted as something good or bad."

Suddenly a loud groan came from one of the Boeing people. Me: "Why did

you just say... UUUUUGGGGHHHH?"

Him: "Talk about bad science fiction... have you seen Terminator II?"

Me: "Not really." (The title didn't sound like my kind of thing.)

Him: "Well, you have to. After what you just said, and what you are

doing, you really have to. It is your professional obligation."

Me: "Well, OK.".... (Then discussion of Star Trek and Data and other

subjects..)

Back in the office on Monday, I was very pleased to start the week by

signing off on an SBIR grant which basically started/created a new

company called "Neurodyne," which would finally create the first firm

base for a new stream of neural network technology, using a robot arm,

as the initial testbed application. And on Tuesday night I saw the movie.

As I saw the movie... it began as the human race was about to be

exterminated all because some yoyo told the missile defense people about

how to use intelligent decision-making neutral networks. Oops. The evil

robot about to destroy our last hope looked like a 50-50 morph between

me and the guy who really set up Neurodyne. Oops. Interesting to see

such a nice familiar face in a different role. And the key Afro-American

scientist working with Neurodyne in the movie was a dead ringer for the

guy I was just putting in touch with them. And it all started with a

ronot arm and a chip, and I just signed off on the robot arm the day before.

One person I told this to last week asked: "Didn't you wonder right then

whether someone was spying on you? It's so improbable?" My reply: "Maybe

for a millisecond.. but of course the movie had to be made long before

the actual events. Yet another major part of the movie was information

being sent back through time, and a woman who had access from the future...

and as soon as I put THAT part together, I really became creeped out."

I was well and truly shaken up for a few days, but gradually calmed

down. I told myself: "There is no way that computers could outsmart

humans to that extent, even using my new designs and methodologies,

without a really huge amount of sheer computing power. Von Neumann

estimated that brains operate at something like 10**15 or 10**18, and it

now looks more like something on the high end. We are 'way away from

that kind of horsepower know, especially when you think of the extra

horspepower needed to emulate variable connectivity." It really would

require a new chip as well as the robot arm project. So I calmed down...

to some degree.

Until about Thursday. On Thursday, I picked up the phone... and heard a

thick Germanic voice which really did sound just like Schwartzenegger.

"Hello, Paul!" (Picture the Schwartzenegger tone of voice.) "I am

calling from LA to tell you some good news.

We have this great new chip, and we are working with Neurodyne. We would

like to come and brief you on the new chip."

I probably need to start censoring at this point, even though it really

becomes much more entertaining and improbable after this point. It's

probably safe to say that I pushed hard for a new effort which funded

this extremely competent group to develop a new more near-term chip, for

use in solving air quality problems in cars, which was almost widely

deployed... until the Bush Administration got rid of the new air quality

regs which drove it. I later ran across a guy from the ballistic missile

defense organization, once by accident while riding the Metro and once

by accident in Circuit City, who happened to have a laptop handy with

powerpoint and video of how they were planning to use the more powerful

chip and showed it to me impromptu

right then and there. (But what I am leaving out...! And how many of

you have been innocently riding a Metro, a bit tired,

on a routine day to work, suddenly seeing a tall guy in a blue uniform

who could be right out of the movie, suddenly pop up a laptop and show

you real world terminator movies there in public?)

By the way, many years later, the guy who really started Neurodyne told

me that they actually intended to name the company "Cyberdyne," but

changed their minds after they saw the movie.

Last I checked, the uberchip and its use in missile defense are all gone

now, and the key guy doesn't even work

for the Air Force any more. Space-based missile defense is itself on a

very far back burner, apparently impossible for economic reasons if

nothing else. I used to think Sarah Connor reminded me a bit of my wife

in some ways... but really, my wife

is far more competent in military matters and training and sheer sanity

and willpower than Sarah Connor.. though I'm not sure how much that

helps. So far as I know, Neurodyne is defunct, with all its principals

scattered to the winds (though doing fine, no

one hurt).

And yet... this week... when I see very, very vividly and directly how

unlikely it is that humans will be able to get their act together on

issues like CO2 (due in great part to sheer mental deficiencies)... or

the threat that some of our cures just might be far worse than CO2

itself... while I see renewed powerful trends that could bring us to

even more powerful uberchips, and resurrect our technical capacity for

space-based missile defense... and all the cyber vulnerabilities

depicted in the final scene of Terminator 3 do seem quite real... as

missile defense people both in the US and China are fully aware of

one-on-one missile interception technology more advanced than what

Neurodyne intended to do with the robot arm (and more advanced than what

computatoinal neuroscience would dare to consider in most cases, with a

couple of possible exceptions in southern California)..

not taught or even hinted at in any computer science program anywhere so

far as I know... there is still some

reason to think that certain possibilities are not entirely off the table.

I don't know whether Dubai's nanoneuro chip program survived the drop in

oil prices. But cheer up, oil prices are well on course to come back...

Even so, my intuition tells me that new nuclear explosions killing lots

of people pose a bigger threat of

human extinction.

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Anyway, enough old stories. If you don't believe it... well, you can

understand why I hesitate to consider

throwing in less believeable stories. What good would it do? I wonder.

Best of luck,

Paul