“What is this?” asked Maite.
De Lancre had taken her outside of the city using one of the strange egg-pods. Maite had almost had a panic attack, sitting that closely to him inside the egg, but had fought to keep her emotions under control. It had been a relief when they arrived and the egg dissolved around them.
In front of her was a massive complex. A large domed building sat above another, larger building. Maite watched as the building complex seemed to undulate, almost shimmering like the landscape behind a hot road when the waves of heat warped the surrounding air. She assumed this was due to the invisible nanobots constantly building and rebuilding parts of the complex.
“This is the AI,” replied de Lancre. “The main AI is housed in the dome and, underneath, is a fusion reactor that powers the AI.”
Maite gasped. “A fusion reactor just for the AI?”
De Lancre nodded. “Computing at the scale of this AI, which is essentially the brains for the whole city and beyond, requires a huge amount of energy.”
“I would never have imagined…” began Maite, her voice trailing off in awe.
“Imagine how I felt,” chuckled de Lancre. “At least, in your time, you have a concept of fusion energy and artificial intelligence. In my time, we didn’t conceive of running water, let alone electricity.”
“So, this AI runs everything?” asked Maite.
“Well, it doesn’t control what I do, or any individual for that matter, but it manages the city and, in particular, the nanobots. You can think of this as the nest from whence the nanobots – the ants – come and go.”
“I guess that analogy only goes so far,” said Maite, “as ant colonies don’t have a central intelligence guiding them – ants are all autonomous.”
De Lancre looked at her with admiration. “I didn’t realize that. But, yes, the nanobots are not autonomous, they get direction from the AI here. Out in the field, they communicate with one another, exchanging information and orders, until they come back here to bring back raw materials.”
“Are any of you concerned that the AI might go rogue? Might do things that are not in the best interests of humans?”
De Lancre stared at the dome before them. “I admit, I personally haven’t given it much thought. If it does start doing something like that, I can always escape with the zatia and pop the bubble. I guess the engineers and scientists who built the thing must have thought about it, but it’s evolved so far from their original designs, I doubt even they know what it is capable of.”
As de Lancre spoke, Maite swore she saw a sudden but subtle shift in the pattern that the buildings around her were being constructed and torn down, but when she looked again, everything looked like it had before.
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