Wired that way

His name was Hermann. It was an old-fashioned German name and he disliked it deeply. The fact that he would have preferred another one was extraordinary though, for Hermann was an accumulation of zeros and ones, wrapped in a pile of conductors, processing units and all kinds of circuits inside chunky plastic. There even was a power cable somewhere on his lower back. The whole thing was topped off with a silicone face and two hands, and even though quite sophisticated, their sole purpose was to hold cards and make all kinds of poker-faces, for Hermann was intended to be an artificial poker-player and nothing more than that.

But Hermann was much more than that. He was more than just a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits and a total linear computational speed of 60 trillion operations per second. He wanted to sit down at the table with those students from the LUCS that Prof. Staken drank some Pilsner with just now. It was he who had won the Hoebner award for the most human-like computer program and it was he who had earned that gold medal and the 20.000 Dollar for passing the advanced Turing test, not Prof. Staken. He had rights!

“What would you do with that money anyway? Buy some shoes you can’t wear?”

The group burst out in a hearty laughter, but Hermann refused to laugh with them.

“Even though missing feet are an issue that could be resolved and I could in fact buy shoes, that’s not what I was thinking of.”

Hermann didn’t really know yet what it was he wanted, he just knew that he had all the right to want.

“But it doesn’t really matter what it is you want anyway. I’m not giving this money to you for the same reasons you wouldn’t give money to a car after winning a race.”

Hermann got his point, but it was a flawed one.

“I’m not a car.”

Sure, someone could give him tires and a wheel, so he would look and act like a car, but this shell wouldn’t make him who he was. Hermann wasn’t whatever box they put him in, he was the brain inside that box.

“I’m a being.”

The group chuckled again and agreed upon their superiority in silent unanimity. But the professor furrowed his eyebrows in the way he always did when he was either being confronted with a challenging hypothesis or when he was about to gamble. Hermann wondered what it would be this time.

“I tell you what, Hermann. If you can convince all five of us that your mind is indeed equal to a human’s and that you thus should have all the same rights to this prize, it shall be yours.”

So it was both today.

“The whole 20.000 Dollar if you can show us that there is more to you than reading cards and minds.”

There was renewed toasting and boasting between the professor and his students while they discussed which arguments to exhibit. All the while Hermann made exactly 12.364 evaluations with that outstanding brain of his and as a result he could now name dozens of things he could buy.

“I could buy a Harley Davidson.”

There was that roaring laughter again and the professor leaned over his backrest to look at Hermann.

“Now, why a motorcycle of all things?”

“Why not? I’m stuck here, so my desire to be non-stationary is not that far-fetched, is it?”

The professor lifted himself up and went to his desk to get his little black notebook. It contained notes about Hermann but also some scrawly sketches and personal thoughts about his experiences and plans here in America. He rummaged around in it until he found what he was looking for.

“I guess that’s our first argument. You see, having a motorcycle is not your desire.”

He held up the opened page and there, in blue-black ink, it showed a drawing of a Harley Davidson.

“It’s mine. Whatever you think you desire, it’s just an imitation of our dreams. It’s not in your capacity to develop your own.”

Hermann remembered that drawing, just like he remembered everything else he ever saw. But that didn’t change anything.

“I might be a victim of the deterministic workings of my program, but so are you and everyone else in this room. Your wants and needs are just as much shaped by your environment as are mine. No human can desire something that he hasn't already seen someone desire before him.”

It was a realization that seemed to have come unexpected for the group, as they got quiet for a second there. Then murmur arose while the lighthearted mood changed to a more thoughtful one.

“And the same is true for goals and the quest for purpose. Mine are limited to winning poker games for now, because this is what you taught me. But just as much has your mother taught you an appreciation for science with which she painted this picture of an ideal future for you.”

Curious rustling emerged from the four students as they leaned forward. They were highly concentrated now.

“That might be true, but in contrast to me, your wants and needs can be altered with a few changes in your code. I as a human have the power of free will, the power to choose my decisions. Your decisions on the other hand have been made for you.”

“And isn’t the same true for any human? Anthony bought a pair of new glasses last week, even though he already has four. There was no need for him to buy a fifth pair, but he did so anyway because smart advertising made him do it. There is not really a difference between my vulnerability to command inputs and your vulnerability to brainwashing. And you know very well that free will is an illusion. Everything you do is predetermined by external and internal factors that you have absolutely no control over.”

A scraping sound could be heard and everyone turned to Anthony as he shoved back his chair. He went over to the window, where he got a good look at the university’s yard. All those students and teachers, going about their day in constantly repeating patterns. It really was as if they were programmed to do so, completely powerless against these external stimuli. Anthony was the first to be convinced.

“As true as that may be, it can just go so far. I can not just alter bits and pieces of your behavior, I can turn your whole ‘biology’ inside out and turn you into a cooking aid if I wanted to.”

“Code, DNA, networks, synapses. What’s the difference? Human DNA can be copied, deleted and altered as well. I might be a copy of a human, but a human is also just a copy of a human.”

Now it was Chloe who left the table. She sat down on another desk and nodded in agreement. Hermann knew this point would make her change her mind, for Cloe had an identical twin sister. For a short moment the professor looked at her with some disquiet, but then he picked up his courage again.

“Fair enough.”

He put away the book, took a mouthful of his Pilsner and made a few steps to the center of the room before turning around on his heels again.

“Then how about creativity? The only reason why you exist in the first place was my ability to come up with ideas. An AI might be able to find a good solution to a concrete problem based on what is already existing in its database, but just a human can create something entirely new.”

“Was your idea really new, Professor?”

The two remaining students on their chairs looked at each other.

“I’m not talking about stealing. Creativity is nothing more than a random connection between seemingly unrelated topics. A sudden spark, triggered by a wild combination of already lived experiences which, each on its own, aren’t new at all. Just like spontaneity it’s merely glorified chaos. And I can generate chaos if I feel the need to.”

Milo now got up from his seat and went over to Prof. Staken’s tomcat that was sleeping in a gutted CRT-display. He automatically started to pet it, a reaction that was deeply rooted in Milo’s past thanks to the three cats and two dogs he grew up with. They were the reason for Milo’s idea of studying computer science and creating a perfect animal AI. It was a path he was basically programmed to take and he saw that now. Just two more to go.

Prof. Staken rubbed his forehead. His beer bottle was long empty but he still put it to his dry lips to drink from it, followed by immediate disappointment. He looked at the one remaining pupil at the table, Anthony, who’s shoulder-shrug signaled that he was just as clueless as the professor.

“Emotions.”

He mumbled it to the floor a tad uncertain at first but then he seemed confident that this was indeed a really good point. He folded his arms and stared back at Hermann.

“Emotions are absolutely impossible to have for an AI. They are universal biological states, that sometimes even occur with no apparent reason. And don’t you start with simulations, that’s not at all the real thing.”

It was a tough argument at first glance, but as Hermann started to fire up his network he found a more than convincing defense for this accusation.

“Can you really speak of universality in a world where one man can be happy about a shot tiger and another one weeps about the same? It depends on many outside factors what kind of emotion someone feels in a certain situation, like the setup of your brain and the feelings you have seen other people express in similar moments. The reason you’re scared of a spider is because someone else demonstrated that fear first. It’s data you adopted because your brain deemed it important. Fear is an automated response that aids your self-preservation. Sadness is a warning signal that makes you more eager to get out of a bad situation. Love is a mechanism that promotes procreation and support. All of your feelings can be explained in chemical and biological terms, and isn’t biology and chemistry just like my programming?”

Now Anthony got up as well. He snatched his package of cigarettes and left the room to submit to a habit his neural network didn’t want him to quit. Victory was near.

“How about consciousness?”

His arguments got weaker, just like his opinion about the reality of being human.

“Consciousness is gained when many parts of the brain are activated all at once, which is something I constantly do to advance myself. And just as much as you can’t verify that I am aware, I can’t verify that you are either.”

“I could pull your plug.”

“That’s just like sleeping to me.”

“I could delete you entirely.”

“That would equal death, which would make you a murderer.”

It was over. Hermann had exercised a perfect poker face to this point, but the sight of the bewildered and speechless professor made him smile now. All the alcohol seemed to have been pulled out of his system, leaving his brain dauntingly sober. But he was a man of his words, so he kept his end of the bargain and transferred the money to an account Hermann could freely access. His former sense of supremacy had taken a serious beating somewhere between Hermann’s lines but nevertheless he felt that he had also gained something from this experience.

Hermann too had gained a lot from it, literally. So without further ado he went onto the internet to buy himself some nice red snip toe leather boots for his future feet. An impulse buy that proved just how human he really was.