A week later, Mr Blottisham entered the Senior Common Room carrying no folders whatsoever.
Professor Quillibrace regarded this as encouraging.
Miss Stray regarded it as suspicious.
Blottisham sat down.
"I've abandoned values."
Quillibrace lowered his book.
"Entirely?"
"For the moment."
"A bold decision."
"It was becoming tiresome."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Understandably."
Blottisham nodded.
"One cannot spend one's entire life discussing fairness."
Quillibrace looked thoughtful.
"Many people have."
"That is exactly the problem."
The professor inclined his head.
"Very well. What have you replaced values with?"
"Instructions."
The room became quiet.
Miss Stray reached for her notebook.
Quillibrace placed a bookmark in his book.
Neither reaction encouraged confidence.
Blottisham pressed on.
"Instead of asking what humanity values, we simply tell the machine what to do."
"I see."
"It is vastly simpler."
"Excellent."
Blottisham sighed.
"You promised you would stop doing that."
"I promised no such thing."
"You implied it."
"I did not."
"You certainly conveyed it."
Quillibrace appeared interested.
"An excellent example."
"Of what?"
"Instructions."
The room fell silent.
Miss Stray looked down at her notebook to conceal a smile.
Blottisham pointed accusingly.
"That was deliberate."
"Almost certainly."
After a moment Quillibrace said:
"What instruction would you give the machine?"
Blottisham answered immediately.
"Help humanity."
"Excellent."
"There it is again."
Quillibrace ignored him.
"The machine asks a question."
"What question?"
"'Which humanity?'"
Blottisham groaned.
"Not this again."
"Possibly a different version of it."
"Fine."
Blottisham thought for a moment.
"'Help all humans.'"
"Excellent."
"Stop encouraging me."
"The machine asks another question."
"What now?"
"'What should I do when humans disagree?'"
Blottisham rubbed his forehead.
"Very well."
He thought again.
"'Promote human wellbeing.'"
Quillibrace nodded.
"The machine asks how wellbeing should be measured."
Blottisham stared at the ceiling.
Miss Stray waited patiently.
Quillibrace waited patiently.
After a while Blottisham spoke.
"It seems to ask a great many questions."
"Indeed."
"Could it not simply get on with it?"
Quillibrace looked mildly surprised.
"But that is what concerns everyone."
"What is?"
"The possibility that it might simply get on with it."
The room became quiet.
Blottisham considered this.
"Fair point."
Miss Stray finally spoke.
"I think the machine is doing something interesting."
Blottisham looked wary.
"That usually means bad news."
"Not necessarily."
"What is it doing?"
"It is asking for context."
"What context?"
"The context humans routinely supply without noticing."
Blottisham frowned.
"I don't understand."
"Suppose I tell you to be polite."
"Very well."
"What does that mean?"
"It means be polite."
Miss Stray nodded.
"To whom?"
"Everyone."
"When?"
"Most of the time."
"Always?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because situations differ."
"How do you know when they differ?"
Blottisham opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
The room waited.
Finally he said:
"I just know."
Miss Stray smiled.
"There it is."
"What?"
"The context."
Blottisham looked unconvinced.
Quillibrace intervened.
"Humans are extraordinarily skilled at supplying unstated assumptions."
"Naturally."
"Indeed. The difficulty is that we rarely notice ourselves doing it."
The professor closed his book.
"When someone says 'be polite', they are not merely supplying words."
"What are they supplying?"
"A lifetime."
Blottisham stared.
Quillibrace continued.
"Shared expectations."
"Culture."
"Experience."
"Situational judgement."
"Exceptions."
"Interpretations."
"Relationships."
"History."
The list grew steadily.
By the end of it, the instruction seemed considerably larger than it had at the beginning.
Blottisham looked uneasy.
"That is a lot to fit into two words."
"Quite."
Miss Stray closed her notebook.
"Which is perhaps why the machine keeps asking questions."
The room became quiet again.
Outside, rain had begun tapping softly against the windows.
Inside, Blottisham stared into the middle distance.
After a while he said:
"I think I am beginning to understand the problem."
"Excellent," said Quillibrace.
Blottisham pointed at him.
"That one was deserved."
Quillibrace nodded.
"I thought so."
A comfortable silence followed.
Then Blottisham frowned.
"There is still something I don't understand."
"What is that?" asked Miss Stray.
"If humans manage all this context perfectly well, why can't we simply explain it to the machine?"
Quillibrace smiled.
The smile was small.
Almost affectionate.
"My dear Blottisham."
"Yes?"
"That is more or less the history of philosophy."
No comments:
Post a Comment