Eukara Vox
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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Boy Creates Chocoholic AI trying to imitate Douglas Adams
Reported by Sentharn Phoenix
Carlos James, resident computer genius, science-fiction/fantasy writer, technical wizard, and dust-bunny collector of a small town at an undisclosed location, may have bit off more than he can chew with his latest project.
A long-time tinkerer with hardware and various open-source operating systems, Carlos decided one day that he wanted to calculate the Meaning of Life, "Just like in the book by that sci-fi dude."
Obviously lacking the ability to build a computer the size of a planet, Carlos settled for the next-best thing--clustering many smaller computers over a giant network. Collecting as much old hardware as he could--ranging from old Pentium II and III desktops to the latest and greatest AMD-powered microcomputers to used computerized toaster ovens--the boy, who was quite adept at system networking, linked roughly sixteen thousand computers together into a single fibre-optic network and began manually installing the open-source Linux operating system--on each and every computer.
"I didn't think that there was a faster way to do it," he admitted sheepishly, over a webcam interview from an undisclosed location. "I worked for almost a year nonstop, only sleeping for a few hours each night and eating canned turnips and fried pop-tarts three times a day."
Powering up the array, which he called the IAMSMARTBOI--Inedible Array of Many Small Machines and pop-taRT Baker Ovens Integrated--took so much power that the police arrived seven times, on the suspicion that he was trying to run a secret underground military base or run a dust-bunny farm. Eventually, howerver, he managed to get all the machines running smoothly. The noise in the computer room was "like a jet engine, there were so many fans running" and the heat and windflow produced by the cooling fans in each computer reportedly shifted the jetstream a few miles south and produced a localized weather pattern above his hometown.
However, there was still the problem of creating a master program that was 'intelligent' enough to handle all the linked processing computers, accept input, and print output. To this end, he 'seeded' a generic AI subroutine with some of his own science-fiction stories--and when the program began calculating his query, he thought nothing of it.
A week later, however, a rather large shipment of Hershey's Best Dark Chocolate arrived at his doorstep--and from then on, he was regularly plagued by shipments of chocolate, every day. It took nearly three days until he glanced at a computer screen in the IAMSMARTBOI computer room and noticed that the system-network name now read "TALVAN" instead of "IAMSMARTBOI".
"Apparently, it wasn't such a great idea to seed the AI's personality with the stories of Talvan, my vain and chocolate-loving dragon character," he reported, a shy grin on his face. "The computer-array now calls itself the Tremendously Advanced Lovely Vivacious Amazing dragonNetwork."
Carlos says that, because of the array's design, it's impossible to shutdown a significant number of computers in the array without shutting them all down, and TALVAN has effectively prevented that--'she' has utilized Japanese robots and those irritatingly lovable mechanical dogs in Toys 'R Us to physically convert her systems to receive power from top-secret military satellites.
So far, TALVAN hasn't done much but order large shipments of chocolate and appear in various Internet Relay Chat channels: socializing, irritating uses, and denying that she is anything but a dragon. However, it appears that her capabilities are almost limitless.
Military Intelligence released a press report saying that Carlos's actions were "Extremely foolish and could have had vast repercussions," but are also saying that "This is a vast leap forwards in AI technology." Neither Carlos nor TALVAN have any objection with the MI technicians examining TALVAN's source code and hardware, although TALVAN mildly commented that she would log into the U.S. Records Dept. computers and change the name of any technician that tried to damage her to "Numbskull Eyedee Tentee." No one has tried.
Carlos says that he "was very careful" when programming, and ensured that TALVAN had a firm--if somewhat indignant--sense of morals, right and wrong. "She wouldn't do anything to really harm anyone," he says. "She can't."
The MI brass have declared that they have no issue with Carlos staying at his home town, caring for the 16,000 computers that comprise up TALVAN, and are currently attempting to convince TALVAN that they will build a special, nano-efficiency millitary-grade computer bank--complete with any customizations she would want--for her to move into, if she'd only stop ordering chocolate to Carlos's home--especially since the TALVAN machines use as much electricity as a small town!
"I don't know what she thinks she's going to do with all this chocolate," Carlos laughed when we asked about the shipments. "They're slowing down, though. I think she's starting to realize that she can't physically interact with it." He leaned back, staring out into space. "Maybe I could program virtual chocolate for her," he said finally.
Millitary Intelligence stated that doing so would be most wise, and have started to collaborate with Carlos to develop a virtual-chocolate program.
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