tough exterior, the trip was uneventful. Owens drowsily
noticed that the Rialto’s AI was unusually silent during the ride to the
spaceport. Thinking back to when he first bought the vehicle, he couldn’t
remember a time when the AI didn’t have something to say.
The Rialto came to a smooth stop before the main
entrance to the spaceport’s docking complex. A wide, solid, dull gray metal
gate framed by winking sensor indicators barred the entrance. Still silent, the
Rialto’s AI waited for confirmation by the port’s scheduling and departures
AI. Upon receiving an encrypted confirmation, the great slab of metal
split in two and swung inward. The Rialto then proceeded through the
threshold, past the launch apron toward the outlying docking complex.
Though relatively small, the docking complex was
capable of handling ten ships at any given time. The complex was mostly dark, with a few
scattered service lights twinkling on skeletal gantries in the downpour. Only
three slips were currently occupied, including the one where the Sherlock
Holmes was secured . The other two docks accommodated a large
freighter and a small corporate yacht. The slips were dark and showed no
activity.
Sensing the Rialto’s approach, lights turned on and
illuminated the vehicle’s path leading to the slip assigned to Owens’
ship. The rain had stopped and
shimmering reflections danced on wet metal surfaces. Pulling up to the now
brightly lit docking lift, Owens paused before getting out of the Rialto. He
said, “Since I’m going to transport you back to New Horizon with me, I want you
to run a standard pre-shutdown diagnostic check. After the diagnostics are
finished, if everything is green, go ahead and shutdown. The ship’s AI will
take care of loading the Rialto.”
The AI gave no indication that it had received Owens’
instructions. Diagnostic telltales on the master panel remained dark. The
AI was curiously unresponsive. Owens waited a minute then repeated his command
adding a request for a verbal acknowledgment. He was mildly surprised that
there was still no response from the AI. He tried a third time, and the AI
remained mute. Owens’ brow furrowed at this unexpected, last minute
glitch.
He pondered the AI’s lack of response. The only things
he knew of that could prevent an AI from complying with an instruction from its
owner would be either that the order would cause harm to another human being or
result from a program or hardware malfunction. Some hidden fault could have
developed Owens supposed, but he understood this was a base-level utility
program that ran interleaved throughout the AI’s highly stable software
architecture. A glitch in that program could have serious consequences to
the AI’s functionality.
It was odd. Everything had operated normally up to the
point of stopping in front the Sherlock Holmes . He thought, what a time
for this to happen. He had already scheduled a departure time and didn’t want
to miss the launch window. As he stared at the dark diagnostic panel, he began
to seriously re-consider his decision to keep the Rialto. If the AI’s
operational failure was any indication, then perhaps the vehicle wasn’t in as
good a condition as he had first believed.
He then remembered another thing that he might try to
resolve or at least identify the problem. He reached over to the manual
override on AI control panel. It would shut down the higher logic functions and
allow base-level diagnostics to be initiated manually. As his finger
moved toward the control pad, the AI abruptly announced, “Boss, we need to
talk. Please, don’t shut me down until you’ve heard what I have to say.”
Owens blinked in momentary puzzlement. Now this
was really getting weird. He had never heard of an AI responding in this way.
His hand still hovered over the manual override switch. He ignored the strange
request and instead repeated his command to begin diagnostics. Immediately, the
AI
noticed that the Rialto’s AI was unusually silent during the ride to the
spaceport. Thinking back to when he first bought the vehicle, he couldn’t
remember a time when the AI didn’t have something to say.
The Rialto came to a smooth stop before the main
entrance to the spaceport’s docking complex. A wide, solid, dull gray metal
gate framed by winking sensor indicators barred the entrance. Still silent, the
Rialto’s AI waited for confirmation by the port’s scheduling and departures
AI. Upon receiving an encrypted confirmation, the great slab of metal
split in two and swung inward. The Rialto then proceeded through the
threshold, past the launch apron toward the outlying docking complex.
Though relatively small, the docking complex was
capable of handling ten ships at any given time. The complex was mostly dark, with a few
scattered service lights twinkling on skeletal gantries in the downpour. Only
three slips were currently occupied, including the one where the Sherlock
Holmes was secured . The other two docks accommodated a large
freighter and a small corporate yacht. The slips were dark and showed no
activity.
Sensing the Rialto’s approach, lights turned on and
illuminated the vehicle’s path leading to the slip assigned to Owens’
ship. The rain had stopped and
shimmering reflections danced on wet metal surfaces. Pulling up to the now
brightly lit docking lift, Owens paused before getting out of the Rialto. He
said, “Since I’m going to transport you back to New Horizon with me, I want you
to run a standard pre-shutdown diagnostic check. After the diagnostics are
finished, if everything is green, go ahead and shutdown. The ship’s AI will
take care of loading the Rialto.”
The AI gave no indication that it had received Owens’
instructions. Diagnostic telltales on the master panel remained dark. The
AI was curiously unresponsive. Owens waited a minute then repeated his command
adding a request for a verbal acknowledgment. He was mildly surprised that
there was still no response from the AI. He tried a third time, and the AI
remained mute. Owens’ brow furrowed at this unexpected, last minute
glitch.
He pondered the AI’s lack of response. The only things
he knew of that could prevent an AI from complying with an instruction from its
owner would be either that the order would cause harm to another human being or
result from a program or hardware malfunction. Some hidden fault could have
developed Owens supposed, but he understood this was a base-level utility
program that ran interleaved throughout the AI’s highly stable software
architecture. A glitch in that program could have serious consequences to
the AI’s functionality.
It was odd. Everything had operated normally up to the
point of stopping in front the Sherlock Holmes . He thought, what a time
for this to happen. He had already scheduled a departure time and didn’t want
to miss the launch window. As he stared at the dark diagnostic panel, he began
to seriously re-consider his decision to keep the Rialto. If the AI’s
operational failure was any indication, then perhaps the vehicle wasn’t in as
good a condition as he had first believed.
He then remembered another thing that he might try to
resolve or at least identify the problem. He reached over to the manual
override on AI control panel. It would shut down the higher logic functions and
allow base-level diagnostics to be initiated manually. As his finger
moved toward the control pad, the AI abruptly announced, “Boss, we need to
talk. Please, don’t shut me down until you’ve heard what I have to say.”
Owens blinked in momentary puzzlement. Now this
was really getting weird. He had never heard of an AI responding in this way.
His hand still hovered over the manual override switch. He ignored the strange
request and instead repeated his command to begin diagnostics. Immediately, the
AI
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