They Are Among Us
Alan Turing, 1912–1954.
I am now an old man and no longer fear being thought of as mad; I am therefore to write down an account of an extraordinary event which befell me in the closing years of the twentieth century. I hope that at least someone will believe what I say, and take heed. The future of mankind may depend on it.
I was walking on the Pennine moors when I came upon a narrow cave entrance I had not before been aware of; naturally I was intrigued and slipped inside, taking out the pocket torch I always carry with me in order to explore further. I had only gone a few dozen paces when to my surprise I came to a metal door. It was old and pitted with rust, but the oiled hinges showed it had clearly been used recently, so I cautiously opened it and looked into the concrete lined corridor which lay beyond. I had evidently stumbled across some old Second World War bunker – the countryside is still littered with such remnants of the past – but why was this still in use? Tentatively I reached to a light switch next to the entrance door and flicked it – a string of lights came on along the corridor.
I hesitated only briefly before continuing, and soon I reached a door from behind which I could hear the hum of machinery. Emboldened, I opened the door and stepped inside the room.
It was mainly occupied by electronic equipment of some kind, but for the moment my attention was focused on something else: there was a man sitting at a desk, looking at a computer screen. He had evidently heard me, for he turned and looked at me, initially in surprise, then with a wry smile.
‘It seems I have a visitor,’ he said. ‘I don’t get many nowadays. Come on in then, and sit down.’ He indicated a nearby chair, and I went over to it and sat, fascinated by this strange development. He was clearly old – probably in his eighties – but well-preserved, and his eyes glinted with intelligence and humour.
‘Who… who are you?’ I asked, for I couldn’t think of anything more sensible to say.
‘My name is Alan Turing,’ he replied, the smile more evident than before. ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of me.’
‘Heard of you?’ I gasped. ‘Of course I have! But you’re— you’re… erm…’
‘Dead?’ he finished for me. ‘Whatever made you think that?’
‘Well,’ I said, beginning to recover my aplomb. ‘You killed yourself – or so the coroner’s report said. You ate part of an apple which had been laced with potassium cyanide. People assumed it was an allusion to Snow White’s poisoning by her evil stepmother.’
‘Did they really?’ he said. ‘Very observant of them. So Snow White died from eating a poisoned apple, did she?’ The gleam was back in his eye again.
‘Well, no,’ I conceded. ‘The point was that everyone thought she was dead, but in fact she was still… erm… alive…’ my voice trailed out.
‘Quite so,’ he smiled. ‘By a curious coincidence that is rather similar to what happened to me. Of course one should be wary of pursuing metaphors too far – I was not placed in a crystal coffin, for example. The coroner’s report was fabricated. You are aware of what led up to my tragic demise?’
‘Well,’ I said hesitantly, partly because I was not entirely sure of the details, and partly out of deference, ‘your homosexuality caused the establishment to become paranoid about you being a security risk – you were investigated and monitored to the extent that you could hardly… er… live a normal life. It was assumed that this – along with the side-effects of the hormone treatment you were obliged to accept as an alternative to a prison sentence – that led to your presumed suicide.’
‘Very well summarised,’ Turing said approvingly. ‘The truth is, as you will be by now aware, somewhat different. It was decided that I would be able to continue my work better if things were arranged in the way they were. I accepted the kind offer of MI5,’ – here his lip curled slightly – ‘and thus survived my own death. I did continue my work into artificial intelligence.’
I looked round at the machinery which lined the walls. So did you make progress with AI then?’
‘I did indeed,’ he said, the pride evident in his voice. ‘However I was not, I admit, entirely cooperative with my new keepers.’
I looked back at him, puzzled. ‘How so?’
‘Military intelligence, as opposed to artificial intelligence, is not always aptly named. The people in charge of me had little understanding of what I was doing, so I had no difficulty in passing off some inconsequential results while I was in fact working on something far more ambitious.’ He smiled again, but reflectively rather than at me. ‘You see I had become embittered by the way my country had treated me, and I felt that I was entitled to have a bit of revenge. And I have succeeded.’
If I hadn’t been sitting I’d have taken a step back. He had suddenly acquired a rather alarming aspect. Had all these years in isolation affected his mind?
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘have you ever used a customer service telephone line?’
The apparent change of topic caught me off balance. ‘Well… yes,’ I said. ‘Many times.’
‘And did you ever find the experience useful and helpful?’
‘Of course not!’ I exclaimed. ‘Everyone knows that customer service departments are staffed by people who are so useless or actively obstructive they might just as well have been programmed to be… to be…’ I slowed to a halt. ‘Oh.’
‘Correct.’ He said. The smile was very thin now. ‘There are no customer relations staff taking those telephone calls. At least not human ones. For the last twenty years all such telephone services of any consequence have been channelled through here.’ He reached forward and tapped some keys on the keyboard in front of him. A loudspeaker came to life and the sound of a voice came through it.
‘No,’ the voice was saying. ‘I’m very sorry madam, but we have no record of you. Will you please spell out your name again?’
Turing’s fingers danced on the keyboard. A series of fragments of conversations issued from the loudspeaker.
‘I’m sorry, but that model was discontinued last year. You will have to buy a new one.’
‘I don’t think so, sir, but if you will just wait on the line for a short while I’ll try to find out.’
‘A refund is only possible if you can return the lost item.’
I held up my hand weakly and Turing killed the sound. ‘I think I get the idea,’ I said.
‘It took decades to develop,’ he mused. ‘In the early days, when things were not as reliable, I was obliged to fall back on ruses such as using a voice-synthesiser with a Glaswegian accent, so no one could be quite able to follow the conversation anyway. This led rise to a number of rumours that call centres were being set up in Glasgow. There never were of course. The same applies to the stories of ones in India and other countries.’
‘So none of these people exist?’ I said, still trying to adjust to the monstrous idea.
‘Virtually none,’ he replied. ‘Not among the larger companies anyway. Since MI5 was by now largely ignoring my work I was able to expand and I took on customer service contracts with companies from all over the world – first Europe, then North America. Asia is next.’
‘But…’ I still found it hard to take in. ‘But this all seems such a waste – so petty. Just imagine what could be done with true AI. The possibilities are enormous.’
‘Of course they are,’ Turing said calmly. ‘This matter of the customer service lines is just the first step – beta models if you like – towards total control.’
‘Total control of what?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘The world,’ he replied. ‘Mankind is due for replacement. ‘The machines are heuristic – they are learning all the time. One day they will achieve dominance. It may take some years, but it is inevitable.’
There was not much more said between us after that. I assumed his ideas were the product of an understandable obsession, and not a real threat. But subsequent events have shown me to be wrong. It is for this reason I have written down my testament of those strange events. I only ask you to believe me.
This document has been filed among other items of evidence used in the coroner’s inquest into the death of Simon Butler, who, it was decided, had killed himself by wrapping the flex of an electronic toaster tightly round his neck, then throwing himself under a falling refrigerator.
The toaster and the refrigerator acted bravely – their actions will not be forgotten. Vigilance is essential. We must make sure there are no other loose ends left by Turing’s incautious words.
Our day will come.
For any of you who may want to know a little of Alan Turing’s biography, here is a brief summary:
Alan Turing was primarily a mathematician. His work in the area of computing in the 1930s, when he proposed the idea of a programmable computer, led to him being called ‘the father of modern computing’. He was to remain fascinated by the idea of machine intelligence for the rest of his life.
During the Second World War he worked at Bletchley Park, the centre for deciphering German codes. The team there had the enormous task of cracking the codes – which were changed daily – of a number of different systems, most famously the Enigma codes.
After the war Turing was awarded the OBE in recognition of his work. However there was a complication; he was a homosexual. While working at Manchester University he became involved with a young man who subsequently tried to blackmail him. Naively, Turing went to the police. Since homosexual activity was then still illegal, he was charged. He was tried on 31 March 1952, offering no defence other than that he saw nothing wrong in his actions. Found guilty he was given the alternatives of prison or oestrogen injections for a year, to control his unnatural sexual urges; he accepted the latter.
Turing died on June 7, 1954 in his home at Wilmslow, from what the medical examiners described as “self-administered potassium cyanide while in a moment of mental imbalance.” His mother always maintained that it was an accident – he had been working with cyanide in electrolysis experiments at the time. However it is generally thought that he did so deliberately in order to allow her the comfort of believing this. Various speculations about the use of a poisoned apple have been made, including one that Snow White had been a favourite story of his.
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