This report has been created by someone who closely follows the studies
of the Illuminae Group, writing in an effort to analyze the implications of the
events they address.
Briefing note:
Before I dive too deeply into the complex issues addressed
in this report, I highly recommend taking AIDAN’s lead (p. 304) and listening
to Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor while reading this report or the accompanying section
in the Illuminae account. Nothing gets you in the zone of psychotic robots,
zombie-like infected, and inescapable doom and death quite like “Dies Irae.”
Focus of Analysis:
Briefly describe AIDAN's unique
abilities/features/"personality" as an Artificial Intelligence (up to
pg 344). What is significant about AIDAN? What critical, ethical problems arise
for the characters (and us as readers) as a result of AIDAN and AIDAN's actions?
At the beginning, AIDAN seems to be just as flat a
character as an AI should be—no emotion, no real personality. It doesn’t even
have a particular kind of voice; its voice is described by Ezra as “sexless,”
with “perfect tone and inflection and pronunciation” and without any particular
age or accent (p. 45). However, it soon becomes clear that the damage AIDAN
sustained during the initial battle has somewhat altered its personality.
First, AIDAN begins to act without orders. Then, after it is awakened from the
comatose nap of its shutdown, the rest of its new personality is revealed
(starting on page 264).
AIDAN’s personality changes can mostly be summarized by
one assessment: AIDAN seems much more human. First, its language becomes more
descriptive and poetic, with phrases like “A strand of spider silk. Fragile as
spun sugar” (p. 279). Then the more concerning traits appear. AIDAN is increasingly
described as “insane” by several people (Ezra p. 137, Kady p. 241, Torrence p.
304, Boll p. 326), and the further you read, the more inclined you are to agree
with their assessment. Logic has become less present in AIDAN’s actions. Specifically,
its act of taking over the Alexander
and slaughtering the command crew seems more vengeful than it does logical for
the good of the fleet.
One of the most significant things about AIDAN is the
level of power it has. It can control a whole ship for space’s sake! AIDAN’s
power becomes terrifyingly evident when AIDAN takes over the Alexander, blocking the humans’ attempts
at control, and releases the infected people, directing them towards the ship’s
command crew (p. 294-306).
The other significant thing about AIDAN that makes it so
dangerous is its talent in machine learning. Multiple times AIDAN learns from
previous occurrences—the most important instance is when AIDAN decides that it
needs to act against the humans before they attempt to shut it down again (p.
292-294).
The changes in AIDAN’s personality combined with its
tremendous level of power and learning capabilities create incredible issues.
Aside from the obvious horrific result of the incredible death toll, one
problem that stands out is the deeper ethical one. The Alexander’s command crew repeatedly makes unethical decisions in an
effort to conceal their AI trouble. They often lie to the passengers and crew,
and they even go so far as to execute some of the pilots who disobeyed the AI
in an effort to do the right thing (p. 66, 91-97).
These ethical issues lead to many questions for readers, the
main one being “How far can humans go to protect a secret before they end up
causing more harm than the secret’s release would?” That’s a hard question to
answer, although I would argue that in this case the command crew definitely
went too far as they caused the loss of many lives in spite of their hope for
preserving peace.
Another question raised by the issues addressed in this
novel is “To what extent should AI be involved in and in control of the
technology of our lives?” AI can be incredibly helpful and can do things humans
can’t at speeds we can only dream of, but if something goes wrong . . . You
could end up with barely functioning tech that your life depends on, or tech
that is effectively rebelling against you. This is another question that is
tricky to answer—tricky to find a middle ground. But we’ll have to address it
at some point.
Briefing Note:
*Subject matter: Illuminae, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
*Classified stamp image from https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/square-grunge-red-classified-stamp-vector-16651800
*Classified stamp image from https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/square-grunge-red-classified-stamp-vector-16651800
*Image of Morph as BEN from Disney's Treasure Planet