* * *
One corner of the main reception lobby had been turned into a mini TV studio. Meechum was on a couch in the center behind a low, glass-topped table, with Corrigan sitting in an armchair on one side and Tyron on the other. The crew had set up lights and improvised a background from drapes, potted plants, and a sign bearing Xylog’s corporate logo.
After a short introduction, Meechum turned to Corrigan and picked up his main theme. “Tell us, Joe, isn’t it like being God, in a way? I’m told that Oz will be a world in itself, inhabited by computer creations that behave exactly as real people do. As the manager of Xylog’s software division, you’re the person largely responsible for those creations. How does it feel?”
Corrigan stared down at his hands for a moment, reflecting on all the hype and exaggeration and wishful thinking masquerading as fact that had been dispensed on the subject. A public circus was not the place where science should be conducted. It was time to make a start on setting the record straight right now.
He looked up. “Let’s clear up a lot of wrong information that has been put out about this, that shouldn’t have been,” he said. “We are not about to create an artificial world that’s going to model how people in the real world think and behave—the products they’d buy, how they’d vote on this issue or that issue, what they like, what they don’t like, or anything else like that. Human behavior is one of the most complex phenomena ever studied. For forty years now, some of the most intensive research going on in the world has been aimed at trying to emulate the full versatility of what we call `intelligence,’ and for the most part it’s got nowhere. All we’re doing at Oz is exploring an alternative approach to achieving that: an Artificial Intelligence—a process that functions something like the way we do. That’s all. Whether such an AI—assuming that we’re successful—could form the basis of a lifelike simulation of the real world is a question that lies way in the future and is one that we’re not even considering yet.”
Meechum was looking a bit taken aback. He accepted as a matter of course that part of his job was to be a paid hack, and he had been ready to help plug the product in whatever direction his guests chose to steer things. But this sudden shrinking of a current sensation down to lifelike proportions was something that he had not been prepared for. “That’s, er, something of a more cautious assessment than a lot of the things we’ve been hearing,” he commented.
“My first role is as a scientist,” Corrigan said. “I’m simply reporting the facts as to what the goals of the Oz project are, as currently formulated. I can also speculate on what it might lead to in times to come, if you like. But that wasn’t your question.”
On Meechum’s other side, Tyron was following with a mixture four parts bewilderment to one of confusion. His first reaction on hearing of Corrigan’s offer to share the show had been one of suspicion, and he had arrived ready to outdo anything Corrigan might try adding to what had already been said to please the ears of the project’s financial backers. It did cross his mind as he heard this that Corrigan’s intention might be to throw him off stride and steal all the thunder, but the fact remained that in the meantime, right off the top of his head, he didn’t have a lot to say that was wildly inspirational to counter it. So when his turn came, he took up the theme that Corrigan had set and concentrated on the new interfaces and associated hardware that formed his main contribution to the project, the principles underlying its operation—which were fascinating—and what it could reasonably be expected to accomplish.
Meechum grew more relaxed as it became evident that the animosity that he had been waiting to see surfacing between them was not going to happen, and the rest of the interview went well. But it was Corrigan who set the tone, while the other two responded. Although he was physically the youngest, his unswerving dedication to principle and insistence on frankness inspired everyone watching. When they were getting up after the cameras stopped rolling, Meechum said, “Joe, that makes more sense than anything I’ve heard in ages. You carry a wise head on young shoulders.”