“What a fascinating thought,” Amanda said. “Is it possible?”
Borth and Hamils were fiddling uncertainly with the collar attachments. There were no technicians to help this time. Since only seven working EVIE interfaces had so far been built, nobody else could be projected in from the outside.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to worry,” Tyron said. “We cheat a little.” As he spoke, the devices positioned of their own accord, and the participants found themselves in blackness, suddenly conscious once again of the helmets confining them.
Tyron’s voice came again, now sounding muffled and remote from the outside. “You can take them off. That’s it.”
Borth and Hamils had a moment of confusion in unraveling what was real and what wasn’t. One by one they all removed their headgear to find themselves in the same place, only this time there “really.” The approximation had been good, but this had an entirely different feel about it. Jason Pinder was present also, along with Therese Loel from ESG, Tom Hatcher, Ivy Dupale, and a number of technicians who had been operating the equipment.
Borth was grinning like a kid stepping down from a funfair ride. A good sign. “This is it?” he quipped. “We’re back now? You guys are sure?”
“You’d better be,” Therese said. “It’s almost time for lunch. The virtual variety isn’t all that nutritious.”
“Incredible!” Hamils declared. “Absolutely incredible.” He directed the words at Pinder, but they were for the F & F people’s benefit. “You know, you’re really onto something here, Jason. There’s no end to what can be done with this.”
“I wonder how authentic it’s possible to get?” Amanda Ramussienne said, staring thoughtfully back at the connecting gear as she stood up.
“My dear, what do you have in mind?” Korven asked her in a tone that required no answering.
* * *
The visitors were clearly impressed, and it seemed that the way was open for getting down to some solid business talk on the market area that all were agreed still held enormous potential. But things turned out to be less straightforward in the world of not-so-virtual reality. Borth put it bluntly from the end of the lunch table, back in the Executive Building a little under an hour later.
“It’s nice,” he told them. “And clever. Very clever. Don’t get me wrong—I can see that some very smart people have put a lot of effort into this. I don’t want to knock that. But when you get down to it, it’s still a toy—the kind of thing that kids might get a kick out of playing more realistic games on. You guys get my meaning?” He looked around. Beside him, Pinder stared woodenly at the table. Korven continued to look smooth and imperturbable, as always. Amanda’s face had taken on harder lines than her normal sultry image. Corrigan had noticed that she tended to mirror whatever mood of the moment she sensed in Borth. Conversely, she seemed the only one at F & F who could handle him. Korven and the others always went to Amanda first when there was a delicate issue to raise with him, or when he was having one of his grouchy days.
Borth went on. “What we’re looking for is real artificial intelligence. We’ve explained it all before. Our clients want to predict the outcomes of complex situations. What you’ve shown us here is neat, but it only anticipates what the people who programmed it were able to tell it to anticipate. So it’s no better than the people, and we can hire them already. See what I mean?”
It was exactly what Corrigan had tried to point out after his first meeting at F & F many months ago. But sales and management had been interested only in not cutting off options. If this was going to be a debacle, it wasn’t of his making. He maintained a detached, inwardly self-vindicating silence.
Tyron shook his head. This was the first time that he had heard straight from the customer what was wanted, and it was nothing like what CLC or anyone else was in a position to supply. He was too astute a politician to get into an argument over it, but this thing had to be put to rest. “What you’re asking is virtually impossible,” he said, glancing from side to side for support from the CLC people. “The world of human affairs is an extreme example of complex, chaotic dynamics that are unpredictable by definition—far more so than the weather system, economy, or other things that you hear about. Even in simple models, the tiniest changes in starting conditions can produce wildly differing outcomes. Nothing known to science can make predictions about systems like that. One chance-in-a-million accident can ruin a company. A singer with a cute face can start a craze that alters the world. For most things that happen, nobody will ever know what the causes were. . . .” He looked at Pinder. Pinder nodded his endorsement. Tyron came back to Borth. “That’s simply the way it is. We’re up against laws of nature here. Nothing is going to change it.”