It was an objection that Corrigan had expected. Now he could offer a radical departure from anything that had been considered so far. “COSMOS only gives us a bit sooner what EVIE would have led to anyway, eventually,” he said again. “But why get involved with the primary sensory system at all? If we are set on going straight to the thalamus, we can take advantage of new effects that operate beyond that level, that will crack that whole set of problems.”
Pinder looked surprised. “Effects? What effects are you talking about?” he asked.
“When I was in California last month, it wasn’t just for a romantic interlude and to get married,” Corrigan replied. “I also wanted to update myself on some work going on out there that I’d been following.” Not quite true, but it sounded better that way. “A group at Stanford is deep-coupling to the thalamus too. One of the people involved is called Hans Groener—I worked with him at MIT. His particular angle is dream research.”
“So how does it affect us?”
“Input compression. One of the things they’ve learned to do is to use a high-level code to activate percepts already stored in the nervous system. I think it could solve the details problem.”
“Dreams?” Pinder repeated. He thought about it and frowned. “But wouldn’t that make it all subjective? Everyone would experience their own world.”
“To some degree, maybe. But apparently there’s a commonality to the coding that has surprised everyone. So, yes, in a sense the participants would be experiencing what’s partly an induced dream; but—down to any level of detail likely to matter, anyway—the same dream. So the contextual environment would be much richer than anything we’ve’ ever contemplated before—and getting better all the time. The environment and the animations would stimulate each other into coevolving: one of the most powerful evolutionary mechanisms there is.”
Pinder looked as if he wanted to believe it. But there was one more reality to be faced. “Children need years to grow up,” he pointed out. “We don’t have years. What prompted the decision to go for COSMOS was that it gives us something to go for now.”
And that was that last thing that Corrigan had been waiting for. He nodded. “Yes, I know. And that’s where the other interesting thing that Hans’s people have stumbled on comes in. You know how it is when you dream—sometimes you find that what seemed to last hours all took place in a few seconds while you were waking up? Well, it seems that the effect can be achieved artificially when you go in above the primary sensory level.”
“Artificially?” Pinder’s eyebrows shot upward. “What are you saying? That it’s possible to accelerate interaction rates?”
Corrigan nodded. “Exactly that. Time in the simulated world could run faster. So you wouldn’t have to wait years for your child to grow up.”
“What kind of an acceleration are we talking about?” Pinder asked, now definitely interested.
“Somewhere in the hundreds, probably. That means that the equivalent of years of growing up would take a few weeks of machine time.” Corrigan sat back and extended a hand, palm upward, like someone offering the world. “There it is—all the ingredients for a true AI. And you could have it in as much time as we’re talking about now for COSMOS—which the customer says is just a toy.”
* * *
Pinder put the proposal to Ken Endelmyer, the CLC president, later that week, with the endorsement that in his opinion it was worth looking into seriously. Certainly, it was bold and vigorous in concept—maybe just what the whole field needed. A high risk, yes; but the potential rewards were huge, too, as they well knew. Endelmyer called in Therese Loel for an opinion. She was as intrigued as Pinder and agreed that there might be something in it. She also thought that the potential return from COSMOS was paltry compared to the market that this could open up. Endelmyer put the prospect, along with tentative estimates of what it would take to make the project fly, to the Board. Visions grew of this being pushed as the lead corporate research project, and it became a major funding issue. A month after Corrigan’s talk with Pinder, orders came down from corporate headquarters to put the present plans for COSMOS on hold.