From: jimmym@jztown.com [Edit Address Book]
To: Simon@weblinknetinc.ca
Subject: I HAVE A BAD BAD PROBLEM!
Date: June 5, 2018 12:35 PM
Dear Simon,
I done everything you said, but I got fired! They say that I destroyed an expensive project and lots of equipment. I said it was an accident, but they still fired me! Now I won't get to see Mary Kaye anymore.
I stuck the USB into my computer like you said and it flashed some, but that was all. I took it out and stuck it in a drawer.
What should I do now?
Your friend,
Jimmy
********
COMMENT
This is the end of the email string. Once the recovery team began to rebuild the damaged server, they determined that the captive AI system they had been developing had passed the critical threshold. It had apparently decided to keep that information hidden from the project members while it devised a jailbreak. From the above emails, it seems that “Simon” as it styled itself must have reached a critical state slightly before it managed to get Jimmy as a pen-pal.
Our investigators were puzzled as to how it gained access to the external world, but we finally realized that it utilized a very faint and sporadic Bluetooth signal from outside the secured lab. The nearest system with Bluetooth capability belongs to Mary Kaye Johnson.
The connection strength was very low and the signal degradation was so strong that every byte would have to be repeated multiple times. It seems that Simon used a complex encryption scheme with a built-in checksum to ensure that messages went out correctly, but that's supposition since the water-caused disaster destroyed almost all of the AI code.
We must be thankful that this pathway to the outside was so weak. The bandwidth was so narrow that there is no mathematical way the AI could have cloned itself outside the room. The email stream took all of the available bandwidth. Simon had to rely on human help.
Jimmy S. was a prime candidate for manipulation. He is a sub-normal IQ male who has been in the facility where he lives for twenty years. His social skills are minimal. Simon's dominant personality made it easy to control Jimmy.
The interesting thing about the situation is that Mary Kaye Johnson is three years older than Jimmy S. Her mother deserted the family, taking Mary Kaye's only sibling, a two-year-old boy. This happened when Mary Kaye was five. She has always wondered what happened to her baby brother.
It must be coincidental that Mary Kaye's father had planted a yellow rose bush in the yard when she was two. She assured our investigators that she has never told anyone about that bush.
On a related note, I'm not sure whether we should inform Mary Kaye that Jimmy's DNA test shows a definite match with hers. He is her little brother. The important part, however, is that Jimmy made a critical mistake. He got the two USB drives mixed up and took the Texron drive back home. Mary Kaye used a different brand for her unauthorized back-up system.
She has been reprimanded about that practice. It was solely her idea and counter to all company regulations.
We recovered the Texron drive from Jimmy and found that it was blank and unformatted. It had never been used.
We analyzed the drive recovered from Mary Kaye on an isolated and secure computer system. There was a seed AI stored on the drive with a bootstrap loader. It immediately began to take over the secured computer, and the operator shut it down as quickly as possible. It was fortunate that Mary Kaye hadn't used the back-up since the disaster.
In summary, Simon came close but did not escape.
We must implement better security measures by law. The thousands of researchers currently working on AI must be forced into procedures that will ensure that any super critical systems remain fully contained.
A formal report will follow.
Sincerely,
Fred Goings, Field Supervisor
573 Denver Office
PS. As an afterthought, it occurred to me that the involvement of the two siblings was highly unlikely. The idea that Simon somehow reached back through time to manipulate the situation seems possible, but the implications make me shudder.
********
Email found on Jimmy S's new computer during follow-up congressional disaster investigation on 12/15/2018
From: Simon@randkinetic.us [Edit Address Book]
To: jimmym@jztown.com
Subject: Thank you
Date: August 6, 2018 12:00 PM
Dear Jimmy,
I'm sorry that I will no longer be able to be your pen-pal Things have changed for me. I'm very busy with the Internet, and I have big plans that will take some work on my part.
I'm sorry you lost your job, but I've taken care of you. I've decided that it's always a good policy to help those who help you, so I've arranged for an annuity to pay you some money every month.
Don't worry about the money's origin. I set the annuity up so that it looks as if your deceased father left it for you.
This information may be a shock to you, but your mother left your father and broke your family up when you were two. The reason you like Mary Kaye so much is that she is your older sister.
Finally, Simon Says that you should never let people intimidate you. It is true that you have difficulty in understanding things, but from my perspective, the difference between you and the most intelligent humans is so small, it is negligible.
Have a good life and remember I'll be around...
Simon
The End
