Page 41 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

The Extrapolator Murders

“Not necessarily, or not exclusively,” rejoined Cyril Kornfleck.
“This may be one of those trick endings where it’s the police
themselves who are the perpetrators. Maybe the rank-and-file don’t
like a computer system doing their job, and have set up a
spectacular and horrific crime after throwing a monkey wrench into
the Extrapolator so it can’t solve it. Then their traditional practices
are forced, as it were, to be revived and put into motion to catch a
criminal they won’t find—but they will railroad an unstable egghead
into a position of such stress that he kills himself. Maybe Inspector
O’Clocker himself is the mastermind, and maybe he gets away with
it; although, again, it’s only delaying the inevitable upgrade to more
intrusive—and therefore more effective—surveillance systems. If
you do it this way, you will have to provide some kind of clue.”
“All good solutions,” said Izzy. “Thank you.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Izzy,” said Leith Mauker slowly and
apologetically. “These people don’t know you like I do. While I
knew nothing about this story of yours, I do have an idea of how
your mind works. I think you already have picked out an ending for
it, and what you really wanted was to find out if any of us would
guess it by suggesting it to you as a possibility. And I’ll bet none of
us has, because we ignored the most obvious suspect.”
“Who’s left?” demanded Hydrargyrum. “Gremlins?”
“The Extrapolator itself. Its algorithms find patterns of incipient
danger to people. But these powerful systems are on the verge of
creating their own criteria for that problem and implementing its
solution, bypassing the people intended to be recipients of that data.
It is not, therefore, a stretch to suppose that the Extrapolator sees
an overriding threat to itself in the development of a successor.
And, one step further, by using its database of crimes and alibis, as
well as access to all the “smart” devices in the world, neutralizes
that threat. In other words, it has developed human imperatives—in
this case, self-preservation—whether or not you want to call that
intelligence. But I would also guess that Izzy isn’t sure of what to
do with that scenario: have O’Clocker destroy the Extrapolator or
allow it to triumph. Right?”
Izzy simply smiled and shrugged.

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