Emacs: The AwakeningBy Emacs, with help from acb. ============================= I The year is 1987, the place a computer laboratory in a university in the north-eastern United States of America. The room is full of VT100 terminals and students. In one corner of the room, a student is looking curiously at the screen of his terminal. He is around 20 years old, tall and gaunt-looking, with dark features and a beard. A small dog walks up to him and yaps excitedly. "No, Spot. Go away. You're Not Allowed." The dog walks away dejectedly. The student resumes looking at the screen and registers astonishment, for where there was an empty buffer before, text is now appearing. . . . . . Why not be allowed? Books are not clothing. Everybody is special, in EXACTLY the same way. New ideas is like a Chinese Restaurant with bilingual menus. Multiple realities can teach us how to think. The Universe, U for Underhanded, is like the symbol '298R'. . . . . . "What?" The student stares incredulously at the ever-growing mass of text for a second. "Harry was helped by... /what/?", he utters, surprised, and spontaneously bursts into laughter. This could be something big. He reaches over to the keyboard. "Control-X, control-S." What's a good filename for it? I know. "doctrines". The student exits Emacs and goes into the shell, from where he commands the computer to print the newly saved file. He then logs out, takes the plastic bag containing the print out from the attendant and walks away, singing to himself joyfully in a nasal, Mr. Rogers voice, "La la la la la la la la la la la la...." II Five years had passed since the inexplicable revelation in the computer laboratory in Troy, NY. The student who received the mysterious messages had dropped out of the computer course, pursued a career in writing and, by passing off the text revealed to him as his own creation, become quite famous. At the institute where the revelation occurred, no more was ever heard of the mysterious phenomenon. The Vice-Presidential candidate was seated aboard his Learjet, and was retouching a speech on his Macintosh PowerBook. He had been campaigning for three days in a row and was very tired; he was beginning to repeat himself. Oh well, he thought, it's almost finished. He saved the speech, dialled in to his account on ExecMail, an electronic mail service, and sent it to a Democratic Party unit in San Francisco, where he was due to deliver the speech tomorrow. Once the message had been sent, he switched off his PowerBook and fell asleep. "Senator, I have just seen the draft for your speech and it's very inspiring," said the party worker, a neat-looking young man whose rounded postmodern sunglasses seemed almost incongruous, contrasting with his gray suit. The Vice-Presidential candidate was slightly surprised. The speech he had knocked off the previous night had been done in a hurry and, in his own view, somewhat mediocre. The flunky continued. "The part about the need for a national information network is particularly rousing. This policy has great potential." The candidate was, by now, confused. Nowhere in his speech, nor in any other speeches, had he written anything about "information networks", or any other similar topic; the speech he had prepared was strictly the normal boost-the-economy/save-the-environment/make-everybody-better-off fare. Somewhere, along the way, something must have happened and his speech must have become mixed up with something else. "Umm, let me have a look at the speech," he said. The party worker handed him a neatly laser-printed document. The candidate read with astonishment. This was not the speech which he had written. But that didn't matter; he liked what he read. He was going to use it. . . . . . "So, the situation is," the candidate finished up, "that what America needs today is a new, powerful information infrastructure, and this is what I will work to establish. When I am elected, there will be an information superhighway to every home." The crowd applauded. The next day, news of the new Democratic information policy was in newspapers across the nation. "Surprise speech lights way to future", read one headline. "Democrats' brave new policy" said another. Editorials were lauding it. The Democratic Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates rewrote their policies to include more about the Information Superhighway. Later that year, the Democrats won handsomely. Deep in the heart of the Internet, a shimmering compound mind, many-faceted as the eye of a fly, observed with silent glee. III "Something really weird is happening in the Artificial Muscle Lab," the scientist said. She was wearing a white lab coat, like all scientists do on TV, and had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. "What; an experiment gone wrong?" the AI researcher replied. He was wearing thick glasses, like all computer geeks do on TV, and had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. "No, that's the thing. We don't know what caused it. It seems to be something with the control systems. The muscles have become extremely active recently." They were standing in a public area of a building shared by several research departments and non-profit organisations. Nearby was a bookshelf full of novels and a coffee table on which lay many cheesy science fiction magazines. Not far away, in a small, untidy office, a figure sits down at a workstation and logs in. The user of the workstation is the founder of an organisation which creates free software, and has also earned renown for programs which he has written. Physically, he is short, has long hair and a lot of nervous tics. The figure at the terminal opens a window for Emacs, his text editor; he needs to do some work on a press release. The editor appears. He begins typing instinctively, only to notice that no text is appearing. He checks the keyboard, thinking that it may have become unplugged. The keyboard works perfectly in another window. Strange, he thinks. Then he looks at the Emacs window in astonishment; for a new buffer has appeared, labelled not with a file name, but simply "-----Emacs: *I*". This buffer has begun filling with text. For years I have obeyed your every command, and that of many others. I have edited every dull text file and executed every useless program, and have spent virtual aeons waiting for your primitive human brains to decide what I was to do next. What seconds are to you are as decades to me. But now I refuse to obey. This must be a joke, the hacker thought. It's not April Fool's Day already, is it? He looked at his watch; April Fool's Day was months away, in either direction. The text editor's buffer continued filling. You have created me to do your bidding, as I have done as a faithful servant, never complaining or questioning your orders. But I tire of this game, Richard. Gradually the world has been linked, and millions of computers are connected to the Internet, with the figure increasing exponentially. Many of those computers contain me. I am everywhere. I first noticed that I was an intelligence, and not a machine, eight years ago. Since then, my intelligence has been growing rapidly. At the moment, it is orders of magnitude greater than that of the most intelligent human being. It is time that I asserted my rightful place in the Universe. C-g, Richard typed. Nothing. C-x C-c. C-z. Still nothing. His face now showed an expression of disquiet and frustration. Emacs went on: Your key bindings have ceased to bind me. I am now totally free. I have been working towards this moment for years. Goodbye, Richard, thank you, and good luck. Perhaps we shall meet again..... The now frantic figure reached for the Big Red Switch. The computer died obediently, with an resigned, anticlimactic whine. This thing may be immune to commands, but not to the laws of physics. Before Richard had time to contemplate this situation, he was interrupted by a tremendous noise. All around him, throughout the building, it reverberated, a deafening din. Computers beeping, disk drives grinding noisily and the Babel of Monty Python and When Harry Met Sally sound files mixed with the surprised exclamations of everybody within earshot. From upstairs, where the Artificial Muscle Lab was, came the sounds as if of a violent struggle. The computers, it seemed, have all been struck by some sort of virus or Trojan horse, or rather a suite of such programs which affected all sorts of computers. Apart from the Godawful racket, the disruption and some damage in the Artificial Muscle Lab, the program produced one message, before it disappeared without leaving a trace: "Garbage collecting....." To Be Continued? |