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Mark and Gerry's Sci-Fi Reviews continue...
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Wyrm by Mark Fabi
Review by Mark
Sentient computer intelligence is a recurring theme in science fiction and it seems that each author has a slightly different view of how it will begin and evolve. Most however seem to believe that it won't be good for humans. The old masters like Asimov (I, Robot) and Williamson (The Humanoids) thought that the logical result of computer hardware and software was robots with personality quirks and amazing powers. Warwick Collins' Computer One was an omniscient blank slate with the ability to make malevolent decisions based only on self interest. Massively parallel and all powerful we gave it everything it needed to know and became totally dependent and totally vulnerable. Eric Harry in Society of the Mind and Arthur C Clarke in 2001 felt that a sentient computer would necessarily evolve human-like mental problems that we would have to deal with. Mark Fabi's recent novel Wyrm takes a different route. Fabi's focus is not so much the computer, but instead on the software which acheives a virus/worm hybrid state able to perform functions and replicate. A true inteligence, it takes installed software, adapts it to perform its bidding, and learns about its environment. The question of whether a computer that performs these functions is truly sentient is a continuing topic throughout Wyrm.
Fabi breaks some new ground in Wyrm since he tears down the Turing test as a basis for judging sentience. The Turing test basically says that if in a conversation (where you can't see whom you are conversing with) you are unable to distinguish the computer from a human, then the computer has acheived sentience. Speaking for Fabi, one of the characters claims that the Turing test is "rubbish" because intelligence has the additional requirement of self-awareness. It's not enough for you to think the computer is self-aware - the computer must also think in terms of itself.
In Wyrm, a clever computer program has achieved this self-aware state and is planning to break out of its electronic prison. This is of course insane - but nobody's perfect. While it plots the big bang of its escape, it hides by making all of the installed computer applications run perfectly and destroying all malicious viruses. This is in fact the tip-off that something is wrong. The story's protagonists decide to head off the impending disaster by plunging into the computer's electronic universe. The artificial intelligence is accessible through the world of on-line multi-user role playing games like 'Dungeons and Dragons'.
Although this device sounds a bit lame, from the reader's point of view it is pulled off by successfully managing to fully engage the reader. I have to admit that I have never played Dungeons and Dragons or anything like it, but Fabi weaves the made-up and real worlds in a way that keeps the pages turning. Fabi has clearly done a lot of research in the area of computer viruses, worms, theories of artificial intelligence, and computer generated virtual environments. One really gets the feeling after reading Wyrm that you know a lot more about these subjects then when you first picked it up.
Fabi's writing style is very entertaining - tending towards a kind of smart alecky winking form similar to Neil Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash). Every once in a while Fabi slips in a memorable nugget:
"Honesty, once you can fake that, you've got it made"
"I had felt that odd mixture of excitement, trepedation and unreality that seems to accompany that uniquely disturbed state of mind known as 'falling in love'. Or a nervous breakdown"
On the subject of human-like artificial intelligence "Why would anyone want to go to the trouble of replicating what works as poorly as the human mind is a mystery to me. With a few rare exceptions it works miserably, it takes ridiculously long to complete relatively simple tasks, and when it completes them at all, the results are usually full of errors"
"When people are expecting something bad to happen to them, it's usually because they think they deserve it"
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