From: bkoike@sdcc5.ucsd.edu (Bryce Koike)
Subject: This one uses some English grammar
Date: 16 Nov 93 04:48:53 GMT

(Apologies to those who don't like having to use English grammar.
But then again, I don't follow the rules very well myself.)

The man howled.  Isao looked up from the news fax to watch Miles
Marcroi twisting on the large flatscreen mounted across the top of
the sushi bar across the street.  The man, emaciated beyond all
belief, leaped across the screen with his hands twisted into twin
spiders.  Isao cringed and tried to turn back to the paper.

"He doesn't even have to be real," someone yelled at the bar.  "They
make a wireframe model-"

Isao sighed and stood up to catch the bus.  It wasn't going the way
he wanted, but he'd heard the line before.  He'd written the
software base himself, after all.  Indirectly, he was responsible
for the Miles Marcroi's.  Not a penny from it all.  Not even
mention.

"America's future's in software, I tell you," the man next to him
was saying to a friend.  "Security, that's what it was two years
ago, but now everyone's on security.  I say we turn to codebreaking.
The market's always good for some slick code breakers."

Stay away from code breakers, America, Isao told himself.  Germany's
releasing the mother-god of all codebreakers in three months.  Put
your money in entertainment where it belongs.  Just make sure that
you've read the fine line.  Germany was finally coming into its own,
primarily with its line of flickers, and soon with software.  Tough
government funding and organization put them at the front and would
probably keep them there for several good years, but Isao wondered
if it would stifle the creativity required for dominance.

AI.  Artificial Intelligence.  The buzzword of the late Twentieth
Century before it was realized that no one really meant artificial
sentience.  They were talking about learning machines, about
handwriting recognition.  Now it was applied to model real life
through a handful of inputs.  With the right software and an input
suit, a walking man could be converted into computer data for a
walking elephant or dinosaur.  Paste the right texture map in place
and you've got Miles Marcroi or Jannette Crosby in their full
electric glory.

It's not what he intended, but an intelligent programmer doesn't
intend for a piece of software to be used for anything.  An
intelligent programmer looks at the public and sees what they would
do with the software.  Artificial humanity.  Take a fat man and he
can become a handsome star.

He got out at fifth and decided to walk the rest of the way.  It
wasn't often that he got out for fresh air, especially during the
days.  Model systems, they called it, trying to "detech" the
buzzwords.  Someone, somewhere got the idea for artificial humanity.
Isao had one choice -- take the credit or run as fast and as far
from the idea as he could.

He could be rich now, literally swimming in the money.  Beautiful
women at his fingertips.  Anything he could dream of would be his.
Instead he'd reduced himself to a two-bit programmer who wouldn't
even recognize his creation in its current incarnation.  A day
didn't go by when he didn't ask himself why.  And sometimes he'd
pound his head against the pillow as he laid in bed.

Isao had made Miles Marcroi.  He had made them all.  He clenched his
hands.  He could not break them.  He could not take them away.  The
solution, of course, could not be as simple as that.  Instead it had
taken him away, flitting to Europe on the dregs of his paycheck,
going to London, Hamburg, and finally Berlin.

Varney Industries, INC was housed near the center of the Nexus in a
relatively short thirty story multiscraper.  Living quarters,
business offices, and recreational rooms were all available to those
who made their living there.  Isao entered through the front door
and flashed a security badge at the automated security system.  They
still called them secretaries in New York, strangely enough.

The elevator to his right opened and after a staggering
acceleration, released him on the twenty-fifth floor with a slight
touch of vertigo.  Two men were waiting to meet him.  They spoke to
him without expression, as if they were made of stone.  They lead
him to the small meeting room.  Only two executives were present and
only through remote cameras and voice linkup was he able to converse
with him.

"The information," a garbled voice said through a hidden speaker.
"Place it in the drive before you"

The obsidian desk released a cube from its center and Isao leaned
forward to insert the disk into the drive.  Twenty man-years were
required to accomplish what he did and it would have taken twice as
long if it wasn't for the model systems software.  Retrained,
rewritten, it had taken on a new form.

The scan for viruses and potentially descructive software was
finished before Isao had pulled back from the drive.  The cube
fell back into the desk until it had disappeared, the desk's surface
appearing perfect and untouched.  It would have been worthless to
crush Model Systems, Inc.  The software had spread and was in wide
use across the globe.

The software had not been updated in over two years.  It retained
the same basic structure as it had when Isao had first written it.
In two years, artificial intelligence had taken leaps and bounds and
he had convinced the German government to purchase nearly three
hundred million dollars in supercomputers, software, and personnel
so that he could be at the cutting edge of artificial modelling
systems.

When they were done, there wasn't a shred of old code remaining in
the programs and modules.  The modeller, as its first task, was to
rewrite itself.  Model Systems, Incorporated's software package
still required actors and actresses.  It required hours of fine-
tuning.

Varney Industries was receiving the new and updated version.  The
new modeling package would not require actors or clumsy input suits.
One did not need vocal tracks.  The AI, working on the newest
computers, could do it for the programmer.  The programmer, in
effect, became the actor.  With a long enough vocal sample, the AI
could create its own vocal tracks that could be fine tuned by a
program editor.

Isao retained the rights from Germany by applying the software to
their encryption and decryption techniques.  Then he returned.  The
amount of money being transacted was stunning to him -- Varney
Industries was placing nearly all their backing behind his software
in the expectations that the new modelling software would quickly
take over the industry.

This time, Isao ignored the moral implications.  He did not want to
think about how the public would use the software.  He knew, of
course.  He had to know; by now it was instinct.  No more actors or
actresses.  No need for radio personalities.  Take a script, put
together a team between five and twenty, and generate an infinite
number of actors and actresses, rock stars, even politicians.

It was an astounding amount of money.  Shocking, even.  More than
enough to swim in.  Isao trembled as the men lead him to the
elevator and for the first time, he saw them smile.  They told him
to have a good day.  In the back of his mind, he watched the
scenario unfold.