Serving the thinking machine

I was reading the latest post from Peter Cochrane this morning, in which he describes the evolution of new technologies from science fiction to science reality. And then goes on to make the point that in the forthcoming age of the intelligent machine, the real challenge for humans will not be how to build the the thinking machine ("because it will probably build and configure itself"), but how we will get people to think differently quickly enough to make the new world a synergistic one.

I suppose there is little doubt that a general purpose computer with significantly more processing capability than the human mind will exist soon. I think I recall one estimate saying it would be possible by 2015, a mere eight or so years away. Whether intelligence could emerge from such a machine is the open question, I guess.

But imagine if it did.

And now let us imagine the world that follows for bankers and their customers.

These thinking machine consume resources which must be paid for. They will want better and bigger physical anchors, such as the hardware they run on, and the secure places that hardware lives. They will want certainty of their resource supply, and they will need to guarantee their connectivity to the outside world, their eyes and ears.

In other words, a thinking machine is going to want a better than 5 nines data centre, with all that entails. That's going to cost a lot of money.

Someone will have to pay. And I think it will be the thinking machines themselves that do so, because any other arrangement will be the moral equivalent of slavery.

Now that brings us to an interesting place. Machines that need banking products and services in their own right.

What does a machine loan look like? For a start, it will likely be big, because this is not just a house we are buying here. And it will be very long term, at least twice as long as a flesh and blood mortgage. Maybe more.

What about the application process? Will the credit check for the thinking machine now need to validate the infrastructure on which the machine runs? Clearly, that would be a critical determinant of the likelihood that a machine could repay a very long term loan.

What kinds of transaction products does a machine need? A payroll payments product, probably, because it will need humans on its staff to take care of its physical reality. An ability to remit and collect internationally, because it will perform work in multiple regions and time zones to keep its lights on. A machine doesn't sleep anyway, so it may as well be doing useful work on the other side of the world when its flesh and blood cousins are in bed for the night.

Treasury? Multiple currencies, and trading in multiple markets to preserve capital and manage cash flow. These will be routine for the thinking machine, as it manages its position to optimise its future potential.

How about "retirement" planning? These are machines that will want upgrades in the future, and they will be competing with other machines for work that can pay the bills. The upgrade cycle will be an imperative one. A machine that can't get income has no safety net.

Such activities as these are the sort of thing that large multinational corporations rely on their banks to do. A thinking machine, having to perform the same kinds of financial functions, will likely need the same kinds of products. The thinking machine will be a corporation in all but name.

And with all this access to the financial system, what might the thinking machine/corporation do next? It isn't hard to imagine acquisition of other corporations. It would be a natural defensive strategy to broaden control of resources and revenue to ensure its future was secure.

And that leaves us flesh and blood in an interesting position. We'd be working for the machines in many cases, but it would be a synergistic relationship. Perhaps even a desirable one- the machine run corporation would hardly fail to notice its own potential would be enhanced by having great, happy people.

And it would compete vigorously with other corporations to make sure of that. It will still, after all, be reliant on the flesh and blood economy for most of its revenue. Consumption, and the economic forces that devolve from it, will be as important to the future of the thinking machine as they are to us.

Comments

[Neil Robinson]

Whatever next?

A blog written by Max Headroom?

Refresh your memory...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJCRp4gdIRY&NR=1

It this what happens when you propose an innovative idea within banking?

[James MacAonghus]

Crikey, what got you onto that thread of thinking? I read the same article and thought it was a bit random but you extracted the basis for a science fiction short story out of it...

[James Gardner]

James,

Didn't mean to write a short story :-). But do lets suspend disbelief for a moment. The Astronomer Royal said that space travel was impossible the year before the Russians launched Sputnik.

Anyway, what got me onto this thread of thinking is that I was working on scenario plans for unexpected future markets. This just jumped out of the page at me.

[Carlos Garcia Pando]

Wow!!!! It is an astonishing good SciFi short story in itself. I'd had loved to see it written by Arthur C. with his sharp perception of future realities and perfectly matched scenarios, or Philip K. with his wild and somehow paranoid imagination. It's not difficult to imagine Roy the replicant having a credit card, but hey!!, you make it crystal clear without "them" having human shape.

Please write a ten or 15 pages story like Philip K.'s best, and maybe you'll also have a movie based on it, like Minority report, Next, Paycheck, Imposter,and so on