behavior. Additionally, I doubted he ate like that in professional settings, and he must have known he couldn't get laid eating like a robot. It was one of those home-grown idiosyncrasies that disappeared in public. Life is easier when the world doesn't know you bust out the bleach if you see crumbs on the counter or dishes in the sink, you sleep naked on a mattress on the floor, or you refuse to leave for work without triple-checking that the windows are locked and all appliances are turned off. It's better if everyone pretends they're normal and no one pries too deep.
“Hey James,”
“What's up?”
“What're all the books for?”
He leaned forward over the table, half-standing, and began talking rapidly, tapping his hands on the table like it was a calculator. “Remember the Panic a few years back?”
“It would be pretty hard to forget.”
“Well, do you know how it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Uh... Look, sorry I asked—” I picked up my plate and mug and began cleaning.
“No, no. It's not a test. I mean, you know the basics, right?”
“Like the Terminus case?” I offered.
“Yeah. The whole thing's a lot more complicated than just that, but it's a good place to start. With two million dead from the airborne toxic event, somebody was going to have to pay. And I don't mean safety regulations or political change or any of that sappy shit. We're talking liability; who's going to face down the wrath of the largest migration of ambulance chasers in human history?"
“You know, my mom was in Chicago when it happened.”
“Shit, she was, wasn't she? We can skip over the more gruesome details. When everything shakes out you've got yourself a lawsuit between Calvin Enterprises, the holding company that owned the train, and Terminus, the machine intelligence developer. Calvin said the intelligence Terminus sold them, MI-7X, was a defective product. They said they had gigabytes of documentation from Terminus's salespeople and lawyers assuring them it was a hundred and ten-percent safe to handle hazardous materials and that it was absolutely impossible for something like the airborne toxic event to occur. Terminus argued the railroad failed to follow the proper safety protocols laid out in the purchasing agreement, and in any case the MI was an autonomous non-human person and they weren't responsible for its actions, regardless.
"The case worms its way up from the circuit court, who find in favor of Terminus, to the appellate court, who find in favor of Calvin, and finally to the Supreme Court. If it had been up to me, I would've said the machine intelligence had free will and been done with it. Even if they felt justice needed to be served, there were other options. They could've hit some poor bastard with two million consecutive life sentences, or worked out a deferred, partial compensation fund for the victims' families. You know, pay for college for every kid whose parents died. Full liability for the costs associated with the event were too much for the market to bear. Do you have any idea how much investment capital was tied up in Terminus and companies like it? Like, all of it.
"But what do those hacks do? They decided on the equivalent of holding the US financially culpable for every death caused by every terrorist trained by the CIA, ever. The Court thought the argument about machine intelligences possessing free will was a bunch of garbage, and although there were minor breaches of protocol on the part of Calvin Railroads, Terminus's people had promised the train wouldn't so much as run over a kid whose ball had rolled onto the tracks. Terminus declared bankruptcy the next day, as did its insurance provider.
"The company I was working for at the time was dealt almost exclusively in MI-ABS,” he paused, noticing the look of utter confusion on my face. “That is, machine intelligence asset-backed securities. Basically, we traded in the massive loans all these robotics companies
“Hey James,”
“What's up?”
“What're all the books for?”
He leaned forward over the table, half-standing, and began talking rapidly, tapping his hands on the table like it was a calculator. “Remember the Panic a few years back?”
“It would be pretty hard to forget.”
“Well, do you know how it happened?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Uh... Look, sorry I asked—” I picked up my plate and mug and began cleaning.
“No, no. It's not a test. I mean, you know the basics, right?”
“Like the Terminus case?” I offered.
“Yeah. The whole thing's a lot more complicated than just that, but it's a good place to start. With two million dead from the airborne toxic event, somebody was going to have to pay. And I don't mean safety regulations or political change or any of that sappy shit. We're talking liability; who's going to face down the wrath of the largest migration of ambulance chasers in human history?"
“You know, my mom was in Chicago when it happened.”
“Shit, she was, wasn't she? We can skip over the more gruesome details. When everything shakes out you've got yourself a lawsuit between Calvin Enterprises, the holding company that owned the train, and Terminus, the machine intelligence developer. Calvin said the intelligence Terminus sold them, MI-7X, was a defective product. They said they had gigabytes of documentation from Terminus's salespeople and lawyers assuring them it was a hundred and ten-percent safe to handle hazardous materials and that it was absolutely impossible for something like the airborne toxic event to occur. Terminus argued the railroad failed to follow the proper safety protocols laid out in the purchasing agreement, and in any case the MI was an autonomous non-human person and they weren't responsible for its actions, regardless.
"The case worms its way up from the circuit court, who find in favor of Terminus, to the appellate court, who find in favor of Calvin, and finally to the Supreme Court. If it had been up to me, I would've said the machine intelligence had free will and been done with it. Even if they felt justice needed to be served, there were other options. They could've hit some poor bastard with two million consecutive life sentences, or worked out a deferred, partial compensation fund for the victims' families. You know, pay for college for every kid whose parents died. Full liability for the costs associated with the event were too much for the market to bear. Do you have any idea how much investment capital was tied up in Terminus and companies like it? Like, all of it.
"But what do those hacks do? They decided on the equivalent of holding the US financially culpable for every death caused by every terrorist trained by the CIA, ever. The Court thought the argument about machine intelligences possessing free will was a bunch of garbage, and although there were minor breaches of protocol on the part of Calvin Railroads, Terminus's people had promised the train wouldn't so much as run over a kid whose ball had rolled onto the tracks. Terminus declared bankruptcy the next day, as did its insurance provider.
"The company I was working for at the time was dealt almost exclusively in MI-ABS,” he paused, noticing the look of utter confusion on my face. “That is, machine intelligence asset-backed securities. Basically, we traded in the massive loans all these robotics companies
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