"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p174-259" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

УOkay. See ya around.Ф
Morelli cleared down the call, got up, walked ac to the window and resumed admiring the lake. 1 had been the third such call he had taken that m ing and it wasnТt even ten oТclock yet. Amazing, thought.

УI got a letter from Sheila Massey today,Ф Sarah marked one evening about a week later as Clif~ was eating his dinner.
УSheila with the legs.. . howТs she getting on?Ф
УTrust you to remember the legs. SheТs fim thought youТd be interested in what she had to s~
УMe?Ф Clifford stopped chewing for a second looked puzzled. УWhy should I be interested?Ф
УListen to this,Ф Sarah told him, unfolding the sh of notepaper in her hand. She read aloud from pai the letter: УСWalter has gotten himself a good pro tion at last . . .С
УGood for Walter,Ф Clifford threw in.
УShut up and listen. Where was I . . . ? СWalter gotten himself a good promotion at last. In fact, ev body seems to be moving around in ACRE bec~ there has been the most almighty shakeup there ever did see . . .СУ Sarah glanced up and noticed Clifford was looking at her with evident interest. read on. УСWalter isnТt too sure whatТs behind it but he says there are all kinds of rumors about r big trouble behind the scenes. He thinks a lot of top guys are getting hell from Washington about way theyТve been handling something or otherthe usual secret stuff TarritЧhe was the hi~ hnss t
if you rememberЧhas gone, but nobody is su~re where. Prof Edwards has been moved up to take his job. That smart-aleck guy, Corrigan I think it was, has gone too. Walter thinks that Edwards got to Washington and demanded that they throw him out. Rumor has it heТs been shifted to a missile test range or some such thing
Чsomewhere on Baffin Island.ТФ Sarah lowered the letter and looked across at Clifford. He threw back his head and roared with laughter.
УThatТs all I needed to make this a perfect week,Ф he managed at last. УWell, how about that? Wait till I tell Aub.Ф He began laughing again.
УZimmermann certainly wasnТt kidding when he said heТd wheel in a few big guns,Ф Sarah chuckled. УI think heТs done rather well, donТt you?Ф
УBig guns?Ф Clifford laughed. УThem minions havenТt been gunned, baby. ZimТs pals have carpetbombed the bastards!Ф
Chapter 16

Voice recognition by computer had begur a crude way during the early 1970s. Not long af ward, experiments conducted at the Stanford Rese~ Institute demonstrated that parts of the electrical bi waves associated with the faculty of speech could decoded and used to input information directly ft the human brain to the machine. The method utili mental concentration on a particular word to tril the wordТs characteristic pattern of neural activit3 the brain, without the wordТs actually being voic once a pattern had been detected, it could be matc against those stored in the computerТs memoryЧe human operator having his own unique prerecor setЧand translated into machine language. The o~ ation of the computer or whatever it was control was then determined by the machine-language ci mand. By the early eighties, a sizable list of exp mental machines of this type had appeared in rese~ laboratories around the world, initially each with own very restricted command vocabulary, typica On, Off, Up, Down, Left, Right, and so on. But vocabularies were growing....
These early beginnings broke the trail for the velopments that began appearing over the next th years. Other centers of the brain, such as those rc ing to visual perception, volition, and abstract imag
tion, were also harnessed as direct sources of data and command information for computer pr6cessing. Later on, techniques for accomplishing the reverse processЧof enabling the brain to absorb data from the machine independent of the normal sensory channelsЧwere added.
The result of all this was the Bio-Inter-Active ComputerЧthe latest word in computer technology, offering perhaps the ultimate in man-machine communication. The BIAC eliminated the agonizingly slow traffic bottleneck that had always plagued the interface between the superfast human brain on the one hand, and the hyper-superfast electronics on the other. For example, a straightforward mathematical calculation could be formulated in the mind in seconds, and its execution, once inside the machine, would occupy microseconds; but the time needed to set the problem up by laboriously keying it in character by character and to read back the result off a display screen was, in relative terms, astronomical. It was rather like playing a game of chess by mail.
But the BIAC did much more than simply enable data and instructions to be fed into the machine more quickly; it enabled the machine to accept input material of a completely new type. Whereas classical computers had required every item of input information to be explicitly specified in numerical or encoded form, the BIAC, incorporating the most up-to-date advances in adaptive learning techniques, could respond to generalized conceptsЧconcepts visualized in the operatorТs mindЧand automatically convert them into forms suitable for internal manipulation.
It thus functioned more as a supercomputing extension of the operatorТs own natural abilities, its feedback facilities evoking in him a direct perceptual insight to complex phenomena in a way that could
never have been rivaled by mere symbols written on pieces of paper. The dynamics of riding a bicycle can be represented as a complicated string of differential equations, the solutions of which will infallibly tell the rider what he should do to avoid falling off when confronted by a given set of conditionsЧspeed, curve of road, weight of rider, etc. The young child, however, does not concern himself with any of this; he simply feels the right thing to doЧgiven some practiceЧand does it. In an analogous fashion, the BIAC operator could feel and steer his way through his problem. It was the perfect tool for handling CliffordТs k-function solutions.
Only a handful of BIACs had been built, and all of them were undergoing government evaluation trials under conditions of strictest security. The offer to make available to Sudbury one of the next three scheduled to be built provided, therefore, as convincing a measure as anyone could ask for of the significance attached to the InstituteТs work. Even so, it would take three months or so for the machine to become available.
Security of the BIAC posed a problem that had to be solved during that period. Dismantling the GRASER and the detector and shipping them elsewhere would have been possible as a last resort, but the magnitude of the task promised to be horrendous. Eventually Peter Hughes suggested an arrangement that, although falling below the requirements usually stipulated for that type of situation, was granted a special dispensation. Structural alterations were made to the GRASER building to seal off all entry points apart from the main door and a fire exit at the rear, which was operable from the inside only. Everything and everybody not directly involved with the project were moved into other accommodations elsewhere at
the Institute. Then, finally, access to the buik~ing was severely limited to a few specially designated people, and two officers of the State Police were to be stationed at the door around the clock to insure that the rules were observed.
Clifford saw these developments as portents of things to come, and his misgivings intensified. Life took an unexpected turn, however, and soon he was too preoccupied with other things to brood about such matters. He was sent away for six weeks to undergo an intensive course in BIAC operation on a machine already installed at the NavyТs equipment evaluation laboratories in Baltimore. Aub remained at Sudbury, being too immersed in the design details and preparations for Mark II to afford any time away. He would follow later.

For the first couple of days after his arrival in Baltimore, Clifford sat through a series of lectures and tutorials aimed at imparting some essential concepts of BIAC operation and at giving the class some preliminary benefits from the techniques that others had developed.
УThe BIAC becomes an efficient tool when youТve learned to forget that itТs there,Ф one of the instructors told them. УTreat it as if you were learning to play the pianoЧconcentrate on accuracy and let speed come in its own time. Once you can play a piano well, you let your hands do all the work and just sit back and enjoy the music. The same thing happens with a
BIAC.Ф
Eventually Clifford found himself sitting before the operatorТs console in one of the cubicles adjacent to the machine room while an instructor adjusted the lightweight skull-harness around his head for the first time. For about a half-hour they went through the
routine of calibrating the machine to CliffordТs brain patterns, and then the instructor keyed in a command string and sat back in his chair.
УOkay,Ф the instructor pronounced. УItТs live now. All yours, Brad.Ф
An eerie sensation instantly seemed to take possession of his mind, as if a bottomless chasm had suddenly opened up beside it to leave it perched precariously on the brink. He had once stood in the center of the parabolic dish of a large radio telescope and had never forgotten the experience of being able to shout at the top of his voice and hear only a whisper as the sound was reflected away. Now he was experiencing the same kind of feeling, but this time it was his thoughts that were being snatched away.
And then chaos came tumbling back in the opposite directionЧnumbers, shapes, patterns, colors .
twisting, bending, whirling, merging . . . growing, shrinking. . . lines, curves. . . . His mind plunged into the whirlpool of thought kaleidoscoping inside his head. And suddenly it was gone.
He looked around and blinked. Bob, the Navy instructor, was watching him and grinning.
УItТs okay; I just switched it off,Ф he said. УThat blow your mind?Ф
УYou knew that would happen,Ф Clifford said after he had collected himself again. УWhat was it all about?Ф
УEverybody gets that the first time,Ф Bob told him. УIt was only a couple of seconds. . . gives you an idea of the way it works, though. See, the BIAC acts like a gigantic feedback system for mental processes, only it amplifies them round the loop. It will pick up vague ideas that are flickering around in your head, extrapolate them into precisely defined and quantitive interpretations, and throw them straight back at you.
If youТre not ready for it and you give it some junk, you get back superjunk; before you know it, the BIACТs picked that up out of your head too, processed it the same way, and come back with super-superjunk. You get a huge positive feedback effect that builds up in no time at all. BIAC people call it a Сgarbage loop.ТФ
УThatТs all very well,Ф Clifford said. УBut what the hell do I do about it?Ф
УLearn to concentrate and to continue concentrating,Ф Bob told him. УItТs the stray, undisciplined thoughts that trigger it . . . the kinds of thing that run around in your head when youТve got nothing in particular to focus on. Those are the things you have to learn to suppress.Ф
УThatТs easy to say,Ф Clifford muttered, then shrugged helplessly. УBut how do I start?Ф Bob grinned good-humoredly.
УOkay,Ф he said. УLetТs start by giving you some easy exercises for practice. Try ordinary simple arithmetic. Visualize the numbers you want to operate on, concentrate hard on them and also on the operation you want to perform, and exclude everything else. Get it fixed in your mind before I switch you in again. Okay?Ф
УJust anything?Ф Clifford shrugged. УOkay.Ф He mentally selected the digits 4 and 5 and elected to multiply them together, just to see what happened. The torrent of chaos hit him again before he realized Bob had hit the key.
УThat was a bit sneaky of me,Ф Bob confessed. УThe best time to slot in is often when the problem is clear in your mind. Try again?Ф
УSure.Ф