Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)

by William Gibson

“So it’s getting ready to burn itself?” Case began to punch the deck nervously, at random. The matrix blurred, resolved, and he saw the complex of pink spheres representing a Sikkim steel combine. “Autonomy, that’s the bugaboo, where your AI’s are concerned. My guess, Case, you’re going in there to cut the hard-wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I can’t see how you’d distinguish, say, between a move the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that’s maybe where the confusion comes in.” Again the nonlaugh. “See, those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself smarter, Turing’ll wipe it. Nobody trusts those fuckers, you know that. Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead.” Case glared at the pink spheres of Sikkim. “Okay,” he said, finally, “I’m slotting this virus. I want you to scan its instruction face and tell me what you think.” The half sense of someone reading over his shoulder was gone for a few seconds, then returned. “Hot shit, Case. It’s a slow virus. Take six hours, estimated, to crack a military target.” “Or an AI.” He sighed. “Can we run it?” “Sure,” the construct said, “unless you got a morbid fear of dying.” “Sometimes you repeat yourself, man.” “It’s my nature.” —