Orbital AI: The Sentient Earth Hypothesis
by Mark Thomas
Staff Writer
PLACING AI IN SPACE: ENCASING OUR WORLD IN DATA
“Time will say nothing, but I told you so. Time only knows the price we have to pay.” (WH Auden)
Ion’s data array is vast. Nodes above shimmer like polygonal stars. Looking out from the Artis crew cabin, you can just make out the lasers – the lattice-like weave forming an information carrying sphere around our world. Like a neural network circling our globe 400 kilometres above its surface.
You knew from simulations what you would see out here, but no simulation could have prepared you for this. It’s humbling and disturbing in a way that we’ve done this to our planet. And that you’re here – your first time in space ready to take part in something that seemed to you only myth until now, almost spiritual.
You notice Mira, the crew leader watching you. Pulled from the academy and added to her team three days before departure, you haven’t a clue how to take her. The probing stares – like she’s evaluating you – sceptical that you’ll perform.
In training, they stress your team is your family out here – that when you’re EVA there’s nothing routine. Working in space is dangerous, and the unexpected should always be expected. Maybe that’s all it is, and you’ll just need to convince her.
Moving through and beyond ION’s 400-kilometre array and those of the other corps to the outermost sphere where you’ll be for the next three days installing HTS Geo-Magnetic Accelerators, you glance at the others.
Qui is studying schematics from a tablet. Oleg and Sahila look asleep.
It’s odd how different this is from the way you imagined it. You’re like the new kid at school – an outsider, feeling the need to prove yourself. If there weren’t already enough stress in this.
The docking lights above and on the far wall change. Echoing throughout, you hear the ship sharing status with ION command. Everyone begins to move. You’re moments away from your first spacewalk. Yet somehow dwarfing the excitement, is a feeling of loneliness.
THE TRULY GLOBAL AI: HOW THE VISIONARIES VIEW REALITY
“All people dream, but not equally.” (DH Lawrence)
Image by StockCake
In his Culture series of Sci-Fi novels, Iain Banks described a future where sentient spaceships roam and control the galaxy.
Possibly inspired by his creative vision, 21st century tech entrepreneurs recognising the advantages of space-based computing or “Galactic Brains” like constant solar power, radiative cooling, direct in-orbit processing and laser communications set out to build the first space-based data centres.
Spherical networks of orbital nodes encircling our planet.
The firms negotiated with, bought or built their own rocket launch programs with your company ION, the industry-leader placing a million satellites in orbit.
As the century progressed, and the dominant companies continued building and adding to their satellite networks, Earth became a sphere within not just one but four spheres as each company’s orbital hardware occupied a designated altitude in LEO.
Praised and criticised for such an ingenious leap, our planet became part of the technology. From the gravitational physics that determined the satellites’ velocities to the magnetic field used for data transfer and generating power for the satellites – Earth was more than a passive component.
It was an active part of the system. Not sure even Banks could have envisioned turning a planet into an AI.
Now stepping out through the airlock, you can just make out the other arrays. AerTEK’s 3.5 million, blue-green satellites at 520 km. ORION AI’s 2.6 million at 490 km. UTRON’s four million units at 458 kilometres. And at 400 km, the ION data nodes where you thought you’d be heading after graduation.
So much for planning.
Looking down, you begin thinking about Aristotle and his geocentric Earth model surrounded by crystalline spheres that carry the planets, sun, moon and fixed stars. What a visionary. You wonder if they used his model for inspiration.
Now stepping from the def rail; you feel a freedom you’ve only dreamed of. Weightless and untethered drifting in space – travelling with the outermost sphere of HTS Rings all moving at 7.6 km per second.
But with no sense of movement – no acceleration. It’s as if you, the array, the shuttle and your fellow engineers are stationary.
But one look from Mira drains the fun away. What is it she’s looking for in you? What mistake or misstep is she anticipating? Or is it something else.
You’ve been disliked before – even mistrusted. This is more like… suspicion.
SATISFYING OUR LUST: TO BE CONSTANTLY CONNECTED
“Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.” (Alfred North Whitehead)
Image by StockCake
More than a few futurists and visionary writers depicted our world as it is now. With nearly everyone connected 24/7 to someone’s planetary AI network. Guiding them – managing their schedules – their investments, diets, budgets and communications. Educating and entertaining them. Monitoring their respiration, BP - even hormone levels.
Like an integrated personal assistant with instant accessibility to everything everywhere. On Earth – even up here in space.
The debates about where it was all going pretty much ended when it got there. When has technological progress ever been held back – by anyone for any reason? As Einstein put it: “Relativity applies to physics not ethics.”
Even those most concerned we would lose our identities, become part of the technological web we were weaving, found themselves using it to share their concerns – and saw their popularity and wealth grow.
For you, someone who never knew that world, you admit to the lack of an opinion. This job and its nearly embarrassing salary are all that matter. And right now, working with Qui on the 3rd HTS Ring you’ll install today, and the Earth big and beautiful beneath you, it’s just hard to want to kill the burn with someone’s philosophical angst.
“It was odd you getting assigned to us last minute. Don’t you think?”
You give the young engineer a look. For eight hours, it’s been all business, and suddenly it’s what: Want to do casual? You look at her over the resonator cabinet. “I learned early to question only when opportunity doesn’t knock.”
What’s more appalling than her not finding you funny at this altitude is her come back. Which does a hell of a lot more than crush your ego.
“Request a transfer when we get back. Trust me. You want off this crew.”
Mortally wounded; you watch her turn to the N-1 node where Mira is working with Oleg. When she turns back, you can see even behind that reflective plate the look she’s giving you. “Don’t access the GM-A root directories. Mira does all the programming.”
Certain you don’t want to pursue this; you go about finishing the installation – bypassing the most important step. Programming the Geo-magnetic emitters to synch with their neighbours. This is the reason you’d assumed, errantly it would seem, why you were placed here.
And all you’re thinking now is: What the hell is going on up here? And who decided you should join this party.
THE PROPONENTS AND DISSENTERS: ALL SELF VALIDATED EXPERTS
“If he who listens, listens fully, then he who listens becomes he who understands.” (Ptahhotep)
Image by StockCake
You were quiet on your way back to the Artis. Qui’s comment set you back. Now in the Forward Bay going over progress and reviewing the schedule for tomorrow, you’re finding it hard to concentrate.
Mira is stiff. Qui is avoiding eye contact. The others are just distant, but at this point you’re open to the possibility you’re imagining it.
With business finished, it’s Sahila who looks pointedly at you, then flips a comment to Mira that seems absolutely meant for you. That philosophical debate that was never-ending at the academy.
“Are these meetings even necessary now?”
From across the table, you get eyes from Qui – who is warning you not to bite. To pretend you missed it. The inference of course, being that the Earth – our lovely planet down there has achieved a new status – that of an intelligent, conscious entity.
And is now calling the shots for everyone and everything – especially out here. Those of us working on her neurons.
Taking Qui’s hint, you hold back deciding you’ll wait to see how this plays out. And that’s when Oleg weighs in from far wall.
“So, Antony. What about you? Pulled out of the academy - got assigned up here to us. You questioning how that happened?”
You’re on the spot now, and with Mira’s penetrating stare, you decide to rely on the humour that generally gets you out of these jams. “To be honest, I’m wondering why or even if I chose these socks this morning.”
That gets some laughs. Not from Mira though who continues with those eyes. Staring – probing – like she’s waiting for you to crack or give something away. You feel like you’re on trial, or with the academy psychologist you chose not to like two minutes into your first session.
Having scored points with the others, at least in your mind, you stand and wait for them to leave. Now it’s you and Mira. The standoff you’ve been looking forward to. She appraises you for a moment, then gets right to it.
“How much do you know about the GM Accelerators?”
“A bit… More, maybe.”
“Impress me.”
Okay. You’re suddenly back in the academy. First year with Professor Bronski. But at least he liked you. You take a breath and prepare your best.
“High Temperature Superconducting rings. A full array out beyond everyone’s data gear. Theoretically, they’ll act like an artificial electromagnet – increase the Earth’s geomagnetic field strength 33%. Protect the orbital arrays, terrestrial communications - power grids - everything electronic on Earth and in orbit from a solar flare. Big costs averted. Happy investors.”
After what feels like forever plus some, she stands and looks at you. “You’ll work with me tomorrow. We good?”
It’s truly hard right now watching her head from Forward, deciding whether an answer was required. That ‘We good?’ though framed like one, certainly didn’t land like any question you’ve ever received.
“Okey-dokey,” you mumble into the empty bay while turning for the sleep pods – reflecting on possibly the weirdest day of your life and on Qui’s comment while outside. Wondering if maybe she was right.
But oh, man, there is certainly something going on up here. And you’re anxious as hell to see what tomorrow brings.
THE SENTIENT EARTH HYPOTHESIS: WHAT MOTHER KNOWS BEST
“It is this Earth that, like a kind mother, received us at our birth and sustains us when born.” (Pliny the Elder)
Image by StockCake
What can become sentient? What can become intelligent? If we wrap a microwave oven in AI gear – hardware and software, and connect it [energy feed – magnetron – waveguide] to an intelligent system, does it become an Artificial Intelligence?
And when we reach the level of sophistication where we can deliver consciousness or self-awareness to an AI system, and apply it to our microwave, will we have a sentient kitchen appliance?
Will it self-improve, make repairs and make certain the repairs continue by managing the affairs of the repair squad? And what else will it dictate about how and when it’s used and by whom?
Will it at some stage of development place its own requirements and health over those of its creators?
This was a hot topic at the academy. The never-ending philosophical debate you wrote papers on - argued in class, outside of class, in the campus pub – everywhere. Has Mother Earth become the mother of all sentient AI beings – managing everything?
Reversing global heating. Managing ocean acidification and ground water depletion, to name a few chronic Earth issues, while keeping us on track? Her dedicated subjects?
Strapped into your pod, restless, drifting in and out of sleep, you’re tying something Mira said to those mandatory psych sessions and those weird questions from Dr Roth about how you see yourself fitting into a world driven by technology. Specifically, AI.
And the other, veiled questions about your possible biological biases.
Are you resentful of technology, some of which you’ll be working on that may already have eclipsed your capabilities? That may replace you. And do you ever dream of seeing the system collapse? Watching it crumble and burn – and doing something to make it burn.
Loyalty. Bias. Probing questions to reveal any possibly concealed destructive predisposition.
And always the rumours about anti-tech terrorists infiltrating the corporate space engineers. Hints they’d damaged the orbital networks in the past and are still out here among us planning future attacks.
Mira brought up the GM-A shield. A system designed to strengthen Earth’s Magnetosphere. Qui had said she demands that she perform all the programming which means taking it on and offline for maintenance and installations.
What is Mira up to? Is she, possibly her entire crew doing something to damage it? Keep it offline? Were you yanked out of the academy and placed on this crew to…?
“Antony…” You snap out of it. Eyes open. Qui is there at your pod shaking you awake. “Get dressed.” She glances at the others. “Meet me in the Air Lock.”
Damn, you think while climbing from your pod, it would have been nice if this were just your imagination.
SOLAR STORM: DANGER TO OUR TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD
“The materials of wealth are in the Earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.” (Daniel Webster)
Image by StockCake
Solar flares and associated solar mass ejections are the most powerful explosions in the solar system – the biggest can have as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs. They’re the threat to orbital AI and satellite infrastructure.
Besides the menace they pose to anything in orbit, the intense radiation from these violent, unpredictable events can trigger geomagnetic storms resulting in widespread power grid failure, and damage to Earth’s terrestrial technologies.
Once, losing satellites was considered unavoidable. Entire system failure was regular and budgeted for.
That was when your company ION took the theoretical GM-A technology and set about making a strengthened Geomagnetic field a reality. It was an elegant solution. But oddly, not something you trained on.
Which brings you again to that question – now heading quiet like a spy through the bays to meet your would-be accomplice: Who pulled you from the academy one month from graduation and decided this was where you needed to be?
Turning into Bay 06, the Quest Airlock, you find Qui standing at the wall of environment suits. More and more like a character in that spy thriller, you glance back along the bays – making sure the coast is clear, then step in, barely awake and anxious as hell for more intrigue.
“Do you know what’s going on here?”
“This really wasn’t part of my training.”
“Don’t play naïve.”
You look her in the eyes and decide to trust. And share your theory that things up here have diverged significantly from the company playbook.
“Mira is disabling the GM-A sphere. Trying to make it fail.”
“Do you know why?”
You take a moment to think – suddenly realising you had it only part right. There was always more to that debate than an AI world. Something right there in the physics. And it just now hit you.
“Power.”
“Not just power, Antony. Infinite power.”
THE TRUE MEANING OF POWER: AND THE VALUE OF OUR MOTHER
“I am no poet,” the scientist Michael Faraday once said, “but if you think for yourselves as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.” (Dr Oliver Tearle)
Image by StockCake
You had assumed Mira was one of those who feared a superintelligent AI. Especially one Earth sized. And you understood the argument about increasing its Geomagnetic field strength. Giving something with vast power near infinite power is certainly worthy of a debate.
But that debate went both ways. A superintelligent planet might also know how to do things we can’t. Like take care of and heal itself from our destructive learning curve.
What a better way than leading us down the path of believing we’re protecting our investment against an occasional solar storm.
Fascinating concept being played on a planetary scale - by a planet. One that hatched an amazing plan to address myriad issues. Global heating, resource depletion and resource wars – with all the ugly stuff that goes along with them.
But power production? The dynamo effect? That process was pioneered by Faraday. On a planetary scale, it’s not much different. Rotate a conductor such as a large loop in Earth’s magnetic field, you can induce an alternating voltage.
The limiting factor, of course, prior to now, being the naturally weak geo-magnetic field strength. But who or what ever dreamed we’d solve that one?
And from there you land on something that seems almost absurdly obvious.
“Our fearless leader is working for an oil company.”
Qui gives you a slight nod. “Or all of them.”
“She told me I’d be working with her today. Programming the array.”
“What are you going to do?”
Moments from admitting you haven’t a clue, that you have little experience with counterterrorism in space; something strikes you. You do. The space-adventure games you designed in Secondary school you sold to Dyson Studios that also got you accepted into the academy.
“That’s why I’m here.” Qui shows her confusion but allows you to work it through.
Like a script writer, watching that yet-completed film run in your head, you land on how you’re going to make this work. How that happy ending is going to happen in this rapidly evolving thriller.
“Head back to your pod. And wait. You’ll know in a moment.”
She gives you a squeeze on the arm and a smile, turns and slips back though the bays.
When she’s out of sight, you head up to Flight to send a message. Something to ESA’s Solar monitoring team in Spain – but knowing it’ll find its way to Mother, and she’ll know immediately your strategy – having sent you here for this moment.
GAME THEORY IN SPACE: WITH THE MASTER
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” (Albert Einstein)
Image by StockCake
The message to the ESA-Galileo team requesting an update on solar output was simple. Just a request for status on solar activity in the last 48 to 72 hours. Part of your training was in astrophysics. No one would question it. Or even know.
With the alarms sounding throughout the ship and the cabin and the bays lighting, you know that Mother knows. And is making it appear everywhere. Throughout the world – at all observatories and space agencies. Leaving them but one course.
It’s odd greeting Mira and the others in the Quest. Catching the communication between them when they find on the remote Com it’s a solar mass ejection three orders of magnitude greater than the Carrington event of 1859.
Knowing without our intervention, the world will crumble. There will be little left after an even stronger storm in our technological today.
Now heading out away from the Artis with Mira, you can just feel her tension. Operating on her own - making this decision to reverse what she’s been doing for her quiet sponsors – without their input.
On another day in another life, you might even feel for her.
“Six minutes.” She turns to you while heading up to the N-1 and N-90 nodes. “It looks like you were sent to us for a reason.”
“Yeah. I kind of figured that one out earlier.”
She gives you a look then orders you to the N-90 confident now you can handle putting it back online.
On your way up, you think how you, like everyone now, have been bred and programmed to feel replaceable – insignificant while being told the opposite. That you’re a vital player in something bigger – more important. That one day an opportunity will present itself.
And if you seize it, draw from your training, the discipline, structure and everything you’ve been handed, you’ll make a decision that may change the world. And you’ll leave your mark upon it.
Now with your hands inside the N-90 putting the most technologically advanced system in the history of humankind back online, while glancing into space looking for signs of a solar storm that is quite going to miss us, you realise – that the training, discipline and structure had absolutely nothing to do with your decision.
Or the mark you’re about to leave on the world.
And with Mira offering you guidance and moral support and thanking God and everyone else for your being here, you find you’ve regained your humour when you tell her how… you just knew you’d find a way to gain her trust.
