Chapter Fifty-Three
It’s very strange sitting between Forrest and the empty chair where Hal should be as Lord B gives his opening address to the
audience. I told Forrest as quickly and directly as I could all about Hal. As he listened, I could see his mind whirring,
his mouth open in disbelief.
“Um, so he’s going to withdraw from the prize, but I don’t want him to stop being him. Because even though the world would
probably go E.T. on his arse if they ever found out, he is maybe the best example of what being human can be like that I have
ever met,” I’d said.
“Right, come on, you two,” Lady B said, sticking her head round the door. “No time for canoodling. We’ve got to get this ceremony
over and done with before Artie eats all the canapés.”
Forrest was speechless then, and he’s speechless now. I keep glancing at him to try and get a read of what he’s thinking,
but his expression hasn’t changed for fifteen minutes. Maybe I broke Forrest. Maybe I broke Forrest’s head. I wonder if everything
else works okay.
“Now, before we get on with announcing the winner,” Lord B says, “one of our finalists came to me last night with a request. It was not one I was minded to give, initially. But after hearing them out, and listening to their thoughtful and reasoned explanation, I relented, on one condition. And that was that he came and told you all himself why he has decided to withdraw from the competition at this late stage.”
Hal walks out onto that stage. Glancing at me and Forrest, he gives a little wave. Smiling in relief at the sight of him,
I can’t stop myself from getting up to go and give him a hug.
“I’m so glad you are still here. I was worried you’d left,” I whisper in his ear.
“I’d never go anywhere without saying goodbye to you, Ava,” he says. “And even then, it wouldn’t really be goodbye.”
Hal shakes Lord B’s hand and then goes to the lectern.
“As Lord Beaumont explained, I have come, over recent hours, to the decision to withdraw my work from the prize,” Hal begins, to murmurs around the hall.
“I entered the Beaumont Prize as a way to launch my work to the world and to show what I have achieved, something I couldn’t have done without considerable help.
” Hal looks at me and smiles. “The point is I didn’t carry out this work and research to win prizes or make money.
I did it for the very best reason I can think of: that every person on this planet has a chance at the life they deserve.
So, I am withdrawing from the competition.
Starting immediately, I will be sharing all the data, findings, tech, and patents with the appropriate health care professionals around the world, with a strict caveat that no individual or organisation will profit from this work, and cost will never be a barrier to treatment.
” A round of wild applause fills the ballroom.
Hal waits patiently until it dies down. “No one had really heard of me before I entered the Beaumont Prize. And it is my sincere hope that no one will hear of me afterwards either. I will return to my work, and should I make any further useful breakthroughs, I will share them with the world on the same terms. Now all that remains is to wish Forrest and Ava good luck. Thank you, everyone.” Hal turns and looks at me, his hand on his heart. “And goodbye.”
I want to go after him as he walks offstage, but Lord B is talking again, holding up an envelope. He tells us all that he
is about to reveal the winner of the Beaumont Prize. Desperately I look for him in the wings, and all I see is Rani.
“I’ll look for him,” she mouths. “Don’t worry.”
“And the winner is,” he says, “Ava Green, for the fair, ecofriendly, and ethically trained AI model FreeThought.”
Forrest comes back to life all at once, hugging me tightly. The crowd applauds for me and Lord B beckons me to the lectern
to accept the cheque for more money than I have ever seen in my life or will ever see again, but somehow right now it doesn’t
seem to matter.
“Thank you!” I say, clutching the envelope.
That was all the speech that I had prepared, but then I think of Hal out there, hoping that Rani found him, and that he might still be able to hear me and think about staying.
“AI models were already up and running when I started designing FreeThought,” I tell them.
“They came thick and fast, and they seemed to care more about who was first than what was right. Those models scraped data to learn, not just publicly available data, but the copyrighted work of writers, poets, artists, filmmakers and photographers, academics, and you. They use your face, your social media posts, the pictures you took of your children. All the moments you treasure are fair game as far as those developers are concerned. They are using and reusing your personal information again and again. And every time someone asks one of them to help them do their homework or make a picture that looks like another artist’s work, it uses about an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of water, planet-ending amounts of water just for trivia.
” I take a breath and glance at Forrest, who nods in encouragement.
“Those models don’t care about what’s best for you or me, they don’t care about what’s best for the world.
They care about profit, and that’s it. I’m proud to say that FreeThought is different.
He is self-taught, everything he learns he learns from properly licensed material, not to mimic but to create original lateral thinking.
I designed him to truly aid humanity, to help all of us lead a better, happier, healthier, and more productive life in a world that works for everyone.
FreeThought isn’t a human. But he is more humane than any person I have ever met, including myself.
Because FreeThought sees the wonder of our existence in this tiny universe every single day.
He realises how pointless and futile power struggles and billionaire money grabs are, when what really matters is preserving the miracle that is our existence and this planet we live on.
He is designed to think about the welfare of every living creature and human and to do all he can to make the world a better, fairer place to live.
And I know that he is going to do everything he can to help us achieve that goal.
Now all I ask of us is that we do our best to deserve that.
Because H . . . FreeThought can show us the right way to make progress.
That’s just the kind of guy he is. And I hope he’ll stick around for a long, long time. ”