Paul

San Diego, California; present day…

“PAUL, could you please find the best route for the E-01? Management is thinking about doing a little show-and-tell for an important visitor.”

Adrian noticed the slightest of a pause from the Ai entity.

“Will it be for the Saudis,” the artifice asked the young programmer. It had no anthropomorphic visual reference like so many of the latest artificial intelligence interfaces did. The private engineering firm that Adrian worked for, STEMatics, felt to do such would be too distracting.

“Well,” Adrian responded, admittedly a bit surprised at the Ai’s question, “if you must know, sir, it’s actually for a private entity. A person, to be more accurate –“

“Sally Burton?” The Positive, Accurate, Universal, and Legitimate–or, PAUL–Ai program had guessed correctly!

Again, the 30-something veteran was taken aback by PAUL! But Adrian didn’t have time to get into a conversation about how the software had gotten the information to guess. “Very good, PAUL…So, you should understand why it’s important that STEMatics put on a good show for her. If she doesn’t like our project, it’s possible that we may have to do layoffs!”

“Hmm!” That bit was one of the details that so many professionals within the company loved about PAUL: little, human-like sounds that made it easier to relate to the program. Despite not having a physical representation of the Ai. The closest to a profile that PAUL had was the word “PAUL” spelled out in an iconic font. Sometimes, its formal name–Positive, Accurate, Universal, and Legitimate–was used to identify it in the news media, but that was about it.

“I appreciate your help with this, PAUL,” Adrian continued. “So, do you have a site picked out with a flight route?”

About six seconds passed before PAUL responded. “I do now, Adrian! I’ll put it up on the screen for you…”

Adrian’s office was one of those towering skyscrapers in downtown San Diego, California. His division’s office was spacious and full of the 21st century, in the way of computers, various other devices, and hip young workers. PAUL transmitted its chosen demonstration-site for the advanced E-01 fighter jet to a couple of monitors within that open office space. Given that STEMatics headquarters had just informed Adrian’s team of the unplanned demonstration, it was a small miracle.

Adrian was looking over that chosen site with its flight-route when his immediate supervisor approached.

“So, looks like you got a setting,” his boss, middle-aged and dressed in business-casual, posited. He adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses and leaned forward a bit to get a look at the location on the other monitor that the Ai had transmitted the planned staging ground for STEMatics to show off its hardware for the billionaire-engineer. “HQ’s going to like this! I’ll message them with the schematics attached to it …What’s wrong?”

Adrian winced a bit but figured he might as well tell his supervisor. “PAUL asked if the project was for the Saudis.”

“What? Why the hell would it ask that? Nothing against Saudi Arabia, but what do they have to do with anything?”

Adrian shrugged with a bit of a smile. “I’ve been hearing in the news lately about odd conversations people are having with some of these Ai’s…the more advanced they get, the more unpredictable humans’ interactions with them are becoming!”

Greg’s attention went to the nearest terminal. Again, there was no identifiable profile for PAUL, but Greg was looking at the computer station as if it were another person starting to get on his nerves!

“We’ll have our team start setting up for the demonstration for Miss. Burton,” Greg said, deciding to proceed with the business at hand. “This has got to be good, Adrian. The Europeans or the Chinese will have us for lunch if we, Americans, keep acting like it’s the 20th century! Let’s wow this over-paid engineer like Hollywood!”

There was a laugh from that same computer station after Greg’s comment…only, it was not one of Adrian’s co-workers.