daemon: /day´mn/, /dee´mn/, n. (Source: The Jargon File)
[from Maxwell's Demon, later incorrectly retronymed as ‘Disk And Execution MONitor’] A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon).
Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.
And that is the problem in Daemon
Matthew Sobol a game-industry magnate and game designer unleashes his artificial intelligence game engine onto the real world. His death triggers a chain of events that he has programmed into the AI engine, managed by the Daemon.
Daemon is a fast-paced, action-oriented read that keeps the reader on the edge the whole time. What makes this debut novel so interesting to me is that the technology employed by Sobol is available today. Something like this could be done now! That thought is both frightening and fascinating to me, and seductive…. A part of me wants to build this system (minus the mayhem and murder), which is the second reason this is a great read. The story raises important ethical questions.
Should we build things just because we can, consequences be damned?
Could a distributed program using a well-crafted decision tree create chaos in the world? (I think so)
Do computer scientists have a responsibility to limit the damage their creations could inflict?
Could self-replicating programs that react to news events (via feed readers) trigger concrete events in the objective world?
Would such a system bestow a form of immortality on its creator?
Consider rulers of the ancient world who tried to make themselves immortal by inscribing their (greatly exaggerated) curriculum vitae on columns.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Of course the logical consequence of such a system must be failure in the end, because like a golem, an AI-based daemon is not truly intelligent — if commanded to perform a task, it will take the instructions perfectly literally. Reductio ad absurdum!
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