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"Genux-B is capable of learning; that's why we make use of it."

Genux-B, GB for short, is a machine learning computer character in Philip K. Dick’s 1966 “Holy Quarrel” novella. There are eight Genux-B computers on Terra (Earth), with only three in North America. They are esentially supercomputers that calculate war scenarios, can determine potential homeland threats, and are capable of initiating strikes. They were developed and put online prior to year 1980.

Operations

Genux-B’s operate based on input commands by “military planning programmer”s. They are maintained by “eleccom” engineers and repairmen. The GBs have a “mammoth constellation of autonomic processes”. The computers themselves are not armed or protected. They can easliy be neutralized. Genux-Bs were built to sift large amounts of data simultaneously than any one human or think-tank could. It handles more data than humans, and it handles them faster. Its response comes in microseconds. A Genux-B, after analyzing all current data, can determine if war is indicated.

Genux-B malreacts

One GB is thought to have suffered a “malreact” by flashing a Red Alert, having scrambled SAC, and starting 'counterattack' measures against Northern California. Earlier, it was responsible for America having initiated an unnecessary preemptive strike against France in 1982, and then again on little Israel in 1989.

The malreact GB determines that one individual, seemingly an average citizen, located in Sacramento, is a threat, and determines that the only way to properly neutralize the target is to conduct a nuclear strike on Northern California.

Machine learning

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Example of real if/then flow chart

Machine learning is the basis of artificial intelligence. PKD indicated conditional programming statements to explain how the GBs conduct their machine learning processes.

In determining its existence, the following conditional parameters were outputted by the malreact GB:

ANALYSIS OF CONSTITUENT RE THE NONEXISTENCE OF GENUX-B MULTIFACTOR CALCULATING INSTRUMENTS. IF CONSTIT UNIT 340s70 IS TRUE, THEN:

I DO NOT EXIST.

IF I DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NO WAY I CAN BE INFORMED THAT MY GENERIC CLASS DOES NOT EXIST.

IF I CANNOT BE INFORMED IN THAT REGARD, THEN YOU HAVE FAILED TO INFORM ME, AND CONSTIT UNIT 340s70 DOES NOT EXIST FROM MY STANDPOINT.

THEREFORE: I EXIST.

Synopsis

Although the condtional parameters that PKD presents is antiquated by today’s methods of machine learning, the principle of artificial intelligence becoming self-aware is thought to be an existential threat to human kind, by experts such as Elon Musk.

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