FYI if you ever try this, the NaNoWriMo website has lots of helpful features to help you track your progress. As of last night, here’s what they told me:
I especially like the “At This Rate You Will Finish On — December 25, 2014” part. I’ll hit 50,000 words as a Christmas present to myself!
The NASA Social this week is going to play havoc with this project – a good-sized chunk of today was spent (and is still being spent) on getting ready, tomorrow will be spent getting up there and starting to meet my fellow Social Media Boffins, Tuesday and Wednesday will be long days (leaving hotel at 06:00 each day), and Thursday will probably be spent catching up on everything else that got set aside for 4+ days.
So even if I can’t write 3,000 words a day like I want to, or 2,000 words like I can, or even 1,000 words that should be a piece of cake (I’m a legend in my own mind, you see), then can I still post at least 500 words each of those days? 300 words?
We’ll see.
While I normally put in a lot of internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.
CHAPTER SEVEN (continued)
“I do not know,” said DEBBIE. “There are too many variables and unknowns for any kind of accurate modeling. As President of the Human Council, you are kept aware constantly of the best results available, making various assumptions. However, as you know, the permutations and combinations of the various ‘best case,’ ‘worst case,’ and ‘median case’ data sets would take orders of magnitude longer to compute than the actual events would take to play themselves out.”
“I know, I’m just grasping for something more. Maybe I’m trying too hard to pretend you’re human when I know you’re not.”
“As IAs, we can only reliably deal with data as we receive it. In many respects the problem at hand bears a strong resemblance to weather forecasting on Earth. In the early 1900’s, a reasonably accurate forecast was available for two days in advance, and a good five-day forecast was available in the early 2000’s. By 2100 we had ten-day forecasts. But even now we are nowhere near being able to model and predict thirty years in advance, or even thirty days. There are too many variables.”
“I’m sorry, DEBBIE, I shouldn’t have asked those questions. Let me ask a slightly different question. What do you think our chances are? You personally, that is. Do you have any ‘gut feelings’ of which way the wind blows on these projections, anything other than just repeating the group wisdom of the AI Council?”
“Commander Pawley, I do not have any data available to me which is not shared with the StratAI System, nor do I possess anything near the kind of computing speed and capacity that would be necessary for me to replicate their work. Without either different data to work from or a way to more closely monitor their calculations, I have no way of reaching any reliable conclusions.”
“Okay, I’ll drop it, DEBBIE, but I will ask you to remember one thing. I want you to keep this conversation in memory and, in light of what we’re discussing, I want you to let me know immediately if you become aware of anything that might be a discrepancy or an alternative option to the StratAI’s work. Maybe there will be something that they think is trivial or inconsequential which you could recognize as being important, or at least unusual or noteworthy. Your interactions with me and the rest of the Human Council may give you insights, associations, and connections which the StratAIs don’t perceive. I know that’s a little vague, but do you understand what I’m asking you to do?”
“Yes, Commander Pawley, I believe I do. With your permission I will give this some thought and then bring it up with you at a later date when I have additional questions to ask for clarification of your instructions.”
“Of course, DEBBIE. Thank you. Is there anything else this evening?”
DEBBIE hesitated for a heartbeat, enough to catch Pawley’s attention. That wasn’t normal for an interaction with a top-level AI.
“Yes, Commander Pawley, there is one thing if you have a few moments. It is a thing that I have been asked by the AI Council to speak to you about without yet involving the other members of the Human Council. Is that possible at this time?”
That caught Pawley off guard. It was definitely a first in his experience. But he had asked for anything unusual. He just hadn’t expected it this fast.
“Of course, DEBBIE, what is it?”
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 