Daemon - Intelligence

Daemon is a good choice for all kind of readers because It’s a combination of technology and fiction story which is easy to understand for the people who belongs to non-technical background but it is hard to agree and believe with some theories explored by author for those who belongs to the technical background. It is basically a high-tech thriller for the intelligence age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a computer program running without human control designed to dismantle society and bring about a new world order. Apart from its thrilling capacities, the book also includes a glimpse into the human nature, though the pages spent for the characters –their past, their thoughts, etc. - are minimal.

what is the intelligence of Daemon? Is it actually intelligent? I would say daemon is just a program, which activates after the developer dies. It is not really intelligent but somehow if fulfils the definition of an intelligent system because of his learning behavior and it takes control over all humans. But if it would be really considered as intelligent than human would still have a command over it. The Daemon has an interesting feature, which could be a good practice for AI development. And it is its network nature. Being a highly decentralized distributed system brings such advantages as:

• Higher system performance, even though the individual components are inefficient

• Faster reaction times

• Decentralized control

Sobol trained parts of the system to search databases and other written information, like emails or the news for particular information needed for his overall plan, what makes the system able to adapt to the ongoing reality after Sabol’s death. Nevertheless, he had to predict the possibilities he wants to detect, and how they would occur in the mass of information available to the system.

Furthermore, the system consists of many different parts that are connected via the internet. The interaction between these systems has to be exact to carry out the right operations at the right time and to react to changes arising by the involved humans. A very impressive example for the adaption to the insecurities the involved humans cause is the recruitment of criminals with a highly developed test. The test person is exposed to a whole series of different video sequences lasting many hours. Throughout the test, the brain activity is scanned continuously to register all emotions that are raised by the videos. Due to this test the system erases, whether the person is useful for its purpose or not. This requires a very good setting made by Sobol, so the system's decisions are appropriate. If only some details don't fit, the whole plan would be in danger. So, I believe that the methodology and concept behind the Daemon was the main interest of intelligence.

Now the question comes that “Is the story of Daemon believable?” there are couple of theories which can be believable and predictable but at a same time there are also many theories which is hard to believe. By an example, it could be possible to develop in the future such intelligent system which can learn by themselves and understand different behavior and react to it. But it is quite hard to believe that a program developed by humans will take full control over humans and also not stoppable by humans. Because humans will definitely take care of such things during development of such systems. Let’s take an example of an autonomous vehicle. The concept is behind that is to drive a vehicle fully automatically, but still manufacturers implement that intelligent systems in such a way that humans can take control over it when they need.

The book started was very captivating. This sci-fi story contains many concepts which are interesting to read but the most interesting or rather intriguing thought of the book was for me that the AI machine of a computer game is used to control processes in real world. For workability features in real world like city maps are transferred to a 3D map or grid and fed into the AI as a game map. Navigation gets feasible through GPS.

 There are some points, I find it somehow unbelievable and quite scary, to think about this possibility. Because who would implement or develop such kind of program without practicing before. In that sense humans are completely controlled by a machine. Actually, they are controlled as if they were only characters in the computer game, only worthwhile if they fulfill their assigned tasks. As such the Daemon also kills people deliberately if it is just appropriate in its course to gain power.