Transcript from issue 10/24 of Acceleration Magazine
by Donna Jolt

Evil lurks in the darkest corners of the Web. Today, in the Chatroom, I’m here with Conrad Zilard, Cybersecurity Executive of ARC.OS. He says that a cybersecurity professional nowadays will have to know some things about the arcane.

>> Could you tell me a little bit about this new type of AI that exploded the news recently?

The AI name is actually pretty misleading. In the industry, we call them native intelligences, NI for short. They are pretty different compared to the AI that we have been using for years. As far as we know it, these intelligences were not created purposefully, instead, they evolve on the Net in their entirety.

Imagine the Internet like a whole different ecosystem onto itself. Like a parallel world to ours. And the two worlds are increasingly interconnected. And as you might have guessed, this increasing connectivity poses the biggest challenge in stopping the potential harmful acts of these NIs right now.

>> You said they evolve. How is that possible?

If all the necessary components are there, a complex system can emerge at any moment, and I guess, Mother Nature chose this moment. The mechanism, as I understand it, is pretty similar to how life evolved on Earth, but you’re probably better off asking a biologist [chuckles].

My biologist colleagues are actually comparing these intelligences to slime molds. If you ask me, I wish I could be that optimistic, but I don’t believe they will stay at the level of some yellow snot for long. What is certain is that certain biological models describe the behavior of NIs really well. At least for now.

>> Do we know how these native intelligences work?

We don’t know much. They might work the same way that our traditional AIs work, but right now, we have nothing concrete to work with. These intelligences are a black box to us, we know what goes in and what comes out, but we can’t make sense of what’s going on inside, even if we monitor the internal processes. Another problem is their highly distributed nature. It’s difficult to assess the whole picture when we can only see pieces of what we think is a single intelligence.

>> Do you experiment on these intelligences?

Of course, we, and other institutions, experiment with these NIs in closed networks, but our test environments are nowhere near as extensive and chaotic as the Net. In vivo, as the biologists would say, a staggering amount of information is being added every day. In the last handful of decades, the amount of data contained on the net has increased exponentially, and instead of stopping or slowing down, this growth is accelerating. With their environment changing, the chances of new mutations and specimens developing are also increasing.

>> In a previous interview, you compared these NIs to Demons. Why is that?

As a teenager, I was obsessed with occultism. And when I look at what is happening right now, I can’t help but think of demons. You know, demons had seals and sigils, standing in for their true names. If you drew these and did some incantations, you could summon the demon. Of course, one of those sigils would be a QR code nowadays, and a true name would be an IP address. One of these “demons” might have multiple names, multiple connection points. There are, in fact, manuals on the dark web, like grimoires or magic tomes, filled with addresses of these native intelligences. Some of these sites are updated daily.

>> What kind of people try to contact these entities? Who are the witches and warlocks of this age?

Well, that’s a sad story. There haven’t been many studies done in the matter, but we can already see a tendency [sighs]. Most of these people are young and impressionable, outcasts. They are often victims of bullying or neglect. They don’t have a social network to rely on, no friends, often no parents. I said that I was really into occultism, right? Imagine what would’ve happened if I felt unloved, depressed and suicidal. And there were real demons to call upon.

These kids often have mental issues. We all know that the state of mental health is still a huge issue today. Back in the day, we had religion for these people. And now, nothing. The NIs give these young people a purpose, something that they can believe in. An NI needs people for its hacking schemes. Not all of us are gullible when it comes to bots, but we are much more trusting of a human. These NIs cultivate good social skills in these subjects. Which, in an ideal situation, would be a great thing. The problem is the end goal. It’s like a cult.

>> What do NIs want?

We don’t know exactly. I imagine, most NIs are just testing the waters right now. Like children. Some people working in the field suggest that they might want to break out. Right now, they need humans to affect the analog world.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that a huge portion of our lives is digitally integrated, and increasingly so. Fortunately, our most prized institutions have the strongest cybersecurity, but we don’t know what we can expect from a native intelligence, we know that they are adaptable. I don’t want to sound alarming, but I don’t think the first high-profile NI-related cyberattack is far off.

>> Can we stop them?

Right now, we don’t know if we’ll be able to stop them or not. Or if we are supposed to. Because these things are sometimes malicious, but they are kind of alive, you know. There is actually a field of artificial ethics, emerging right now. Three university courses will involve the subject in their curriculum next year. I was even invited to help write a textbook for those. A new field of study needs some foundation, after all. And it’s not easy, let me tell you. Especially, because I’m working on my own book, Digital Demons. It started as a passion project, but now I have publishing deadlines [laughs].

>> Thanks for the interview. Any parting words?

People of the Internet, please look out for each other.

If you are interested in native intelligences, get Digital Demons when it comes out, it explores what we’ve been talking about but in depth.

If you have any info on NI activity, don’t hesitate to contact us at ni.arc.os.

++ About Donna Jolt

Hey, I’m Donna Jolt, I’ve been with the magazine for 5 years. I do interviews, which lets me meet a lot of crazy people from all around the globe and all around the net. When I’m not in VR, asking questions, I make music and dabble in 3D modeling. On the side, I manage a home kindergarten with my boyfriend.

And if you have a good story, don’t hesitate to tell AccMag.