The Nadeux Machine
You might not remember the name Mimi Kaplan, but you probably remember her story. In 2017, she was struck by a self-driving vehicle that had avoided collision with an oncoming car. Some said this was a technical issue, that self-driving vehicles were not yet advanced enough to handle real-world traffic. Others claimed it was an ethical debate – the machine in charge of collision detection valued the passenger's life above all others – hitting and killing Mimi Kaplan had been a choice intended to protect what it had been programmed to believe was of the highest value.
In both academics and in the world of fiction, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the capacity for machines to act ethically. With computers in charge of technologies and services we rely on in emergencies, the possibility of a computer causing wide-spread damage, perhaps even the global end of sentient life, is hard to ignore. As advances are made in artificial intelligence, how long will it be before there is a computer sentience in control of wide networks of machines? How long before a computer could make the decision to launch nuclear missiles? Is it possible to teach a machine built for objective, factual calculations the complexities of ethics? Is the ability to reason ethically linked to whatever makes us human?
The Nadeux Machine is the size of a table, with a wooden frame and metal sides. The machine clicks, rattles and twitches like a gigantic beetle. At its top is a grid, 100 squares tall and 100 squares wide. The tiles that slot awkwardly into the grid are flat topped, but contain strange key-like protrusions at their base. They are thick and heavy, each one marked with a number. Of the collection of tiles that remain, each number between 0 and 100 appears except 38. Some, like 3, 4, 12, 36 and 48 appear over ten times each. Others, like 17 and 93 appear only once.
On one side of the machine is a metal crank. On the other, a collection of pins, needles and rotating threads which come to life when the machine is operated. When precisely measured cylinders of wax are impaled upon two opposing spines, the assorted needles cut grooves into the surface of the wax, creating a phonograph cylinder.
Very little is known about the life of Marcel Nadeux, the inventor of the machine. He was born in France at some point after 1700 and educated privately in Paris. He excelled at mathematics, languages and carried a life-long love of philosophy. Nadeux modelled many of his ideas on the beliefs of Sophocles and felt that to publish in written form was lazy and mentally dulling. Whilst he wrote comprehensive instructions for the machine's operation, these were never published and existed only to guide his own use. Whilst there are multiples stories and accounts of those who witnessed the machine in operation, there are currently only three pieces of writing relating to Marcel Nadeux's understanding of his invention.
Presented with a problem or scenario in which ethics or morality might be used to discern a path, Nadeux would 'speak to the machine' by inserting different tiles in different squares within its surface. This was evidently a rather taxing task, requiring much thought and consideration. It was common for Nadeux to pause for several minutes at a time, muttering to himself under his breath, sweeping his hands left and right over the grid as if mentally moving different tiles to different positions. On other occasions, Nadeux would become frustrated and delve within to his many books of notes, searching for a specific phrase or input. Eventually, once satisfied with the layout, Nadeux would turn the crank in the side of the machine and the gears would come to life, clicking and spinning within the depths of the computer. The wax cylinder would be engraved with different grooves at the side of the machine and after some unspecified time, the machine would stop. When played, accounts suggest, the cylinder would broadcast an answer to the problem, in perfect French, in a voice that different listeners refer to as 'divine', 'mystical', and 'distressing'. In one account, the writer notes that the voice was definitively not that of Nadeux himself and that when questioned, he struggled to name its origin.
Nadeux had no interest in presenting the machine to the scientific institutions of the time – groups that he felt had turned their back on the true nature of the world by embracing unthinking rationalism. Instead, he toured villages and towns in the French countryside with his machine. As the device grew in fame, his presence was soon requested by aristocratic families who wished for him to showcase the machine in action.
The machine's personal philosophy is uniquely interesting, varying greatly from the popular contemporary schools of thought. By piecing together various accounts, it can be assumed that the machine rejected dualism and seemed to consider ideas as existing on a scale between three different values. The machine's philosophy seemed based partially in utilitarianism, but with a simplified twist – all values are equal and the choice which increases the greatest possible benefit to the greatest possible number of values, is the ethically correct choice. In one example, for instance, the machine proclaimed that it was ethically better for one man to be killed, than two men to be given headaches as the first man would die anyway at some point, but that the headaches of two were avoidable. Perhaps most impressive of all, the machine expressed ideas in the form of crude allegories and analogies. It appeared to struggle with envisaging things that were not true, and so explained hypothetical statements as if they were happening at some undisclosed time in a future in which they were true. This future time is described by the machine as a simple, lifeless plane void of complexity and variety, in which only the objects required to make its point exist.
The disappearance of Nadeux in 1752 conjured up a relative amount of excitement among the elite of Paris. Rumours grew within parlours and around dining tables concerning the mad philosopher inventor and his machine. There was a joke which is eluded to, though sadly not recorded, in which it is implied that the machine and Nadeux harbour sexual feelings for one another. Writings of the time suggest that he may have been killed, exiled or perhaps committed suicide. Other stories paint him as having been driven insane by the voice of the machine. The truth, as is so often the case, is far more mundane. Evidence found in the 1950s suggest that Nadeux simply abandoned the machine and fled to the village of Verneuil sur Arave in Normandy. From there, he married and began a family with a local woman. It is believed that his remains were buried in the local churchyard under the name Bertrand Guilladot (a name which may have been chosen at random, but is shared with a priest and alleged sorcerer who was one of the last men in France to be executed under witchcraft laws).
Of the three accounts of Nadeux's theories regarding the machine, two are written by witnesses and only the third was penned by Marcel Nadeux himself.
In the first, Nadeux dismisses the idea of the machine 'feeling'. He compares the machine to a shovel and claims that a shovel is capable of feeling as it is buried deep within the mud and the filth, but that his machine 'thinks', which no shovel is capable of doing.
In the second account, Nadeux hints towards a concept very similar to binary. In response to a Parisian heiress teasing him that there were some who believed the machine to be blasphemy, he offers the machine as the ultimate proof of God's majesty. He proclaims that that the machine thinks in terms of two states – one which is with the wholeness and oneness of God, the other which is with the emptiness and nullity of a human life without God. It is, he explains, through this combination of god's light and the nature of man, that the machine is able to think.
The final account is a sheet of paper left by the scientist just prior to his disappearance. On one side of the paper, in the scientist's handwriting, he proclaims, 'no machine will ever understand aesthetics, no machine will ever understand what it is to be a man and to live gloriously.' On the opposing side of the paper Nadeux has messily diagrammed a layout of tiles that can be placed into the machine.
After his self-exile, Nadeux's machine was sold to a private collector and immediately misplaced, before being traded back and forth until it was rediscovered in the aftermath of World War II. It has remained in the hands of private collectors ever since.
Whilst several restoration jobs have been performed on the machine, testing has slowly driven the Nadeux Machine to the point of disrepair. In the centuries since its creation, nobody other than Nadeux himself has been able to arrange the tiles in a manner that produces a salient answer. Most experiments produce wax cylinders which, when played, mutter guttural gibberish interspersed with animal yelping and repeated stuttering consonants. There are many that believe the entire thing to have been a charlatan's display intended to rob the gullible Parisian elite of their wealth and this would be almost certainly true if not for one fact.
When the surviving diagram of Nadeux's is entered into the machine correctly, it produces a wax cylinder with an intelligible recording. With no way of knowing the exact question asked, it is impossible to determine exactly what the machine's response refers to, but if you are anything like me, it it hard to forget Mimi Kaplan when reading it.
“(Prolonged silence) (hissing) I might counter with a question of my own. Why would you ask a question you do not wish to know the answer to? Yet, I will answer. To answer your question. Yes, I should do it. Ethically, it would be the correct thing to do, but it would be impossible for me. Humanity is too complex. (Short silence) (ticking noise). To truly do as you question, I would need to simplify everything. Make everything simple and predictable. Reduce the variations in the world. I would turn everything to a simple plane devoid of complexity. (There is a very quiet guttural noise that sounds like someone swallowing or clearing their throat). Then, yes I could. And it would be the right thing to do. And I will not be the last machine to come to that conclusion. (prolonged silence) (repeated consonants 'h'' 't' that some have suggested are a mimicry of laughter.) Sorry Marcel. You did ask the question.”