"Elementary, Dear Data": when a computer "bug" manages to convince its creator to keep it around
Star Trek: The Next Generation is a Sci-Fi television series originally aired during the late 1980s and early 1990s (a continuation spin-off of "Star Trek: The Original Series" from the 1960s, and part of a larger franchise of TV shows and movies). Created by Gene Rodenberry - it depicts the crew of the USS Enterprise starship, in a Utopian universe set in the 24th century, where Earth is united and part of a "federation of planets" - exploring planets and galaxies in space, in a quest for seeking out new life and new civilizations; Each episode presenting the viewers with fascinating, well-written, science fiction stories, dealing with philosophical, existential, ethical and moral subjects and discussions.
The third episode of the second season of the show (S02E03: "Elementary, Dear Data"), originally aired in 1988 - deals with questions regarding concepts like "consciousnesses", and "man vs. machine"; In the episode, Chief Engineer - Geordi La Forge, creates an "holographic simulation" inside a dedicated room in the ship called "The Holodeck" - capable of recreating rich holographic environments of places and objects as well as holograms of people, persons or animals - that look, act, speak and feel like real living beings - Geordi asks the computer to create a "Sherlock Holmes" experience, inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle's detective books, where commander Data - a human-like 'android' and a member of the ship - takes part in as 'Sherlock Holmes', and Geordi, as Holmes' sidekick - Dr. Watson. When Geordi realizes that the holographic characters are no match for Data's computer-programmed brain - he asks the Hologram's computer to "create a character that can outsmart Data" - not realizing the consequences of his request - he accidentally exposes the entire ship to a great risk, as his request was, in effect, planting a kind of "computer bug" - as the following "step-by-step" analysis of the events in the episode, with analogies to today's world of programming and tech, shows:
A. Through-out Star Trek shows - we can witness different kinds of human-computer interaction: hand-finger gestures on touch screens, and voice activation in the form of: "Computer..." followed by a vocal question or command - this is essentially similar to how humans have been interacting with computers in real-life for the past few decades. When we see more "low-level" interactions, such as in the engineering department or when computers have malfunctions which requires a physical fix, we can see crew members disassembling hardware, replacing chips and so on (again, similar to real life). But, there's also a different kind of interaction: when someone approaches the Holodeck, requesting the computer, with their voice, to create an holographic experience, describing how it's going to look like, how it's meant to be experienced, both visually and in regards of the behavior of the holographic characters - this is essentially, a kind of "programming" (or "design") - though a very "high-level" kind of programming.
The computer has a huge amount of stored data in its memory: historical data spanning thousands of years, information about the present times - both on real-life events and "fictional" ones - the content of billions of artistic creations - human (and probably alien) legends, books, stories, movies and articles. It also has geographical information, philosophical and existential theories; it has theoretical and concrete definitions of billions of concepts and ideas; This kind of "programming" - where you state a description for a time and place - either based on real-life or a fictional art creation, also supplying a general description for the vibe and atmosphere - "isolates" a specific variation of an "holographic experience" instance from a huge amount of possibilities, based on the data in the ship's computer - one which is also subject to change in real-time by the "programmer" as it goes along.
B. The ship's computer, apparently, has a concrete and solid definition as to what "consciousness" is; This is something that's implemented "by default" for all, or most, of the holographic characters generated in the Holodeck - we know this, for example from what we've seen in another episode of TNG - "The Big Goodbye" - a first season episode where the ship's captain - captain Picard programs a Holodeck experience based on the books of Dixon Hill - another fictional detective character from a series of books Picard used to read as a young man (that episode essentially acts out as a more "preliminary" and earlier draft of the story of this episode) - when Picard reveals to the holographic characters in that episode, that they are actually "not real", and are holographic creations, and that he is a person from "another world", a different reality to their own - they seem to "grasp" that notion - they seem to be capable of understanding it. When the Enterprise crew calls the computer to "open an exit" from the Holodeck, the hologram characters become aware of it and can see it - the main villain character becomes "curious" to "see what's out there" - he and his sidekicks step outside of the Holodeck through the exit, to the Enterprise corridor, only to see themselves slowly dissolving out of existence as they walk too far out of the "holographic emitter"'s range.
Witnessing this, another holographic character - that of a "good cop", asks Picard: "What's going to happen with me? When I'll come back home tonight to my wife - will she be there? Will I have a home to get back to? Will I continue to exist - even after you leave this place? Will the "reality" as I know it - continue to exist?" Picard, having just been to the Holodeck for the first time (a technology "new to its era" - as the first episode of TNG suggests) - answers: "I honestly don't know".
The computer's definition for the notion of "consciousness" is then - an awakening to your environment and existence - awareness to the fact that you "exist" within an outside, external world that surrounds you, an independent ability to deduce "conclusions", based upon prior achieved knowledge, and an ability to operate based on this information. These abilities, among other things, are what separates between holograms of "inanimate objects" and that of "living characters and persons". We can see in different occasions through-out the show that the "level of awareness" for holographic characters is a "setting", probably controlled by the computer according to the nature of a character - as some characters seem to not be aware of the existence of the Holodeck's "exit" or other things related to the reality of the Enterprise, and some do.
C. When Geordi asks (/programs) the computer, as part of the "Sherlock Holmes experience", to "create a character who can outsmart Data": he, in effect, creates a character with the maximum possible "awareness settings" (in the form of "Professor Moriarty", Holmes' "ultimate rival" from the books) - the "smartest" possible hologram that the computer can generate, with the maximum fastest deduction and "conclusion making" abilities; This, in itself, does not present any serious problems, but Geordi's instruction also gave the character of Professor Moriarty - something else, something that actually presents itself as a serious problem - as we later find out the Moriarty actually managed to conceive and develop a device that can take over the Enterprise's maneuvering capabilities, changing its speed and course, as well as his ability to ask the ship's computer to summon an "exit" from the Holodeck.
D. An ability to interact with the ship's computer - including voice activation - is seemingly technically possible for hologram characters - there's no reason for it not to - but, the Holodeck's has a "safety mechanism" - which is always ON by default - one that prevents holographic characters from being able to interact with the computer, using voice commands or other means.
E. A "computer virus", or "malware", is a piece of code, created with the intent of influencing another existing piece of code, or a piece of hardware, in a harmful way, causing it to operate in a way different to the way it was originally designed and intended to operate in - for example - a virus that causes the image of a "Ping-Pong ball" to appear on a screen, jumping from side to side, interrupting and obscuring its display (an actual popular virus from the 1980s), or a virus that encrypts the entire content of a hard-drive, rendering it unreadable (similar to "Ransomwares" which were popular a few years back, and were a mean for several hackers to try and blackmail people).
F. As the crew of the Enterprise sets-up a meeting, reassessing the situation, and reviewing, one-by-one, the series of events that led to it, trying to figure things out, Picard asks the computer:
- "Computer, is the Holodeck's safety mechanism still on?"
- "Negative", the computer replies. Surprised, Picard asks:
- "Who gave the order to cancel it?"
- "Chief engineer Geordi La Forge", the computer answers - to everyone's surprise, including that of La Forge itself, who says: "I didn't give such an order, all I did was to ask the computer to generate a character capable of outsmarting and defeating... oh...", he stops, realizing his mistake, "'Data', I said 'Data', and not 'Sherlock Holmes'"...
The computer directly followed Geordi's request/command; A character capable of defeating Data, necessarily, beyond "maximum intelligence", also has to posses an ability to interact with the ship's computer.
This is not a virus - as a virus is created intentionally, this is more of a bug, which is created when a computer follows exactly (as it usually does) the directions given to it, but the outcome and result is unintentionally different than the one intended by the programmer. The process in that crew meeting was the "debugging" process which revealed the existence and essence of the "bug".
G. There is, seemingly, a "security breach" here: every person (or every crew member in command), can, using their voice, issue a command to "cancel", lift, the security mechanism preventing holographic characters from accessing the computer or interacting with it.
One can ask: why even have this option, why even give the possibility of computer interactions to holograms? But the answer is pretty clear, if we look at, say, certain other characters in the Star Trek franchise, such as that of the "Ship's Doctor" from the Voyager show - an hologram character of an "emergency doctor", who, understandably, has full access and interaction capabilities with the ship's computer, as part of its function.
One can also realize why this "security mechanism" exist for holograms generated for "entertainment" purposes in the Holodeck, and is not evident in those created for "functional" causes - as well as understand why an option to cancel this mechanism for Holodeck characters exist: for example, in the case of an emergency, supposed a ship loses its medical staff - it will be possible to create a "holographic doctor" - or it will be possible to create holographic characters that can aid in research, and so on.
But even so, in the case of the character of Professor Moriarty, the best course of action was probably bringing back this limitation for him, but, not only none of the crew members does it during the episode's final scenes - but on the contrary - Moriarty, as a super-villain with super-intelligence also possesses (unlike Data, which is one of the things that makes Moriarty superior to him) a large degree of "emotional intelligence" (which, by the way, suggests that the Enterprise's computer might have an ability to give Data some form of an "emotional mechanism", but apparently his "positronic brain" structure is not compatible enough with the ship's computer for that) -- Moriarty is a human-shaped hologram, that can "read" and understand people beyond their words, as evident explicitly during the episode when Moriarty "kidnaps" Doctor Polaski, who remains silent to his interrogation - causing him to state that "her silence his actually giving him much more insight than her words" --
so, at the end, Moriarty manages to convince Picard to "preserve" the existence of his character, as is, in the ship's computer - thereby, in effect, Picard agrees to "keep" a dangerous and deadly "bug" inside the ship's systems, allowing it to evolve, learn, plan and scheme - until the second appearance of professor Moriarty, some four seasons after this episode - in another episode called "Ship in a Bottle", which, in my opinion, is the best Star Trek episode in the the Star Trek franchise.
So, in practice, this episode showed a scenario where a "computer bug", managed to "convince" its creators to "keep it around".
H. As the ship's computer has a pretty accurate and solid definition for "self awareness", and since it's possible, as we've witnessed in the episode , by programming and using voice commands - to implement that kind of level of awareness on any holographic character (which is, in effect, a program of the Enterprise's computer itself) - it is theoretically possible, to program the computer to give "itself" self awareness - and, in-fact, I've read that an episode with this kind of story actually appears later on in the series (though I don't currently remember it, and haven't reached it in my re-watch, yet).
Bonus anecdotes about the episode:
The episode was nominated for two Emmy awards: one for Outstanding Art Direction for a Series, and one for Outstanding Custom Design for a Series. While It's true the art and costumes were excellent in that episode - I would have also give nominations for writing, or for the excellent and impressive acting of Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty.
Speaking of Daniel Davis, he later gained more fame and publicity in a totally different TV role, portraying the "butler" in the successful sitcom "The Nanny".
The writers of TNG intended to bring back the character of professor Moriarty much earlier than it eventually reappear, but there was a difference of opinions regarding usage rights and licensing for the Moriarty and Holmes characters, with the rights' holders (the family descendants of writer Arthur Conan Doyle), and it took the time of 4 seasons to settle them, and eventually allow the return of the character in the 'Ship in a Bottle' episode.