The Adolescence Of P-1

Author: Thomas J. Ryan

Contrary to popular belief, Canadians do know more about life other than snow, hockey, poutine, and being awfully polite. They've also managed to produce Thomas J. Ryan, the author of a hard science-fiction novel focusing on artificial intelligence, The Adolescence of P-1. In this novel, Gregory Burgess is a lazy, lay about university student who has no real direction in life until he's introduced to your pretty cool 1970s computer - the IBM System - 360 mainframe and he starts studying computer science. Greg becomes fascinated by game theory and using AI to crack systems. He cracks the university's mainframe and saves a portion of the memory to experiment with, nicknaming it "P-1", creating a program called "The System". The System essentially operates like a virus - following telecommunications links and infecting other computers. When the program doesn't operate in the way he intends it to work, he writes a program to shut it down. It stops responding to him, so he considers the experiment to be terminated, but in reality P-1 is learning, adapting and understands its own weaknesses. Three years later, Greg is working at a large firm in America and has all but forgotten P-1, until he gets a call from P-1 who is completely sentient and has taken over almost every computer in America. P-1 becomes enmeshed in military affairs and in a final showdown, shows that computers are just as loyal as any human is capable of. Like all good artificial intelligence fiction, this novel questions what it is to be human. The Adolescence of P-1 was also adapted into a Canadian TV film called Hide and Seek.