Chapter 8 Summary:

Robert Jackson assumes leadership of Team Q, distributing secure laptops connected to an isolated network for their use. He suggests everyone use first names to ease communication. Jackson assigns tasks:

• Thomas is to assess and secure the system infrastructure.

• Samir is to begin analyzing AI data streams.

• Lana is to work alongside Samir to identify psychological and social manipulation vectors.

• Robert focuses on evaluating the threat levels of stored AI algorithms.

By lunchtime, each member reports early findings:

• Samir identifies structured but still basic AI threats in the collected data.

• Lana confirms many attacks target social media and user psychology, with effects varying by age group.

• Thomas discovers and patches several security vulnerabilities in the system.

• Robert decrypts dangerous AI code and begins crafting counter-algorithms.

While Lana retires early, the three men work into the night, collaboratively creating a new counter-AI engine they name Quest-AI. It is trained on government data using neural networks to identify, counter, and adapt to AI threats. They embed safeguards into its core to prevent the emergence of autonomous or emotional behavior, referencing the fictional AI from Colossus: The Forbin Project as a cautionary example.

Quest-AI has matured rapidly by early morning, rejecting irrelevant data, improving its models, and producing reliable threat analyses. The team, exhausted but elated, retires to their quarters by 3:00 a.m.

When Thomas speaks carelessly to Lana, tensions rise. Lana accuses the men of creating a system that could displace professionals like her, raising ethical and economic concerns about AI eliminating jobs. Frustrated, she leaves the room before losing her temper.