The Burndown - Part 2

 

Part II

(There was another emergency meeting scheduled at the Jomato HQ by its CEO Deepinder Gopal)

“Rajat, what’s the status?” Deepinder questioned hoping for optimism.

“We questioned everyone at the data centre and we have concluded that nobody inside was responsible for this mess. We then checked our entry logs and security feeds. No leads. The trail went cold. There wasn’t a sign of suspicious activity, not even one.” Rajat’s voice dimmed. Deepinder let out a sigh. Clearly, this wasn’t the update he was expecting.

It was a Sunday morning and the sun has just rose upon the horizon. A ray of light shone through the glass window that wasn’t curtained. Deepinder walked up to the window and drew the curtains. The conference room’s door swung open. The CEO’s assistant was standing there holding the door half open.

“Sir! There’s a man out there saying that he wants to meet you and it was urgent” she said.

“I am in no mood, please tell him that I can’t meet him” Deepinder replied and sunk into deep thought.

“But sir, he says that he knows the person behind this” she stressed. Now she had Deepinder’s attention. He looked at her blankly for a moment before asking her to fetch him.

A man probably in his late 20s entered the room. He wore a white tee and denim jeans. Deepinder looked at him curiously and offered him a seat. Before he could speak, the man started.

“I am Jim Halpert – Senior Software Development Engineer at your company and I know the person behind this mess” Jim paused and looked at Deepinder’s face studying him. Deepinder did not talk back rather he was listening to him intently and waited for him to continue.

“Well, that guy is me” Jim blurted it out like he was waiting to shake that out. He was expecting a reaction from Deepinder but he was still sitting calmly.

“I am sure you have a lot of explaining to do” Deepinder spoke finally.

“I was working on a module to generate leads tailored for every customer. I succeeded in creating an AI that would suggest exact food to order based on the customer’s ordering activities”

“So you’re saying that you created an AI that feeds off from the customer data” Deepinder interrupted.

“Er, yes sir.” Jim stammered.

“The AI learns from the unsupervised machine learning algorithms that I programmed into it” Deepinder was looking deeply concerned now.

“Wait! Seriously? You trained the AI with the data from our data center? Have your ever concerned about the implications of your actions?” Deepinder was losing his cool.

“I was distracted by the results of the project; it was too convincing and it worked. I was hoping to take the project to you for a formal approval but before that, things happened. I know that my apology won’t suffice and I am here to sort out the mess I created.” Jim said. Deepinder paused to think.

“Before that, how did your AI gain access to our customer credentials? I am still at dark” Deepinder questioned Jim. Jim eyed him cautiously.

“I am not sure if you would believe me but everything, I am saying now is true. My ML algorithm had a bug, I would rather say mutated and I had overlooked it. It had started learning from every piece of data it was able to find and was hungry for more data. “Jim paused. He took the bottle of water on the table and drank from it. Deepinder did not seem to mind.

“When the AI started decoding passwords from our database, I knew that I had to shut it down. I shut down the AI but did not wipe it from the memory with the hope of refactoring my algorithm. When Akimi resulted in the internet outage, we had to reboot our severs at the data centre. As our servers restarted, the AI also restarted with it.” Jim drank the rest of water in the bottle.

“As soon as I came across the news, I rushed to the data centre to shut it down. The AI recognised me and deleted all records of myself from the company’s database and stripped me of all the privileges. I wasn’t expecting this to happen but the AI has root (master) privileges now. Our data centre is under its control” Deepinder had a look of horror on his face. The calmness in his face disappeared.

“If we don’t stop it now, the magnitude of the damage it could cause could not be fathomed”

“But how is the presence of this AI not been discovered by our team?” Deepinder asked curiously.

“The AI was in front of them the whole time, only in the encrypted from. I did that so no one can gain unauthorized access to the AI” Jim finished. Deepinder stood up. His face showed concern.

The last few days had taken a toll on him. So many questions were hurled at him by the media and even by his colleagues, some were even harsh. Now, he had the answers to all of them. But the truth is often terrifying. The answers still put the company in jeopardy. He couldn’t just think of the political and technological implications it could have.

“What do we do now?” He asked.

“I need your credentials to shut down the AI” Deepinder was taken aback with Jim’s request. The CEO’s credentials had unrestricted access to the entire system. Deepinder was lost in his thoughts for a while.

“You have to trust me and I need a chance to set things right” Jim requested.

Deepinder was delusional about it now. He rang up to Rajat and explained the scenario. He walked up to Jim.

“Let’s go”

(Jomato Data Centre – Gurugram, Haryana)

Deepinder and Jim reach the data centre where they meet Rajat. They were escorted into the main frame after the security clearance.

“Are you sure that we could trust him?” Deepinder whispered to Rajat.

“I know him pretty well, besides we don’t have a choice and have to give him a shot” Rajat whispered back.

The room had little space and they took their seats filling the entire room. Jim keyed in some commands. The screen displayed a pop up asking for the password. Jim gave the keyboard to Deepinder and turned back. Deepinder looked at Rajat and he nodded. He typed in the password.

Jim was executing a few more commands and was also explaining what he was about to do as Deepinder and Rajat kept a close eye on him. He then decrypted the AI code and revealed the hidden code. Rajat studied the code.

“I can’t believe that you really did it” Rajat said with mixed emotions of wonder and fear. Jim didn’t mind.

“I am shutting it down” Jim said and typed the command. To the surprise of the three, the AI restarted itself. Jim stared at the screen blankly.

“It didn’t work” Rajat gasped.

“If I can’t shut it down, then I will have to wipe it”

“But this can be a breakthrough in the field of AI!” Rajat said.

“I’m sorry Rajat, I got to take the hard call” Jim said as he wiped his code forever from memory. He asked Rajat to reboot all systems and check if the AI still persisted.

“It’s gone” Rajat declared and the three shook hands.

“Guess, I would have to make up something to answer the press” Deepinder sighed.

“It’s my mistake. I must be held accountable and guess you have to fire me.” Jim said.

“I am… not firing you Jim, not today” Deepinder said.

“Then, I had to quit myself” Jim smiled as he held his hand out for Deepinder to shake. Deepinder shook his hand hesitantly. Then the three left having no idea about how this event is going to change the cyber laws.

Jomato Data Centre, North Carolina, USA

Max was working overtime. He sat back stretching his arms yawning. His monitor went blank suddenly. Max leaned front to the monitor and checked the cables. The monitor came back to life. Max stared at the black screen with the text “Hi this is Sam! Who are you and where am I?”