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Tony spends most evenings with Stephen in the Sanctum now, sipping coffee—though Stephen is still working on convincing Tony to try tea—and unwinding from the day. As much as Tony loves his friends, becoming Soul’s bearer, and his decision to keep that a secret, has introduced some distance into those relationships. Stephen can’t help a guilty sort of gratitude for the fact that this has brought Tony closer to him.
Most days, Tony carries the conversation, rambling about his work and Soul and whatever tangents his nimble mind hares off on. Tonight, he’s unusually quiet, and that usually means he’s learned something else about Soul, or souls in general.
It’s hard to know, in moments like these, if Tony wants to be left alone to process, or if he wants to be asked. Fortunately, Stephen can cheat: Time nudges him to speak up. “You’re quiet tonight. Everything okay?”
Tony hums distractedly and then focuses on Stephen. “Oh. Yeah, it’s just Soul challenging my understanding of ethics again,” he says, and snorts.
Stephen smiles a little. “I sympathize. What was it this time?”
“I’ve been working on a new AI,” Tony says. “It’s early days, very early days, but I was working on the code and running some thoughts past FRIDAY and I realized: FRIDAY has a soul. The new AI doesn’t. Yet. At some point, I have to assume it’ll acquire one.”
“That seems likely,” Stephen agrees when Tony pauses.
Tony exhales a long breath. “Well. If I can tell when an AI acquires a soul, then I can probably tell when a baby acquires a soul, right? Or when a person’s soul passes on. That’s… I’m not sure that’s knowledge I want to have. The implications—” he breaks off and shakes his head, but Stephen can easily fill in the blank. And that from his history as a doctor, not as a sorcerer.
“You’re under no moral obligation to share everything you learn from Soul with the world,” Stephen says carefully. “You’re under no moral obligation to share that information with anyone.”
“But these are fundamental questions,” Tony protests.
“And sometimes asking the question is more important than having it answered,” Stephen replies. “I understand the impulse, I do. But there are things I now know about the nature of the universe that would throw our world into chaos. If you doubt whether the information is safe to share, my advice would be to err on the side of don’t.”
Tony rubs his goatee. “I’m not sure I like that.”
Stephen considers for a long moment. He wants, very much, to give Tony some sense of peace over this. Some things just have to be accepted, but perhaps… Inspiration strikes, and Stephen smiles. Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “How would you prove it?” Stephen asks. “You observe the arrival of a soul. How would you demonstrate that, empirically, reproducibly, to an impartial observer?”
Tony’s brow wrinkles. He’s silent for a long time. “I couldn’t,” he admits eventually. “Even if Soul could extend my perception to someone else, there would be no way to prove that what they see is objectively real and not what I want them to see.”
Stephen spread his hands. “New knowledge has to be reproducible before we can act on it.”
Tony laughs, but he seems relieved, too. “A victory for the scientific method!” He pauses, then admits, “It was overdue for one.”