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“You’re obviously quite intelligent, Adam. How much do you know about the research being done in your father’s lab?”
    Alarm bells start ringing in my head. The research Dad does for the Army is classified TS/NOFORN—Top Secret, No Foreign Nationals. Dad’s always careful not to reveal details about his projects, no matter how much I pester him. But now it sounds like Peterson is trying to find out if Dad is giving away any secrets.
    â€œHe doesn’t tell me much,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I know he’s trying to develop advanced artificial-intelligence programs. Programs that can answer questions and make logical decisions in the same way people do. But that’s all I know. He’s very tight-lipped.”
    I glance at Dad again to see if I said the right thing. His face is still unreadable.
    Colonel Peterson keeps his eyes on me. “Your father’s too modest. His research group has made tremendous progress.” He points at Dad’s server computers, neatly stacked in a steel rack against the wall. Next to the rack is a tank of super-cold liquid nitrogen, which Dad sprays on the circuits of his ultra-fast computers to keep them from overheating. “Tom realized that if we wanted to develop better software for artificial intelligence, we needed to design better hardware first. So his group introduced a whole new class of microcircuits, what we call ‘neuromorphic electronics.’ Basically, they’re circuits that imitate the nerve cells in the human brain.”
    I nod and say, “Very interesting,” but the truth is, I’m not surprised. Although Dad doesn’t say much about his work, I’ve figured out a few things during my visits to his office. While I was playing with my virtual-reality programs, he was usually studying circuit diagrams. What does surprise me is how willing Peterson is to discuss the classified research. I’d like to see how far he’ll go.
    â€œBut how is that possible?” I ask. “Brain cells are completely different from electronic circuits.”
    Peterson smiles again, and this time it looks less forced. “You’re right. The biggest difference is that brain cells are constantly rewiring themselves. When you remember something, you’re strengthening the connections between cells. But Tom discovered that we can do the same thing with electronics. His group designed circuits that change their wiring based on the amount of electrical current flowing through them. When a neuromorphic chip performs a calculation, the results are recorded in the chip’s wiring. There’s no need to store the data in a separate memory chip. And we can run the calculations at very high speeds by cooling the electronics with liquid nitrogen.”
    This is fascinating. I’m a computer geek, just like my dad, so I love to hear about the latest, fastest hardware. I don’t know why Peterson is telling me all this, and the uncertainty is making me a bit nervous, but at the same time I don’t want him to stop. “And these new circuits are better suited for AI programs?”
    â€œYes, exactly. We’re doing reverse engineering, Adam. We’re studying the brain to see all the processes of human intelligence. And we’re putting those same processes into our machines.” The colonel leans still closer to me. “Your father’s research group is only one part of the effort. The Department of Defense has contracts with labs all over the country. For instance, the Nanotechnology Institute is developing new techniques for scanning the brain. They’ve designed microscopic probes that can be injected right into the skull. The probes spread through the brain tissue so we can observe all the connections between the nerve cells.”
    â€œAmazing,” I mutter, totally sincere. I had no idea that Dad was involved in such an awesome project. Although I’ve