“How long have you worked at Tidalwaiv?”
“Eleven years.”
“And how old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Is Tidalwaiv the only place you’ve worked since finishing school?”
“It is, yes.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Stanford.”
“Are you married?”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything, but no, I’m not married.”
“Now, were you a coder on Project Clair?”
“I was, yes.”
“For how long?”
“Almost seven years.”
“Was that from the inception of the project?”
“No, I came in after. The architecture was already built, and I started during the programming phase.”
“Is that also known as the training phase?”
“Some people call it that. Training and testing.”
“Now, Project Clair continues, correct? It never stops.”
“It continues to be monitored and maintained, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s exactly what I mean. But you are not part of Project Clair anymore, correct?”
“Correct again. It’s like you’re asking questions you already know the answers to.”
He smiled and I smiled back. If what I had asked had already gotten under his skin, then Whittaker was in for a long day. I checked the jury to make sure they were all paying attention. Only one juror had his head down, and that was because he was writing something in his notebook. Hopefully it was a note on his negative impression of Whittaker.
I turned back to the witness, ready to take things up a notch.
“Mr. Whittaker, why were you removed from Project Clair after seven years?”
“I wasn’t removed, I was transferred to another project where coders were needed.”
“So it was a promotion?”
“It was a lateral move but a more important project.”
“Really? What was more important than an AI companion being programmed for children?”
“I mean it was financially more important to the company.”
