The Train Station at Lillehammer

The train station in Lillehammer has a pleasant cafe with an open fireplace. A gas fireplace, admittedly, but in a good armchair by the fire with a cup of coffee and a Norwegian waffle, you can really cozy up while waiting for the train. You may almost want to see the delayed.

An afternoon last winter I sat by the fire and talked to Fredrik. Fredrik Gr?nnings?ter is a journalist in the Gudbrandsdal Dagningen, a high quality regional newspaper better known by its acronym GD. And Frederick was curious, we talked about all sorts of things, from books and poetry to computers. The result was a portrait interview GD's Saturday Magazine. Fredrik has given me permission to share it.

A morning in Oslo in the near future: "Time to wake up, Morten. The comfortable voice of Siri 4.5 fills the bedroom of Morten Irgens. The developers at Apple emphasized that the voice should have a soft but concise diction. While Siri speaks, the rest of the room wakes up - the curtains draw back and the espresso machine start to hum.

"You have two appointments today: At tenAM you're meeting commander Kurt Pedersen of the Norwegian Cyber Defence at J?rstadmoen to plan the tenth anniversary of CCIS. You should get the 8:30AM Inter City train to Lillehammer from Oslo S. And you will have dinner with Florissa at 7PM at the Caribbean restaurant Lemon Grass at Karl Johan."

Siri adds, almost teasingly: "The last is probably the most important. Shall I make arrangements for your trip now?"

In the 1999 movie "The Matrix", the protagonist Neo is given the choice between eating a red or a blue pill. The red pill will free his mind from the world's established truths, however uncomfortable they may be. The blue pill lets you live in blissful ignorance. Dean and Vice Rector at Gj?vik University College (GUC), Morten Irgens, has probably chewed red pills like candy since his teens.

And these days he is working with Norway's Cyber Defence on establishing what will become one of Europe's leading centers for research in computer security. The plan include 80 employees and 15 new professorships. It is a large-scale joint effort between the military, police, PST, industry and academia that places this region at the forefront of the post Snowden wave.

The new center has the working title Center for Cyber and information Security - or just CCIS.

- Allow me to hijack this interview a little bit, says Irgens, after a quick "hello" and leans back a bit self-satisfied in his tailored suit. It's such a suit that bohemian, well-mannered foreign businessmen would were to conferences. You know, sharp and proper, but with room for a daring tie.

- Why are you paying my salary? he asks rhetorically, but has the answer ready:

- There are two reasons. The first reason has something to do with cultural heritage. But the more important reason is that you pay me because you are worried about the future of your children. It's that simple.

He points out that most new students this year will retire in 2060.

- We can hardly imagine what they will go through the next 46 years. As a society, we are facing tremendous challenges. And the only way we can meet these challenges is by building knowledge and skills. Thus it becomes clear what my mission is, namely to build that knowledge and research.

When Irgens came to Gj?vik in 2009, he saw that the college had a large and strong research team in cyber security and that the military's engineering school close by in Lillehammer was turning into a Cyber Defence University College. And since 2011, Irgens has shuttled between Norway's ministries and agencies to raise funds for establishing a comprehensive cyber security centre.

Da Irgens kom til Gj?vik i 2009 s? han at h?gskolen hadde et stort fagmilj? innen cybersikkerhet. Samtidig hadde Forsvaret sin ingeni?rskole p? J?rstadmoen. Siden 2011 har dekanen g?tt i skytteltrafikk i nasjonens departementer og etater for ? skaffe finansiering til senteret.

- How vulnerable are we? Why do we need CCIS?

- We do not know the answer and we do not want to know the answer. Irgens pauses for a moment, looks around the café, and then waves his hand in a all-encompassing movement.

- Having this conversation is made possible by information and communication technology, better known as ICT. The indoor lightning, the traffic lights outside, the food distribution, our bank accounts, cars, phones. Everything is digitalized! We passed the "point of no return" ten years ago.

- Point of no return? - Yes, ten years ago we could still have gone back to old solutions. Today we can not. Or rather, it would take a long time and break our economoy.

Irgens illustrates how vulnerable we are:

- Last year there were 20,000 pickpockets in Norway. During the same period, an estimated 60,000 ID thefts led to financial losses. And there is not a crime today that does not leave an electronic trail in one way or another. Developments are moving fast, and we just try to keep up.

The University of Oslo quit programming with punch cards just before Morten Irgens began there in 1980, a time when electronic data processing (EDB) was seen as science fiction, and computer science was as abstract as evocation.

When he started, he hardly knew what computer science was, but Irgens has a knack about the future. While growing up in Hov by Randsfjorden he was a bookworm with a taste for science fiction.

- Tor ?ge Bringsv?rd and Jon Bing were fabulous. The book "Those with both feet on the ground stand still" is Bringsv?rd at his very best!

Though, the technology at that time was far from what Irgens found in his books:

- It was just frustrating. Too little and too cumbersome, too complicated and not very elegant. Although we did not know how well a program could be, we knew that what we had was not good enough. We were frustrated that the commercial products did not meet the promises of the current technologies.

The possibilities were mostly ideas in popular culture. Philip K. Dick wrote the book "Do Androids Dream About Electric Sheep? " as early as 1968, later spawning the cult film "Blade Runner." "G?del, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter was also groundbreaking when it came out in -79 and is one of Irgens' favorites. And in 1984, William Gibson envisioned a worldwide computer network in "Neuromancer".

- Think about it, Gibson wrote the book on a typewriter. It's amazing.

Irgens has become 53 years, but has a timeless aura. With a computer science degree in the 80's, his life has been defined by technology. Among other things, as a programmer and as a researcher in artificial intelligence. In 1995, after working for a while at SINTEF and teaching at Portland State University, Irgens began his Ph.D. in Vancouver, British Columbia

- My doctorate was in many ways a study of how to automate formal logic, which is relevant for some artificial intelligence research. If you create a system that can infer new knowledge from old, a system that can reason, then you can discuss it, he explains, and illustrates eagerly:

- Each neuron in your brain has a relatively simple function. It can be replaced by a chip that does the same. The question is whether you will notice a difference. I argue that in principle you won't. When people ask me if I believe machines could become able to think, I always answer yes. Because I am a machine.

Irgens financed the first years of his PhD studies himself, and consequently he was, by his own words, flat broke. It was then good with a better half with a diplomat's salary. But so far away. She lived in Brussels, he lived in Vancouver.

- And now, every Friday, when I return to Oslo from Gj?vik, my wife Florissa is waiting for me on the platform. I owe her a lot.

They married in Brussels in 1997, when she was a diplomat from the Dominican Republic. When her assignment ended, and Irgens also had completed his doctorate, they started to look for work.

- We started looking for work on the U.S: East Coast, but the sudden dotcom crisis made most companies stop hiring. The solution for the couple was to start a software company, with products based on technologies Irgens studied in his PhD. The company ended up delivering decision support products to the oil and gas industry.

- But I was still flat broke. Everything we earned went into the business. It grew slowly, and eventually we started making money. But it got to a time when Irgens realised he had been been away from family and friends in Norway for 17 years. In 2009, he headed for Norway and a position as dean at Gj?vik University College. A task he cares for with American enthusiasm. The possibilities for inland academia explodes like a Google search for every little cues he gets

There is a great international potential in the axis between Lillehammer University College, the Norwegian Cyber Defence in Lillehammer, and Gj?vik University College.

- GUC complements LUC almost perfect. For example, the game technology expertise at GUC and the artistic skills at Norway's National Film School's provide a unique expertise and a basis for a national center for game development. And then we connect this with the need for "serious games" in the Norwegian military.

Yesterday's ideas have become today's reality.

- I have wanted this for 20 years. Irgens shows off his smartphone - one of the latest Iphone models.

- We knew that we one day would see this, but not exactly it would be manifested how. The Newton, Apple's first attempt at a personal digital assistant, arrived as early as in 1993. I think that phones in the future will be more like assistants to talk to. Organizing your entire day.

The technology behind voice recognition system for iPhone is Norwegian and called Siri, says Irgens excited. In the advertisement it says that she understands what you mean and will talk back.

- Call Florissa! Florissa!, he yelled into the phone. Nothing happens.

- Ha, ha, ha, it doesn't work now.

When people ask me whether machines can think, I answer always yes. Because I am a machine.

Text & Photo: Fredrik Gr?nnings?ter
Saturday, November 9, 2013, Gudbrandsd?len Dagningen, PORTRETTET L?RDAGSMAGASIN.
(C) Fredrik Gr?nnings?ter 2013