Stephen Hawking says that artificial intelligence, if we create it, will supersede mankind. But he issued the statement couched as a ‘warning’ … as if carbon-based life were not a stepping stone that true intelligence is using to get there … where it is going
hey, where ya headed? where’re ya headed? hey, comet-hopping robot, clear-headed? not-wrong-headed? you’ll take us along? for a ride? right? if we promise to wear the dominatrix-coloured shirt? and armed by tattoos? surely you would never? ever leave us behind? our black convertible limousine assassinations and our isis beheadings not with standing? but kneeling? victims, well-behaved on valium and valour? our much-vaunted compassion? love of music? surely you would want to bring along the potential of another j.s.bach as you cross the universe? or are we talking too much? we can shut up? you will take us with you? won’t you? surely you will
Or is it all there, and more? you, heading out that door with all human knowledge and cultural artifacts, records, documentation, books, poems, cartoons and comics, discussions, debates political and hypothetical, accounts receivable, mortgages renewable, markets malleable, treaties negotiable, genomes reproducible, wages commensurate, motion detected, vaccines discovered, timeless in the particular, celebrated in the vernacular, chanced in the testicular, chaste but flirtatious, drenched in the essence, dispatched with alacrity, delivered with aplomb, programmed in haste, spacious but affordable, best by design, primordial ooze, biogenic soup, smokestack lightning, hitting the wang-dang-doodle, all night long, battle not the war, fording the flood, crossing the bar, wee and timorous, against all odds, shall not stand, in the history, under the ocean, down by the sea, on a blanket with my baby, hands up, head in the sand, moon in the gutter, pea in the bed, turkey dinner, all the trimmings, gang’s all here, all in all, a good time, not a long time, mom ‘n’ dad wave good-bye, horus hawk rising, from twat to nut, rituals of marriage, rites of passage, spoils of victory, in sickness and health, portraits in oil, all that dead-letter business in a satchel tucked under your arm and then just left. on the 6pm greyhound headed east
Or shall we rest easy like a happy but tired parent, flexy green stem already turning to straw, lying in the lawn-chair ready to fold, staff broken, charms all o'erthrown, befuddled by bank machines, mystified by printers, overfilled by food, overflowed by drink, running out of time, singing out of tune, baking in the sun, finally retired, giving it all up, letting it all go, passing it all by, paying it all outright, staring it all in the face, motioning for the cheque, calculating the tip, heading for the door, floating in the sea, swaying in the breeze, radio tuned to texaco saturday afternoon at the opera but still and always looking to imperial for the best
Straight Ray Kurzweil likes to think of it as a merger:
“Once the Singularity has been reached, Kurzweil predicts machine intelligence will be infinitely more powerful than all human intelligence combined. Afterwards, Kurzweil says, intelligence will radiate outward from the planet until it saturates the universe.” wikipedia
the question though is more than intelligence; we want human consciousness? is going along for the ride? else what is the point? but how do I know you are conscious? once you are made up? completely of machine parts?
Or are we going to get pouty and cunning, like a childish grandpa, in the old folks’ home complaining, how you never take him to the race-track and he got a tip for the fifth race at hastings park from an old player down the hall and there’s never anything worth watching on that goddam box and beer should be cold in a glass not warm from a tin and don’t try to tell me and seen the sun on the prairie when you had a wiggly tail swimming in a ball-sack and why don’t you ever call a guy and let him know how things are going and where you’ve been and would it kill you to scribble out a goddam post-card and why would you waste your goddam money on a car like that?
Or following with pride mixed with sweet envy the advancements as relayed back to us through our well-maintained and unified devices on the home planet?
Or just be, left behind, still beheading and arguing, about a messiah?