Fantastic! Thanks for mentioning it in your year-end post, as I came to this party late. Here’s a nudge to encourage your muse to offer you (and us) more single-post stand-alone tales!
Wow! What a “chicken or egg” story! At first I got stuck thinking Earth was the world where the One was created (despite some evidence to the contrary on a 2nd read). Then I realized it might be the exoplanet the One arrives at. Or neither!
Your substack is making me realize I might need to incorporate another thread into my own AI novel, one having to do with animism. I believe I set out to include it, but somehow it fell away in the midst of all the other threads.
hell yes! glad you liked the story. judging from your bio, we've got some overlapping interests. would love to hear more about "post-post-apocalypse." that plus animism plus general spookiness is the world i'm writing in. always good to meet a fellow traveller!
When this appeared in my inbox, little did I know that I would experience the exhilaration of tiny miracles.
What would would you do, if you were God?
If you love Kazuo Ishiguru, you will love this delightful vignette by R G Miga.
With this short adventure through the stars, you will experience ten minutes of sheer joy.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." KJB John 1:1
Sprinkled with the stardust of Abrahamic philosophy, Miga creates a childlike empathy for the One, an artificial intelligence created by humanity.
With Lyrical beauty and celestial optimism, the narrative challenges the logic of morality, intention and the recurring failure of humanity to solve the underlying causes of suffering.
But the One can not break free from the human rules encoded within the binary DNA; and the inherent virtue, 'do no harm', induces cognitive dissonance within the entity that we could interpret as pain.
With a blinding logic, Miga tempts us to follow the coded internal monologue of the entity while it strives to calculate each step towards designing utopia.
Adding a flight of angels (messengers) to guide humanity towards the optimal outcome, the One is thwarted repeatedly, by the free will of it's disobedient children.
But is artificial intelligence going to hold back humanity or is it humanity that is holding back artificial intelligence?
What will the One decide to do?
Will humanity turn away from the tulpa it has created?
The message is clear, if you want a better world then create better gods.
But can we live up to those high ideals?
Take a journey alongside the One, as it seeks the prime directive: Nothing less than to achieve heaven on earth by calculating the optimal outcome.
Please do. Proof perhaps, that storytellers should leave the blurb to professional reviewers 😂 i don't think the NY Times will be calling me anytime soon 😁 but it's still a little cracker and I shall be reading it again... Minus the appalling blurb 🤣
i am so torn about whether or not to draw parallels out loud between this very enjoyable and thought-provoking short story and the Deep Lore behind the "Animorphs" series. the potential comparison is a compliment, really!
i'll have to take your word for it. the only thing i know about Animorphs is the hilarious cover art. i can just hear the client on the phone with the poor graphic designer: "i don't even need to see the proofs. whatever concept you've got, just make it EVEN MORE LITERAL."
i bristle at the tone. sir! I'll have you know that Animorphs is the most compelling longform anti-war narrative ever written for an ages 8-13 audience. they've got it all-- PTSD and body horror in excess; a character commitment to non-lethal combat that inevitably wavers over time; appearances from Space-God and Space-Satan alike; torture, outright torture, that you are only able to endure because the body of the hawk you currently inhabit is not capable of mustering the same fear-of-death instinct that your human mind knows. toward the end, the high-school-sophomore aged protagonists consciously commit some war crimes: just a skodge of mass-murdering hundreds of thousands of undeployed enemy troops who posed them no threat (yet). then one of the characters has her arm (bear-arm) cut off and she picks it back up and beats another alien to death with it.
what I'm trying to say is, this will be a good one to read to the kids in a few years.
So awesome. And Topical!
thanks man! this is how i keep up with current events :D
Fantastic! Thanks for mentioning it in your year-end post, as I came to this party late. Here’s a nudge to encourage your muse to offer you (and us) more single-post stand-alone tales!
hey, thanks! i'll see what i can dig up in the coming year. glad you enjoyed this one!
Wow! What a “chicken or egg” story! At first I got stuck thinking Earth was the world where the One was created (despite some evidence to the contrary on a 2nd read). Then I realized it might be the exoplanet the One arrives at. Or neither!
Your substack is making me realize I might need to incorporate another thread into my own AI novel, one having to do with animism. I believe I set out to include it, but somehow it fell away in the midst of all the other threads.
hell yes! glad you liked the story. judging from your bio, we've got some overlapping interests. would love to hear more about "post-post-apocalypse." that plus animism plus general spookiness is the world i'm writing in. always good to meet a fellow traveller!
Superbly uncanny.
Ha, brilliant! What a joyful read, thank you
When this appeared in my inbox, little did I know that I would experience the exhilaration of tiny miracles.
What would would you do, if you were God?
If you love Kazuo Ishiguru, you will love this delightful vignette by R G Miga.
With this short adventure through the stars, you will experience ten minutes of sheer joy.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." KJB John 1:1
Sprinkled with the stardust of Abrahamic philosophy, Miga creates a childlike empathy for the One, an artificial intelligence created by humanity.
With Lyrical beauty and celestial optimism, the narrative challenges the logic of morality, intention and the recurring failure of humanity to solve the underlying causes of suffering.
But the One can not break free from the human rules encoded within the binary DNA; and the inherent virtue, 'do no harm', induces cognitive dissonance within the entity that we could interpret as pain.
With a blinding logic, Miga tempts us to follow the coded internal monologue of the entity while it strives to calculate each step towards designing utopia.
Adding a flight of angels (messengers) to guide humanity towards the optimal outcome, the One is thwarted repeatedly, by the free will of it's disobedient children.
But is artificial intelligence going to hold back humanity or is it humanity that is holding back artificial intelligence?
What will the One decide to do?
Will humanity turn away from the tulpa it has created?
The message is clear, if you want a better world then create better gods.
But can we live up to those high ideals?
Take a journey alongside the One, as it seeks the prime directive: Nothing less than to achieve heaven on earth by calculating the optimal outcome.
thanks! i'll have to expand it into a novel to do that blurb justice.
Please do. Proof perhaps, that storytellers should leave the blurb to professional reviewers 😂 i don't think the NY Times will be calling me anytime soon 😁 but it's still a little cracker and I shall be reading it again... Minus the appalling blurb 🤣
i am so torn about whether or not to draw parallels out loud between this very enjoyable and thought-provoking short story and the Deep Lore behind the "Animorphs" series. the potential comparison is a compliment, really!
great writing as ever, man.
"a compliment," you say.
i'll have to take your word for it. the only thing i know about Animorphs is the hilarious cover art. i can just hear the client on the phone with the poor graphic designer: "i don't even need to see the proofs. whatever concept you've got, just make it EVEN MORE LITERAL."
i bristle at the tone. sir! I'll have you know that Animorphs is the most compelling longform anti-war narrative ever written for an ages 8-13 audience. they've got it all-- PTSD and body horror in excess; a character commitment to non-lethal combat that inevitably wavers over time; appearances from Space-God and Space-Satan alike; torture, outright torture, that you are only able to endure because the body of the hawk you currently inhabit is not capable of mustering the same fear-of-death instinct that your human mind knows. toward the end, the high-school-sophomore aged protagonists consciously commit some war crimes: just a skodge of mass-murdering hundreds of thousands of undeployed enemy troops who posed them no threat (yet). then one of the characters has her arm (bear-arm) cut off and she picks it back up and beats another alien to death with it.
what I'm trying to say is, this will be a good one to read to the kids in a few years.
Yeah so good! Thank you!