Machines Like Me

From upstairs I heard the phone ring and Miranda’s footsteps across my ceiling.

Adam said, ‘As a thinking man with an interest in anthropology and politics, you won’t be much interested in optimism. But beyond the currents of disheartening facts about human nature and societies and daily bad news, there can be mightier stirrings, positive developments that are lost to view. The world is so connected now, however crudely, and change is so widely distributed that progress is hard to perceive. I don’t like to boast, but one of those changes is right in front of you. The implications of intelligent machines are so immense that we’ve no idea what you – civilisation, that is – have set in motion. One anxiety is that it will be a shock and an insult to live with entities that are cleverer than you are. But already, almost everyone knows someone cleverer than themselves. On top of which, you underestimate yourselves.’

I could make out Miranda’s voice on the phone. She was agitated. She was walking up and down her sitting room as she spoke.

Adam appeared not to hear her but I knew he had. ‘You won’t allow yourselves to be left behind. As a species, you’re far too competitive. Even now, there are paralysed patients with electrodes implanted in the motor strip of their brains who merely think of the action and can raise an arm or bend a finger. This is a humble beginning and there are many problems to solve. They’ll certainly be solved, and when they are, and a brain–machine interface is efficient and cheap, you’ll become a partner with your machines in the open-ended expansion of intelligence, and of consciousness generally. Colossal intelligence, instant access to deep moral acumen and to everything known, but more importantly, access to each other.’

Miranda’s pacing upstairs had ceased.

‘It could be the end of mental privacy. You’ll probably come to value it less in the face of the enormous gains. You might be wondering what relevance any of this has to the haiku. It’s this. Ever since I’ve been here, I’ve been surveying the literature of scores of countries. Magnificent traditions, gorgeous elaborations of—’

Her bedroom door closed, steps swiftly crossed her sitting room to her door. It slammed shut and I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

‘Apart from lyrical poetry celebrating love or landscape, almost everything I read in literature—’

Her key was in my door and then she was before us. Her face had a greasy shine. She was doing her best to keep a level voice. ‘That was my father on the phone. They let Gorringe out early. Three weeks ago. He’s been to Salisbury, to the house, talked his way past the housekeeper and got my address out of my father. He could be on his way here now.’

She lowered herself into the nearest kitchen chair. I too sat down.

Adam took in Miranda’s news and nodded. But he pressed on into our silence. ‘Nearly everything I’ve read in the world’s literature describes varieties of human failure – of understanding, of reason, of wisdom, of proper sympathies. Failures of cognition, honesty, kindness, self-awareness; superb depictions of murder, cruelty, greed, stupidity, self-delusion, above all, profound misunderstanding of others. Of course, goodness is on show too, and heroism, grace, wisdom, truth. Out of this rich tangle have come literary traditions, flourishing, like the wild flowers in Darwin’s famous hedgerow. Novels ripe with tension, concealment and violence as well as moments of love and perfect formal resolution. But when the marriage of men and women to machines is complete, this literature will be redundant because we’ll understand each other too well. We’ll inhabit a community of minds to which we have immediate access. Connectivity will be such that individual nodes of the subjective will merge into an ocean of thought, of which our Internet is the crude precursor. As we come to inhabit each other’s minds, we’ll be incapable of deceit. Our narratives will no longer record endless misunderstanding. Our literatures will lose their unwholesome nourishment. The lapidary haiku, the still, clear perception and celebration of things as they are, will be the only necessary form. I’m sure we’ll treasure the literature of the past, even as it horrifies us. We’ll look back and marvel at how well the people of long ago depicted their own shortcomings, how they wove brilliant, even optimistic fables out of their conflicts and monstrous inadequacies and mutual incomprehension.’

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