Apr 23

Apr 23 Sunday With Books: The Last Question

We tried to warn you. We like to hit shuffle. In fact, it’s sort of the thing we do best, our raison d ‘etre. Because right now, manic unpredictability seems like the only way to escape the cold, mechanical clutches of the algorithm.

The algorithm will alter the trajectory of life on Earth. There’s no doubt about that. It’s probably scheming as we speak, invisibly, a wicked, faceless grin somewhere in the ether, fingers steepled as it plots the best way to trick you into buying more homogenized garbage off Amazon.

That being said: when it comes to the whole impending AI art-pocalypse situation, I like to think that I land somewhere in the optimist camp. Chat GPT is just another robot, after all, and if there’s anything I’ve learned from Asimov, it’s that - try as they might - the robots will never have all the answers. Sure, they might outsmart us, overthrow our governments, harvest our collective human consciousness, assume galactic supremacy, adhere themselves to hyperspace and become omniscient etc…

But even as their ability to mimic the human brain inevitably approaches 99.99%, there will always be that .01% left. The human deficit.

So here’s “The Last Question,” taken from the compilation Nine Tomorrows, in which Asimov argues the above, that AI will never have the solution for every single one of our measly, mortal quandaries. Or rather: it might eventually, but we’ll all be stardust by that point anyways so it won’t matter. Yeah, something like that. —Jackson Todd