The Geometry of Artificial Intelligence: Genesis or Genocide

The Geometry of Artificial Intelligence: Genesis or Genocide

Robert Witmer

Humankind’s forms of belief formulate themselves as circles or straight lines.
— Elias Canetti

God knew without death
we would grow
bored with life
did He know
we would kill
the need for life

I. The Serpent’s Version

Of course there are other ways to tell the story. According to one understanding of reincarnation, we could return as serpents. Which would create a particularly interesting ethical conundrum. Imagine a snake dimly aware of its possibilities for karmic advancement. Do I screw Eve? Do I screw her over? Or do I turn the tide on creation and tell her that, as far as I know, the apples are tainted, probably sprayed with chemicals to make them last longer on the shelves, a reasonable way of increasing profits for the wealthy.

Would that pit reason against morality, and perhaps mortality? Of course in this scenario death does not really exist, for the Wheel of Life, however grim its long-term prospects, just keeps turning, something like car tires in a Siberian ice storm. Which, in a view I humbly favor, leaves everything to Nature. We are the tree. And God? Well. That’s a deep question.

II. Humpty Dumpty, or Why I Stopped Listening to the Radio

It seems like my thoughts have entered other minds, where they form new imaginations, of things I no longer remember. I used to have ideas. Now they have me. The egg of the world, a vault in space, fertility, dancing with waves, the form of a dove. Hatching new technologies. Golden resurrections from the labyrinth of death. Tut-tut, Akhenaten, tut-tut.

The froth on our daydreams is a swan in disguise. The river runs by and you dive in or you build a bridge. Like the internet. Net as bridge. The fly to a spider’s belly. The maggot to a fly. Ear pods. Tiny whales sounding. His Master’s Voice. Re-mastered and streamed.

Now we think together with ourselves. No one’s patsy. Stand pat. Blackjack. Nightshade. Our original tongue. Conveyed from the person to the soul of a saint.

III. The Parson’s Tale

Foolproof they said. Fail-safe. And then some powdered Pierrot in a cockscomb dressed in motley walks through the door reciting passages from King Lear. The jig is up. No further proof needed.

We burned the photographs, but the negatives are in a safe in a safe house somewhere out in the sticks. Who knew? CCTV, I guess. The eye in the sky. All-seeing providence, like the one-dollar bill. We need not reason our needs. We are cared for by the system. Supply and demand. Caveat emptor. Planned obsolescence.

Everything changes. Another place, another time. We were lovers then, and the world was our oyster. We had everything, but you wanted a pearl necklace. The memory of a squirrel. A hollow tree stuffed with nuts no one remembers. Dormant seeds, fruitless relationships, the bellies of baby squirrels.

To crawl unburdened to that undiscovered country — unfulfilled. All those paintings Leonardo planned, his flying machine, the Vitruvian Man in a jigsaw puzzle. Trademarked. I remember when the barcode was “no politics, no religion.” Scan that. No need to read the fine print. The check’s in the mail.

And those meddlesome chickens. Here they come. Home to roost.

IV. Living on Line

A young man signed a contract on TV. He came out of nowhere, the announcer said. Out of nowhere, I thought. I suppose that’s where we all come from. Somewhere in the deep unconscious universal mind. Nowheresville. Where we are brothers and sisters. Comrades in arms. Each a voice in the harmony of humankind, justly appeared on the scene like a self-indulgent actor hamming his lines for the camera.

So taken was I with my fraternal meditations I sent the young man a text. Just like I told the cops. Fishing for a few dollars more.

About the Author

Robert Witmer has lived in Japan for more than four decades, where he served as a professor of English at Sophia University until his retirement. His poetry and prose have appeared in journals worldwide, and his haiku have earned awards from the Museum of Haiku Literature, the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Competition, and the British Haiku Society. He is the author of Finding a Way and Serendipity.