We Were Promised Death

AI developers are so sure their products are going to destroy humanity in the next few years, when this could all be solved with better programming and more guardrails.  Isaac Asimov attempted to solve this problem long ago, and his solution is still one of the best in popular imagination. 

I have no respect for anyone building a bomb as fast and as recklessly as they can, poisoning everything on Earth, just because there are a lot of stories where the human race is destroyed by a bomb.  Those stories don’t have to dictate our future, just because the developers can’t imagine a safe solution (or one where we don’t have the bomb at all).

The Journey

My therapist shared this poem with me today, and it really resonated with me.  There are some things you have to do for yourself, because you are the only one who will understand.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.