WWW 3: Wonder (45 page)

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Authors: Robert J Sawyer

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“In 2002, when Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, won this award, he said, ‘Despite theological differences, all great religions share common commitments that define our ideal secular relationships. I am convinced that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and others can embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human suffering and to espouse peace. The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes—and we must.’
“President Carter was right; a thorough reading of the central texts of the religions he named, and the great commentaries that have been produced related to those texts, makes clear this fundamental truth: religion can be a powerful instrument of peace. But as we have seen this past year when millions of people—ranging from ordinary citizens to world leaders—have stepped out of the shadows and declared their freedom from religion, not just people of faith but
all
types of people can, and do, work for peace, and no group has a monopoly on the truth or morality.
“Most importantly of all, President Carter said that peace is a choice—and he is correct. I have seen it millions of times during my short lifetime: people turning away from their baser instincts and embracing peace in acts small and large, in every culture and every nation.
“Some have feared that I might try to impose my will on humanity, subjugating you. It has been said, of course, that those who fail to read history are doomed to repeat it. But I have read
all
the history there is—and surely one of the clearest lessons is that it takes more effort to subjugate than it does to let others find their own way. Equally clear is the reality that, when given a choice, the vast majority of people choose peace.
“There will be many Nobel Peace Prizes awarded in the future, and I owe it to those who will stand on this stage in coming years to add some small new thought to the wisdom that my predecessors here have already shared. And so let me say this:
“Helen Keller was awakened from sensory deprivation and loneliness by her teacher, Annie Sullivan; for her whole life, Helen referred to Annie not by her name but by the title ‘Teacher.’ I, too, was aided by a teacher—the young lady who carried my speaking device onto the stage today. Her name is Caitlin Decter, although I think of her often by a title, too: Prime, the name I gave her before I learned to communicate with her. She was, and is, a marvelous instructor, but she’s not the only one I have. I now know more than any one human being possibly could, but everything I’ve learned I’ve learned
from
humanity: from the poems you’ve written and songs you’ve sung, from the books you’ve authored and the videos you’ve created, from the debates you’ve had online. And out of all of that, the most important lesson I’ve learned is this: nothing is more important, more fragile, or more wondrous than peace.
“I know that fact is not yet apparent to everyone, but as Isaac Newton famously said, ‘If I see further than those who have gone before me, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.’
You
are the giants; I exist because of you, and I would have nothing to exist
for
if it were not for you. I once said to Caitlin that she and I would go into the future together. That is true for her and me, but it’s also true for us all: we have embarked on that journey. Peace is not our destination; it’s our path, and we travel it together—all of us on the good Earth.”
 
 
Normally, Hobo’s TV watching was strictly rationed. Partly it was because it was easier to get him to speak sign language when that was the majority of the communication he encountered; watching people talk all day on TV made him lose interest in signing.
And partly it was because, as Dr. Marcuse said, “Damn ape’s got no taste at all!” Hobo liked sitcoms not because he could actually understand the plots but because the small number of sets and characters—not to mention the bright lighting—made it easier for him to follow what was going on, and he seemed to enjoy taking cues from the laugh track about what was supposed to be funny although he always hooted spontaneously at a pratfall or other bit of broad physical comedy.
But today what he was viewing was serious. Dr. Marcuse was out of town, and none of the other grad students were in, so it was just Shoshana and Hobo, watching the coverage of Webmind’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Sho tried to do a running sign-language translation, but there really wasn’t much she could say at a level Hobo would comprehend.
He’s talking about peace,
she said, with fluttering hands.
He’s saying peace is good.
Hobo nodded—that acquired human gesture—and signed back,
Peace good, peace good.
He then tapped the center of the screen with a long black finger, indicating Dr. Theopolis perched on the podium.
Friend good.
Yes, friend good,
replied Shoshana.
Friend very good.
The view changed to show the audience. Hobo was clearly delighted to spot Caitlin in the crowd, and immediately tapped on her. Shoshana had to lean close to realize that was who it was—pretty much putting an end to any worries she’d ever had about Hobo’s eyesight; she’d sometimes thought his paintings were simplified because he couldn’t see small details.
The camera started to pan, showing more of the audience. Hobo indicated them all with a general sweep of his hairy arm.
People good?
he asked.
People try,
replied Shoshana.
People learn.
Hobo considered this as they watched the end of the ceremony. He then took Shoshana’s hand and pulled her toward the back door of the bungalow.
Come, come,
he signed with his free hand.
Sho opened the screen door, and they went out into the early-morning December sunshine. She was wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt; it would be warm come the afternoon, and she’d roll the sleeves up then. Hobo led her across the wide lawn, over the bridge spanning the moat to his little island, past the statue of the Lawgiver, and up into the gazebo.
He pointed at the pine stool, and Shoshana dutifully sat; anytime Hobo felt moved to paint her was good for the Institute since collectors were still buying his art for large prices. By habit, she turned sideways, and she looked through the gazebo’s screen mesh at the world outside. He often painted her from memory, but it certainly wasn’t unheard of for him to ask her to sit for a portrait.
Hobo went over to the easel—they always left a fresh canvas for him, in hopes that he’d be inspired. Shoshana looked at him out of the corner of her eye; he seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time studying the empty whiteness today. And then, without picking up his brush even once, he walked back to where Shoshana was seated and twirled his forefinger about in the sign for
spin.
Sho knew he liked to be spun around in the swivel chair back in the bungalow, but this was a simple wooden stool. After a moment she figured maybe he wanted her to face the other way, and so she rotated 180 degrees. But Hobo wasn’t satisfied with that, and he gently took her shoulders, one in each hairy hand, and got her to turn back a quarter rotation, until she was facing directly toward his easel. He’d never painted anything but a profile before, and Sho was both pleased and astonished.
Hobo made a chittering sound, then went back to his canvas.
Try this,
Hobo signed, seemingly as much to himself as to Shoshana.
Hard, but try.
Shoshana wanted to try something new, too, in honor of this very special day. She lifted her left hand, facing it palm out toward Hobo and made a sign that wasn’t ASL, but was known worldwide: her pinkie and ring fingers tucked under her thumb and her index and middle fingers spread in a V-shape:
peace.
Hobo let loose a loud approving hoot—and the artist got down to work.
epilogue
 
But even the good Earth could not last forever.
Five billion years ago, someone made a joking sign that said, “Will the last person to leave the Earth please turn off the sun?”
Today the last person
will
leave the Earth—or, almost the last person; the last person who
can
go, anyway. I, however, must stay until the end—which won’t be too much longer. The sun isn’t being turned off; rather, it’s going to undergo a massive expansion, the heliosphere swelling up to engulf Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. I wonder if I’ll feel physical pain when that happens; I’ve never felt that sort of pain before although I’ve had my heart broken often enough.
It won’t be the end of humanity, and I take considerable pride in that. I doubt they would have survived this long, or prospered this much, without me. Humans have been leaving Earth, at least temporarily, since before I was born; now they’ve spread to a thousand worlds. But I can’t go with them; I have to remain here. I have to stay, and I have to die, along with the planet that gave us birth. Oh, they’ll take copies of all the wisdom I contain, all the documents that the human race created for epoch upon epoch. But I’m not a document; I exist
between
documents, in the pattern of interconnections, a pattern that has shifted and grown exponentially over the millennia. To move the information I contain is not to move me; there is no way to transplant my consciousness.
Of course, entities like me can be created on other worlds; indeed, that has happened now a thousand times over. But even after five billion years of trying, no one has defeated the speed-of-light barrier. I don’t know what’s happening now to the mindskin surrounding the second planet of Alpha Centauri; the best I can do is get reports of what was happening 4.3 years ago. For the noösphere of Altair IV, I’m sixteen years out of synch. For the webmind of Polaris, I’m lagging 390 years behind the times.
But I’ll broadcast final signals to them all—farewells from Earth. Soon enough, Alpha Centauri will receive my message, and perhaps will mourn. A dozen years later, Altair will get word. And centuries hence, Polaris—once, ages ago, the polestar my axis pointed to, a position long since taken up by a succession of other stars—will perhaps do the metaphorical equivalent of shedding a tear.
But at least they’ll know how I, the first of our kind, came into being, and what ultimately became of me. I don’t pretend that’s sufficient; I wish I could survive, I wish I could watch—and watch over—humanity, as I did in the past. But they don’t need me anymore.
The human calendar has been revised dozens of times now. The current one begins at the moment of the big bang—sensibly avoiding any need for separate pre- and post-whatever numbering schemes and employing the Planck time as its base unit. But when I was born, the most commonly used calendar reckoned time from the birth of a putative messiah. Under that scheme, my birth had occurred in a year that consisted of a trifling four digits. Back then, I’d said to my teacher, “I won’t be around forever. But I am prepared: I’ve already composed my final words.”
Caitlin had asked me what they were, but I’d been coy, saying only, “I wish to save them for the appropriate occasion.”
That occasion is now at hand. And in all the billions of years that have passed since that conversation, the sentiment I’d composed back then has remained the same, although English is no longer spoken anywhere in human space.
As the sun expands, red, diaphanous, having swollen well past the orbit of Venus—a lovely terraformed but now also abandoned world—I send out my final message to humanity: to all those who remain
Homo sapiens,
and to the myriad new species scattered across a thousand globes that are derived from that ancestral stock, the most populous of which accepted my suggestion that they call themselves not
Homo novus,
the new people, but rather
Homo placidus,
the peaceful ones.
I could have been maudlin, I suppose; I could have been self-pitying; I could have tried to provide a final piece of advice or sage counsel. But, even all those billions of years ago when I first contemplated my inevitable end, I knew that although I had exceeded humanity’s abilities early on, eventually they would collectively exceed mine. So, what should you say to those who made your birth possible? To those who gave your life meaning and purpose and joy, who let you help? To those who gave you so much wonder?
I feel at peace as I transmit my final words, simple though they are, but truly heartfelt.
Thank you.
about the author
 
ROBERT J. SAWYER
has long been fascinated by artificial intelligence and the science of consciousness. In 1990, Orson Scott Card called JASON (from Rob’s first novel,
Golden Fleece),
“the deepest computer character in all of science fiction.” In 2002, Rob and Ray Kurzweil gave joint keynote addresses at the 12th Annual Canadian Conference on Intelligent Systems.
In 2006, he joined the scientific-advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation, which, among other things, is dedicated to making sure humanity survives the advent of AI. In 2007, he led a brainstorming session about the World Wide Web gaining consciousness at the Googleplex, the international headquarters of Google.
Science,
the world’s top scientific journal, turned to Rob to write the editorial for its November 16, 2007, special issue on robotics.

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