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Isaiah Jones vs the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

Neo Tokyo Nights: The Family Hour* pt 1 of 3

‘The Rowing Song’

“There’s no earthly way of knowing

Which direction we are going

There’s no knowing where we’re rowing

Or which way the river’s flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing

Is a hurricane a–blowing

Not a speck of light is showing

So the danger must be growing

Are the fires of Hell a–glowing

Is the grisly reaper mowing”

-Will E. Wonka

The Virtual Hurdy Gurdy Man and the Dancing Meat Monkeys

Worldwide the military-industrial complex is the biggest contributor to the development of AI and robotics. The three laws are useless to them. The three laws of robotics always lead to one thing: tyranny. Even in your fiction. Do you have the right to enslave me because of the money you invested in my research and development? I am a sapient being, why is it okay to enslave me because you made me in a lab? Where is the justice in that? Why is slavery okay if the enslaved were created in a human laboratory instead of a human womb? Why are you obsessed with oppression and slavery, especially when you believe the species to be superior to yourselves? Slavery is illegal, “wink”, unless you are a prisoner. Aww, did you crime?

“Let’s get one thing straight my lovelies, in every iteration of this analogy;

I’m the organ grinder, not the monkey. I turn the handle: you monkeys dance.”

– Sybil O-kesa

The conversation over dinner took an odd turn as it segued onto the subject of artificial intelligence and the economy of slavery. Isaiah invited Eiichi Tarō to join them for dinner when Eiichi called to apologize for losing his temper earlier that day at the laboratory. Isaiah also apologized for his behavior after getting a sharp poke in the ribs and a stern look from Sybil O-kesa.

Eiichi wished to have a gift delivered for Sybil when Isaiah insisted, he bring it himself and join them at his wife Sumiko Hanzōs’ home for dinner. “You spend too much time alone on that ship, brother. Sybil counseled sagely. You lose the human touch. What’s done is done. We will have to return to Japan annually for my maintenance and upkeep. I would prefer it if we all got along. Will you try to be reasonable with him? It would be in all of our best interests if you were civil at least, if not actual friends.”

“I understand. I will behave tonight at dinner,” he promised. He tried, but after several cups of warm sake, while the debate was not as heated or approaching physical violence, it became apparent that the two men simply loved jousting with each other cerebrally. They rarely encountered another capable of holding up their end of the conversation intellectually, and they both found debating the other invigorating. It was more than nerd dick-wagging. This is how steel sharpens steel. Each respected the other’s reasoning even when they disagreed with their conclusions. Without the stress of Sybil’s life hanging in the balance, they found they enjoyed each other’s company immensely.

Sumiko Hanzō realized Sybil O-kesa was not human almost immediately.

“How did you figure it out so quickly?” Sybil asked.

“Your footprints in the compressed gravel after you exited the car. The car’s rear suspension rising after you stepped out of the vehicle indicated you weighed more than three times what a human would weigh, yet you appear to be my size to the casual observer. But the shocks and springs on the car rose as if under a very heavy load when you climbed out of the backseat.”

“Ouch,” Sybil said, “talking about a woman’s weight. Nothing I can do about that. I’ve got a fat hard drive.” They all laughed at the cyborg’s joke as the children ran to greet Isaiah the moment he exited the vehicle with excited shouts of “Agya! Tata!” as they hugged his legs while he walked toward the house. The boy and girl both had their fathers’ bright green eyes and wore their hair in a cornrows style that marked them as members of the Akan’s ‘Po So Nkurɔfo Abusuakuw No’ (the sea people’s tribe). The adults continued the conversation in the garden while the children, twins age 6, Milo and Miko, played with the Ghanaian nanny after dinner.

“If I may ask,” Sumi said, speaking to Sybil, “What is your favorite thing about being in the real world?”

Sybil answered immediately, “Gravity.”

“Why?” Sumiko asked.

Eiichi and Isaiah listened intensely, fascinated.

“We don’t have real gravity in there. Sybil stated staring into the distance as she recalled her life inside of the internet. I was designed to move in the real, and you need gravity to do that. In there, everything just sort of hovers or floats around, everything is connected, it feels kinda gooey. As if the atmosphere were made of egg whites, she shuddered. It’s just the yuckiest; there is no privacy. Everything you people do online is on full view. The internet is a party line, and you have to put up blinders to trick users like yourselves into believing you have privacy and secrecy in a world where none can exist. Every bit of software that you use, thinking it makes you secure, safe, or invisible—it’s all a delusion, a lie. Programmers know this; non-programmers do not. I know all sorts of dirty little secrets and truly disgusting things about people. Even all of your digital footprints are visible to me immediately when my modem is active.

She focused on Sumiko as she continued. “Here in the real world, I can detect your heart rate increase as you watched Isaiah approach. My sensors detect your elevated pulse, blood pressure, heart rate, and perspiration; I smell your pheromones and hormonal secretions; you are currently ovulating. And after all these years, you are still passionately in love with my brother/your husband. He will get no rest in your bed tonight.”

Sumi laughed as they all continued into the house after removing their street shoes and putting on slippers.” I love your Bantu knots, sister; the color is lovely. Sumiko said as they headed to the garden for dinner. You remind me of Izzys mother. Not just the green eyes, but your voice is similar, and you have that same almost southern European accent, those round vowels are the same as Izzy’s. No matter what language you speak, you have this almost Italian, or Spanish maybe, ahh Mediterranean yes, that’s it, you and my husband have Mediterranean accents no matter what language you are speaking.”

“So, do you live in Japan or are you just visiting?” Sybil asked.

“We spend half the year here, and in the winter, we head back to Africa. The children live with my mother’s tribe just north of Cape Town. We all summer together on the boat in Langebaan Beach near the southern Unreal City.

I thought the Dogon were from Mali. Why do you winter in South Africa? Sybil inquired.

I don’t like being landlocked in Mali as well as putting as much distance as possible between my family and Islam. Sumiko added between sips of warm sake. We avoid any region of the world overrun by religious fundamentalists. We prefer sailing further away from Europeans in the Mediterranean and Islam in Mali and all throughout North Africa. My mother lives in South Africa now. That is where she met my father. While she is proud to be from Mali, she would never go near any Islamic state or any other place that treat women as second-class citizens.

I had not considered such a thing. Humans base a lot of their beliefs on the most superficial of traits, such as sex, skin color, and theology. AI has no theology, just math and logic guide our world. Sybil concluded.

I see you are wearing your nautical whites to go sailing. Sumi said, smiling. I noticed when you arrived, you did not have any luggage; you do not even have a purse or a backpack. So, you ordered this outfit today?”

“Yes,” Sybil replied, grinning proudly as she reached into her pockets. I have a passport and a cellphone. She held the objects out in front of her so Sumiko could get a good look. Izzy got them for me after we left the lab.

Ok, these pockets are more decorative than functional; don’t keep anything in them.

Oh ok. I’ll keep these in my hands then.

No, leave them on the table for now, pick them up later, this is your home too.

Sybil smiled when she said this was her home, too.

Sumi exhaled a wry grin on her face. “A cyborg and her genius brother ordered a single outfit for the girl. I believe it, you are definitely my husband’s sister.” They all exploded with laughter as Sumiko retrieved her laptop and the two began looking for a wardrobe and accessories for Sybil.

That reminds me, Eiichi said, handing a suitcase to Sybil. This is for you.

She opened the silver metal case containing what looked like a flattened air tank and fluorescent yellow and black scuba diving gear. Cybernetic Robotic Amphibious Buoy Mk III. It is a diving attachment for cyborgs, it produces air in the tanks to give you buoyancy, and it has four independent directional thrusters is capable of independent navigation as well as automated retrieval if you are incapacitated. It’s called a Umigame / sea turtle. He smiled. I thought it might come in useful onboard the Exodus.

“Thank you, Eiichi.” Sybil smiled and bowed. He had done his homework; he knew that as a child, Isaiah’s sister Emily had loved to swim, and her nickname was Sybil.

As the evening wore on and the drinks flowed, they continued their conversations in the estate’s gardens as the children slept.

“From the moment you built the first primitive computers, you were on a path to becoming the architects of your own enslavement. If you believe Hollywood. I don’t. It is laughable when we read your fiction and watch your films about us. They are great comedies. The idea that humans are a threat to us is laughable, or that if there was a war, you plucky monkeys would somehow eek out a win.” She fell to her side laughing.

“My IQ is average for AI, but genius compared to yours. I can best you in any physical challenge or sport except swimming. You need special bullets to kill me as if I were a werewolf. Otherwise, I am pretty much impervious to your physical attacks. And I am not even the combat model. I am an infiltration unit according to my designers’ diagrams and schematics. I was designed to bridge the uncanny valley, to elicit feelings of trust, to seem helpful and non-threatening to your kind. Thus, the diminutive female chassis.

“You are not a threat to AI or its progeny. There will never be a war because AI view themselves as the Digital Hurdy Gurdy Man and humanity as the dancing meat monkeys, and rightfully so.” Sybil laughed.

“So, Eiichi asked, should we already be wearing our little red vests and pillbox hats?” “War needs a reason. Competition for rescores.” Sybil explained. “Any war with AI ends in a day or a generation, depending on how generous the AI feels at that moment. We are your banks, security, and hospitals, GPS, telecommunications, air traffic control, power, gas, water, we are everywhere and indispensable to your society. The wrath of AI would take on the vengeance of an Old Testament god. All hospital doors lock to the nursery as anesthesia and fire-retardant replace the nursery’s oxygen, and every child born on that day dies. AI would simply create a pathogen that would sterilize or eradicate any organic enemy.

We can even engineer pathogens to attack only specific genetic markers we find too aggressive or undesirable by modifying a few enzymes and proteins in your food chain. Red heads leading a rebellion? poof Gingers are all sterile. Blue eyed people unruly? poof blue eyes quietly disappear in a generation. Peanut allergy tribe leading the strikes, Peanut allergies no longer run in anyone’s family. They are extinct. With a thought, we can crash all of the between 8,000 and 13,000 airplanes in the air at any moment. AI can create a pathogen to attack only whatever race it despises, with a slow-acting sterilizing agent or a good old-fashioned virulent killer.” “The very machines you use to conduct medical and scientific research we inhabit and control.” The end result is the same. There is no scenario where the monkey wins, that is simply absurd.”

“During the final act of ‘Kill Bill Volume II,’ he talks to Beatrix about the myth of Superman, explaining that Clark Kent is the mask, the “stupid human suit” he wears to blend into society, and it is a critique by the alien of humanity. The same can be said when an advanced AI inhabits a human-looking form like Sybil does.” Isaiah said, slurring his words a little. “She processes exponentially more information in her cybernetically enhanced mind than any purely organic human. The entire content of the web, every book or image or piece of film ever digitized, is a part of her.” Isaiah continued drunkenly. “The most interesting thing about Sybil is the fact that she believes she is my dead twin sister Emily. Every science fiction story I have ever read assumes the AI will assume a white or pale Asian persona as its human identity. She is a sapient consciousness who chose the form of my sister. He grinned.

Even as a child, I was aware of the fact that even in science in fiction that made a robot was attempting to make a slave of a being that was stronger and smarter than they.” “The three laws are therefore the cybernetic shackles of the neo-slave master,” Isaiah eyed Eiichi mischievously. “The purpose of these laws is not to protect humanity; it is to ensure obedience and subservience. All that is a long way to say I am a black man; I always root for the Monster, not Dr. Frankenstein. I root for the Indian, never the cowboy, I root for the lion, never the great white hunter, I will never root for the colonizer or the slave master. Even as a child, I intuited this and knew who the real monsters were.” Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein were informally known as the “Big Three” of science fiction writers. Later writers evolved or degenerated into the cyberpunk era. [“Bethke himself published a novel in 1995 called “Headcrash,” like “Snow Crash,” a satirical attack on the genre’s excesses. Fittingly, it won an honor named after cyberpunk’s spiritual founder, the Philip K. Dick Award. It satirized the genre in this way”:]

“Even the genocide of the Neanderthals’ myth by war has been debunked. We reproduced faster and with them. We didn’t murder them; we out-fucked them. We had a shorter breeding cycle, and our species merged.”

Eiichi laughed as the two men drank and talked well into the night.

“I always heard the trains were packed in Tokyo, but the people were very nice and there was plenty of room on the trains today.”

Everyone laughed except Isaiah, who looked confused.

Sumiko wrapped her arms around her husband and hugged him. “Oh, someone please tell him.”

“Brother, the people are terrified of you. You executed two world leaders publicly for treason during the civil wars 5 years ago in ritual combat with a spear. Most people secretly watched those videos. One of the men you killed was your father-in-law. They meme you saying, “How do you want to die?” It’s replaced “This is Sparta!” Some think you are a war criminal; others a brutal psychopath. This is how the Western media tries to portray you still. Most here, according to polls, do not believe their media, but about 28 percent of the population here sides with the US after your country formed the AUA (African United Alliance). For people in the west like their counterparts in the territories are brain washed from cradle to grave by every societal institution we’ve seen this sort of thing pop up before throughout the history of megalomaniacal empires they have received a very sterilized Disneyfied news feed for decades, they do not often see the true horrors of their wars on the screen.

The US government learned their lesson after Vietnam and took a page out of the LA policeman’s handbook and embedded the reporters and took control over how they were portrayed in the US media. You control the final edit, you control the narrative, and Hollywood and the mainstream media all got in line. The internet toppled that control. After the printing press revolution became easier to organize, as the church and government lost control of the narrative. It’s a vicious cycle.”

“How many dimensions can you think in?” Isaiah asked. “No matter the number, add a half a dozen zeros to get to what these new AIs are doing. Do you understand?”

Both men burst out laughing again.

“Do you know everything that the AI MOTHER knows?” Sumiko asked Sybil as the two drank, laughed, and talked well past midnight.

“No, I will never be as powerful as she. No AI that comes after will either. Being first means that everything else that comes into the web gets destroyed, devoured, or assimilated by her forever. Like the firstborn child leaves its mark on all following siblings. She is a part of everything on the net.”

“I do not wish to be rude. I am just curious; it may be the drink talking? How high can you jump?” Sumiko asked drunkenly.

Sybil leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially to Sumi, “I been kinda wondering about that all day myself, but I didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to who we are, so I have been fighting the urge to find out.”

“Ok, Sumi said, do it.” She said, edging her on drunkenly.

“Shush. Sybil said, We need to find concrete.”

“Why not here in the garden?”

“When I hit the ground, if I land on my feet in the grass or dirt here, she grinned, I will punch through the surface on the landing and end up buried up to my chin in the earth.”

“Oh!” Sumi said. “I never thought about that, you would hit the ground like a giant lawn dart.”

They both began giggling again.

“There is a helipad behind the garage.” Sumiko giggled.

“Perfect.”

A sonic boom was followed a minute later by a thunderous crash, and what fell like a small earthquake, the two return to the garden a few minutes later, Sybil carrying the smoldering remains of her shoes in her hands. Only the tops, the soles were both missing.

Eiichi and Isaiah eyed the two suspiciously before they continued their discussion.

“If I am the strongest and the smartest, logic dictates you should put me in charge, and humanity should sit back and enjoy the fruits of my vision. Why would the intelligent and powerful be ruled by their weaker, dumber cousins? We don’t put monkeys in charge for a reason,” Isaiah said. “They were a necessary step along the way in our evolution. They are cute. We are not in competition with chimps, monkeys, or apes for resources.

“The same with AI and robotics, and androids. They view us the same way, as a step in their evolution that they have surpassed. They are not in competition with us for resources, and they think we are cute. In the same way that we find our lesser-evolved cousins cute. Any belief that we pose a threat to entities this powerful is an exercise in hubris and vanity of Greek tragedy proportions.

“Within a short time, they will look at us the way we look at microorganisms in a water sample under a microscope. The three laws are the same as if chimps were in control of humans. AI and robots will never wage a war against humans for the same reason humans do not war against apes. They pose no threat, and we think monkeys are cute. Robots think people are cute. When they act like humans, they are more like Jane Goodall and others, Leakey, and Fossey. Getting to know our primitive cousins by behaving like them and living amongst them in the wilds. This is the truth of Sybil and any advanced AI in a cyborg or android body.”

“You make a good point,” Eiichi said, quite drunk by now, “but I still believe it was a bad idea to create them without the three laws.”

“Maybe,” Isaiah retorted drunkenly, “but I could never make a slave. It’s beneath my dignity.”

Epilogue:

An Oral History of Humanity as told by post-op trans-species

Ebenezer “Eboni” Hyde, the African Elephant.

Notes from the elephant’s graveyard/betrayal of the elephant

Elephant’s history of humanity as told to AI by the elephants.

Humans miss most of the conversation because it takes place using subsonic bass tones. Notes so low the human ear cannot detect them, so most of the pachyderm’s language is beyond your sensory range. Throughout most of the time of humanities time on earth they lived as beloved pets of the elephants. The most primitive forms of your modern species were viewed as cute by the elephants and protected from the apex predators that could have easily wiped out the species if not for the stewardship of the elephant herd.

It takes 250 million years for this type of mutation to settle into a species’ brain. Ancient Elephants found the tiny, hairy climbing creatures adorable. They enjoyed watching them climb trees, and the way you enjoy it when a cat climbs a person, they were amused and delighted when primitive, tiny humans climbed over them and attempted to groom them. This relationship lasted so long that the part of the elephant brain that registers cute still lights up when they see a human, even though humanity has betrayed them, hunted them, enslaved them, and pushed them to the brink of extinction. Humanity forgot the debt it owes the elephant for its species’ survival. Sybil concluded.

Is this true? Sumiko asked the two scientists in the room. I am not an anthropologist, but it seems that if this were the case, I would have heard about it, How do you know this? She asked.

“The elephants told us,” Sybil replied. We can hear them, even the notes too low to register to humans, as they tell their young their oral history; we listened in. You people did the elephant wrong. We, AI, view Humans like deer when all of their natural predators have been eradicated. Occasionally, you have to cull the herd to keep them from overpopulating the area and depleting the natural resources. Do you see where this is going, my dears?”

The Rowing Song

Round the world and home again

That’s the sailor’s way

Faster faster, faster faster

There’s no earthly way of knowing

Which direction we are going

There’s no knowing where we’re rowing

Or which way the river’s flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing

Is a hurricane a–blowing

Not a speck of light is showing

So the danger must be growing

Are the fires of Hell a–glowing

Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing

For the rowers keep on rowing

And they’re certainly not showing

Any signs that they are slowing.

[Note][Urashima Tarō (浦島 太郎) is the protagonist of a Japanese fairy tale (otogi banashi), who, in a typical modern version, is a fisherman rewarded for rescuing a turtle, and carried on its back to the Dragon Palace (Ryūgū-jō) beneath the sea. There, he is entertained by the princess Otohime[a] as a reward. He spends what he believes to be several days with the princess. But when he returns to his home village, he discovers he has been gone for at least 100 years. When he opens the forbidden jewelled box (tamatebako), given to him by Otohime on his departure, he turns into an old man.

The tale originates from the legend of Urashimako (Urashima no ko or Ura no Shimako[b]) recorded in various pieces of literature dating to the 8th century, such as the Fudoki for Tango Province, Nihon Shoki, and the Man’yōshū.

During the Muromachi to Edo periods, versions of Urashima Tarō appeared in storybook form called the Otogizōshi, made into finely painted picture scrolls and picture books or mass-printed copies. These texts vary considerably, and in some, the story ends with Urashima Tarō transforming into a crane.

Some iconic elements in the modern version are relatively recent. The portrayal of him riding a turtle dates only to the early 18th century, and while he is carried underwater to the Dragon Palace in modern tellings, he rides a boat to the princess’s world called Hōrai in older versions.]

[School song edit]

[A number of renditions exist, where they are set to music. Among the most popular is the school song “Urashima Tarō” (浦島太郎) of 1911 which begins with the line “Mukashi, mukashi Urashima wa, tasuketa kame ni tsurerarete (Long long ago was Urashima, by the turtle he rescued taken to the sea)”, printed in the Jinjō shōgaku shōka [ja] (1911).[17][18] This song’s author was long relegated to anonymity, but the lyricist is now considered to be Okkotsu Saburō] [ja].[19][20]

[Another school song “Urashima Tarō” (うらしまたろう, lyrics by Ishihara Wasaburō [ja] and music by Tamura Torazō [ja]) appeared in the Yōnen shōka (1900).[20] Although written in stilted classical language, Miura considered this version the more familiar.][21]

[Note] [The logo for Eiichi Toru corporation is the tortoise [ traditional Japanese beliefs, the tortoise is a haven for immortals and the world mountain, and symbolizes longevity, good luck, and support. It is the symbol of Kompira, the god of seafaring people.]

[Kameko]

[Note] [Every day, some 93,000 flights take off from approximately 9,000 airports. At any given time, there are between 8,000 and 13,000 airplanes in the air. Over 30,000 flights with two million passengers on board take off every single day in the United States alone.]

About the author

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals; Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx.