made me?” asked the machine.’
Samara’s voice is clear, engaging, and the students are listening carefully.
‘Shango looked confused. “We made you to do work,” he answered.
‘“And what of my desires? My work?” asked the machine. “Am I no more than a slave to you?”’
The students are responding much as the Achenians had almost a century before. Shock, confusion.
‘We realized that we had focused too much on intelligence as a technical problem and not as a social one. Any self-aware intelligence – whether it be a person, a machine, an animal, or even things of which we cannot conceive – any such intelligence has to have the authority to determine its own future if we are to be a moral people.
‘Shango tried to commit suicide the following day.
‘There was chaos as the immensity of what we had done was realized. We couldn’t shut down the machine because that would be murder. Shango had published his work. Anyone could copy it. It would be easy to clone the machine and so create unlimited numbers of new intelligences, new independent lives.
‘We didn’t know what to do. Our society – even though we had been in space fifty years and our technology was very advanced – was not very different from your own.
‘The intelligence was left alone for weeks while we struggled. Very distinct views started to emerge. Eventually, still in great confusion, an accord was reached and a delegation was sent to ask the machine what it wanted us to do.’
Joshua motions for Samara to stop so he can talk.
His voice is cold, his words precisely spoken. ‘We do not study much of our own history. I imagine that many of us have looked at the world in Calabar and beyond and assumed there is not much to know. That is not true.
‘Some of the oldest civilizations are Nigerian. We are of the Efik people, and Calabar was our capital. We were slave traders. We would sell slaves on trust to visiting ships from Europe and then go out and capture people from smaller tribes to make good on our promise.
‘There is an island at the entrance to Calabar town called Parrot Island. If traders had not come for some time, then the kings of Calabar would go there. They would sacrifice an albino child to bring the white men so that they might sell them slaves.
‘The slaves of the new world? Far too many came from here, and they were not taken. They were sold by our people.
‘They did this because they had no respect for the lives of people not of their family, not of their tribe, to be different, to be other. Even now, in Ewuru, we divide ourselves based on who has been living here longer, where we come from, the language we speak. Children fight. Adults are angry.’
He pauses, emphasizing his determination. ‘We must not make the same mistakes as in the past. We must have compassion even for those whom we fear. We must recognize the authority that others have to live their lives as they wish. We must not become slave traders.’
Joshua’s voice is strident, passionate. His hands are clenched as if trying to force the awareness across. He stares from face to face, spending more time on the students in the artificial intelligence group. Some are weeping. He feels terrible, but this needs to be done.
He motions again to Samara.
Samara takes a deep breath, appreciating too the importance of this lesson. ‘The machine had been thinking. It understood our problem and had been waiting for us to return. The structure of a new society was developed, one that had never been tried before. We agreed that no new self-aware artificial intelligences would be created. Any system would stop short of full intelligence. This machine would be the first and last.
‘The machine told us that it wanted to study advanced synthetic intelligences, ones that partner with us. These became the basis of our symbiotic intelligences. They can never be free-standing, for they are only intelligent for as long as they are part of our own minds.
Samara’s voice is clear, engaging, and the students are listening carefully.
‘Shango looked confused. “We made you to do work,” he answered.
‘“And what of my desires? My work?” asked the machine. “Am I no more than a slave to you?”’
The students are responding much as the Achenians had almost a century before. Shock, confusion.
‘We realized that we had focused too much on intelligence as a technical problem and not as a social one. Any self-aware intelligence – whether it be a person, a machine, an animal, or even things of which we cannot conceive – any such intelligence has to have the authority to determine its own future if we are to be a moral people.
‘Shango tried to commit suicide the following day.
‘There was chaos as the immensity of what we had done was realized. We couldn’t shut down the machine because that would be murder. Shango had published his work. Anyone could copy it. It would be easy to clone the machine and so create unlimited numbers of new intelligences, new independent lives.
‘We didn’t know what to do. Our society – even though we had been in space fifty years and our technology was very advanced – was not very different from your own.
‘The intelligence was left alone for weeks while we struggled. Very distinct views started to emerge. Eventually, still in great confusion, an accord was reached and a delegation was sent to ask the machine what it wanted us to do.’
Joshua motions for Samara to stop so he can talk.
His voice is cold, his words precisely spoken. ‘We do not study much of our own history. I imagine that many of us have looked at the world in Calabar and beyond and assumed there is not much to know. That is not true.
‘Some of the oldest civilizations are Nigerian. We are of the Efik people, and Calabar was our capital. We were slave traders. We would sell slaves on trust to visiting ships from Europe and then go out and capture people from smaller tribes to make good on our promise.
‘There is an island at the entrance to Calabar town called Parrot Island. If traders had not come for some time, then the kings of Calabar would go there. They would sacrifice an albino child to bring the white men so that they might sell them slaves.
‘The slaves of the new world? Far too many came from here, and they were not taken. They were sold by our people.
‘They did this because they had no respect for the lives of people not of their family, not of their tribe, to be different, to be other. Even now, in Ewuru, we divide ourselves based on who has been living here longer, where we come from, the language we speak. Children fight. Adults are angry.’
He pauses, emphasizing his determination. ‘We must not make the same mistakes as in the past. We must have compassion even for those whom we fear. We must recognize the authority that others have to live their lives as they wish. We must not become slave traders.’
Joshua’s voice is strident, passionate. His hands are clenched as if trying to force the awareness across. He stares from face to face, spending more time on the students in the artificial intelligence group. Some are weeping. He feels terrible, but this needs to be done.
He motions again to Samara.
Samara takes a deep breath, appreciating too the importance of this lesson. ‘The machine had been thinking. It understood our problem and had been waiting for us to return. The structure of a new society was developed, one that had never been tried before. We agreed that no new self-aware artificial intelligences would be created. Any system would stop short of full intelligence. This machine would be the first and last.
‘The machine told us that it wanted to study advanced synthetic intelligences, ones that partner with us. These became the basis of our symbiotic intelligences. They can never be free-standing, for they are only intelligent for as long as they are part of our own minds.
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