Artificial Wisdom

by Thomas R. Weaver

Move on, they said. Get over her. But what if he didn’t want to? What if the day he forgot her voice was when she was truly gone?

That was the thing about the truth. Sometimes, you were judged more harshly for revealing it than for concealing it.

“You can’t convince those who don’t want to be convinced. They’ll see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and studiously avoid anything that challenges their ‘truth’. I know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

She was trying to save the world. No, the world didn’t need saving, she’d say. It would outlive us, but our species and all of the others, that’s what she was trying to save.”

Solomon smiled. “A suggestion, that is all. An asset has value, no matter whether you value it or not.”

It was like the first time a kid realizes their parents aren’t superheroes, aren’t invulnerable, aren’t immortal, that they could hurt like anyone else. Tully had always seemed invincible. Now he was breathing hard and looking away. She felt awkward and considered hugging him. But that might make it worse.

“I can’t imagine it’s easy. But if there’s one thing I have learned about humankind, it’s how bad you are at living in the now. People seem to live in both the past and in the future, two big overlapping circles, but rarely focus on the intersection and enjoy the moments given to them right now.”

Humans can only visualize short term. The distant future is someone else’s problem, as if it’s not their children and children’s children that will inherit all this.”