The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

Back then we lived in a fantasy world. People still believed simplistic silicon-based constructions with binary-code logic at their cores could magically cross the threshold into life. There was talk of ‘the singularity’ and ‘emergence’—we were constantly being accused of risking the annihilation of mankind by tinkering with nature. People somehow feared these little bits of autopiloting code would turn the tables on us: become our masters. Even in the infancy of AI, where we had wallowed for decades, humankind was afraid. Their heads were full of fantasies, reinforced by their almost religious ideas about the science of the day. But the science they were afraid of did not even exist yet. There was nothing in those silicon, binary-code-based systems that was a threat to humankind. There was no chance of them ‘evolving’ into anything.