Kari
asked:
What was the function of Neelay's story, his ultimate game, and "the Learners" that appear in the "Seeds" chapter? Do you sense that Powers is suggesting AI could evolve into a new life form that will inherit the Earth when it no longer provides humans a habitable environment? That's the only message I can discern but it seems inconsistent with the message I take from the Nick/Olivia/Douglas/Mimi/Adam story line.
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Susan Beaumont
I have a different take on Neelay's story. There is a strong theme in the book about stories and how stories motivate people to act. Someone (maybe Patricia?) says a couple of times - you cant tell people facts and hope to change their minds; we have to experience something that is either our story or feel empathy for someone else's in order to truly understand something. So if we translate that process into the future of human activity (virtual worlds, games, AI) what the Learners are doing is creating pathways for people to find the stories about the power of nature and what humans are doing to the world and by experiencing that in a virtual process, hopefully they will develop the motivation to protect it.
Melise
I know this question is a year old, but I had a different interpretation than any of the others here. I think that Neelay’s aim with the Learners is to allow them to gather all of the information that trees have had millennia to gather in a much shorter timespan. And they are learning how to speak and understand the language of the trees. Nellay’s hope is that once people can understand what trees are saying, the power of the game, which allows people to try out every permutation of evolution in a very compressed timeframe, combined with the interconnections inherent in tree knowledge will uncover a course of action leading to our unsuicide.
Mary Sojourner
The functions of this novel are to throw ice water on our species' illusion that it is the top of the food chain; to educate us about the reality that we are disappearing into cyberspace; that we need to take action against the mechanisms of species destruction; and, my favorite, (were we not taking so many other species with us) that our species is committing eco-suicide. Wake up.
Bryan Szabo
Hi Karen,
Neelay's learners run parallel to Patricia's seed collection. Both acts look to a perhaps not-so-distant future when progress has effectively rendered the planet barren. The Seed bank and the databank could, together, be the foundation for a re-planted world.
AI is absolutely (and already) a new form of life. In one of the Neelay sections, Powers describes the various things that the learners are doing:
They obey "primal commands". They "look, listen, taste, touch, feel, say, join." They are coded manually, not genetically, but this doesn't make them any less alive.
Neelay's learners run parallel to Patricia's seed collection. Both acts look to a perhaps not-so-distant future when progress has effectively rendered the planet barren. The Seed bank and the databank could, together, be the foundation for a re-planted world.
AI is absolutely (and already) a new form of life. In one of the Neelay sections, Powers describes the various things that the learners are doing:
They obey "primal commands". They "look, listen, taste, touch, feel, say, join." They are coded manually, not genetically, but this doesn't make them any less alive.
Roberto Andrés Lantadilla
I think that the main thread that ties together the novel is the theme of "communication". Take the incipit for an example: we are addressed by a rain of messages from trees, entities that we consider silent and meaningless if not for human purposes. In this respect, I think what "the learners" do is to decrypt Nature's meaning and translate it into human words.
"the next new species will learn to translate between human language and the language of green things."
"the next new species will learn to translate between human language and the language of green things."
Linda
I agree with the other two answers and I also think Neelay was bringing the natural world to his millions of game followers. Millions had traveled through his imaginary worlds. When he finally realized the importance of the real world, he sent his bots out to find everything about it so that the bots could bring the knowledge and the love for nature to Neelay's game players. They were no longer traversing a pretend earth, they were traveling through worlds based on real nature.
Jean
Karen, I’m so glad you asked, because I’ve been wondering the same thing!
I think you’re right when you say AI could inherit the Earth.
The role of the ‘learners' is ambiguous (perhaps on purpose). Yes, Neelay intends for them to help humanity communicate with nature and thus learn how to “unsuicide”. But the learners also have a very clear metaphor in Neelay’s favourite sci-fi story of the aliens which visit planet earth (in the ‘Roots’ section of the book). These aliens function on a time-scale that is much faster than humans. So much faster that, finding themselves unable to communicate with humans, they decide to cure them and turn them into jerky for the ride home! Where it becomes ambiguous is that Neelay is said to have forgotten this by the time he sets up the learners.
“He can’t remember how the story ends. But it doesn’t matter. Every branch’s tip has its own new bud.”
This would show that there is hope in that this new story/bud might unfold differently and the learners will do more good than harm.
It gets more ambiguous about 10 pages later, when Adam Appich, in his jail cell, has thoughts of “Futures where our robot descendants use us for fuel, or keep us in infinitely entertaining zoos”.
To me, although the learners are designed with good intentions, they highlight the danger of relying on technology to solve environmental problems. After all, hell is paved with good intentions.
Or maybe Nick Hoel is the one with the answer: to stay STILL. Both in terms of economic growth and maybe also if humans learned to stay still and listened, they might learn something about how to get along with nature.
In the end, maybe Powers simply wanted to show how different people have different views on the topic of how to solve the current environmental crisis.
I think you’re right when you say AI could inherit the Earth.
The role of the ‘learners' is ambiguous (perhaps on purpose). Yes, Neelay intends for them to help humanity communicate with nature and thus learn how to “unsuicide”. But the learners also have a very clear metaphor in Neelay’s favourite sci-fi story of the aliens which visit planet earth (in the ‘Roots’ section of the book). These aliens function on a time-scale that is much faster than humans. So much faster that, finding themselves unable to communicate with humans, they decide to cure them and turn them into jerky for the ride home! Where it becomes ambiguous is that Neelay is said to have forgotten this by the time he sets up the learners.
“He can’t remember how the story ends. But it doesn’t matter. Every branch’s tip has its own new bud.”
This would show that there is hope in that this new story/bud might unfold differently and the learners will do more good than harm.
It gets more ambiguous about 10 pages later, when Adam Appich, in his jail cell, has thoughts of “Futures where our robot descendants use us for fuel, or keep us in infinitely entertaining zoos”.
To me, although the learners are designed with good intentions, they highlight the danger of relying on technology to solve environmental problems. After all, hell is paved with good intentions.
Or maybe Nick Hoel is the one with the answer: to stay STILL. Both in terms of economic growth and maybe also if humans learned to stay still and listened, they might learn something about how to get along with nature.
In the end, maybe Powers simply wanted to show how different people have different views on the topic of how to solve the current environmental crisis.
James (JD) Dittes
I think the "watchers" that Neelay set up, who are scouring the web, searching for knowledge on Nature, were the hopeful part of this story: the idea that technology could be a tool to overcome the ignorance that leads mankind to devalue trees and overvalue carbon. I think the AI angle is an interesting one, however. I felt bad that Neelay's storyline wasn't developed more. IT was an interesting addition.
Greg
Karen, I think "the learners" were bots to save all the knowledge currently in existence on the planet. Take, for example, the building of Egyptian pyramids. We still aren't sure how they did it, but if there had been bots recording and storing all that knowledge, we'd have that knowledge. So, yes, at some point, "the learners" would teach remaining survivors how to save Earth.
Fred Herlihy
Read the last 2 paragraphs (or the whole thing) of this Atlantic article. They sum up the function of his story very well.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...
Robert Blumenthal
There's actually some theories out there that claim wildly that the only way humans survive is to become part of the AI universe. We would upload our thoughts and feelings and all we can of our existence into computer programs and live out our existence there. I wonder if Powers was hinting at this in his story of Neejay.
Sofia
I thought the "learners" were gathering data in an effort to understand nature more fully than we mere humans ever could. Once they have gathered everything there is to know about life/nature/the earth, they can then translate it for us and finally explain "what life wants from people". I think the data would be used in Neelay's next game as a sort of all-encompassing VR experience – except instead of being set on a fantasy world like in "Mastery", it would be our world.
Clay Ryan
I think this might be an overly literal interpretation. I'll put my answer in the context of Patricia's observation near the climax: "The single best thing you can do for the world. It occurs to her: The problem begins with that word world. It means two such opposite things. The real one we cannot see. The invented one we can’t escape." Patricia has dedicated her life to the study and illumination of the mess, rot, decay, death, and ultimately, the countless subterranean threads invisible to us, that create and sustain (forest) life, and even force us to rethink the concept of an individual organism. Neelay's story arc throughout the novel represents the antithesis that stands in contrast to this: the invented world from which we cannot escape. Case in point, in trying to escape it, once his own story arc finally reaches the inevitable moment of regret, he is voted down and dismissed by his board of directors when he challenges the status quo of the monster (online world) he has created. By the penultimate chapter, when his story finally merges with Patricia, he has found a new way through his learners to tell his (her) story. And remember, "The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story." Whether or not it will be effective, or whether or not it is too late, is a question that perhaps breaks the fourth wall and hits too close to home; and thus Powers leaves the dissonant chord unresolved.
Caroline Benzel
I saw it as Neelay realized the folly of his game was the same as the folly of the human's world outside the game. He thought he had created something different and ended up creating the same. In the end. when he begins working on AI, it sounds like the learners are gathering information and learning how to do something different, how to save the earth, and ultimately to answer the question "What does life want from Humans?". Ask not what earth can do for you, but what you can do for earth.
Laura
I took the learners to be all of us who are still figuring out or new to the fact that all of nature is connected and our survival depends on everything's survival. I think Neelay's story shows us that not everything can be solved in one generation, but it is important for one generation to accumulate the wisdom of the ones prior, and that we learn from story.
Paul
I believe Powers is drawing parallels between the trees' network of communication and the Learners'. Both are unseen to the outside world: surrounding the individual, solitary tree that we see is a sprawling network of cues and communication that drives that tree's next action. Surrounding the individual human is a sprawling network of communication tools that spur each of us into action.
I think there's a warning in there as well: this network can either aid in our growth, or bring us to the verge of extinction like the chestnut. We should be careful with what we transmit to our own communities.
I think there's a warning in there as well: this network can either aid in our growth, or bring us to the verge of extinction like the chestnut. We should be careful with what we transmit to our own communities.
Sunny Yu
I think one thing the different characters contribute to the story is the diverse methods people use as forms of resistance. Some people went to walkouts and protests, some marched into illegal territory, Patricia publishes a book, and Neelay uses his special skill to create a game where the audiences can understand the importance of nature and trees in a different way. So I think in a way, Neelay's story adds on to the hope we should have, knowing that there are people out there (fictional ones) doing what they can to make a difference.
Oldnoah
Neelay’s story is a ray of hope...
Nikki
Trees gave Neelay the inspiration for his game. The Learners (which I assume are AI that feed the game) will point back to the trees.
Dave
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Bjørn Kleiven
maybe to show that everything is only in our minds, however really I think that its revealing a human flaw, still in a game we seem to do the same as in "real" life, and second technology is fine however it unground us.
(ps. there are many answers to this and probably the author means to interpret it in many facets, as many do intentionally and you can ask RP; and no one knows how AI will be, life is speculation :-) )
(ps. there are many answers to this and probably the author means to interpret it in many facets, as many do intentionally and you can ask RP; and no one knows how AI will be, life is speculation :-) )
Bathsheba Turner
4 years later and my 2 cents. If we are in the game creating and destroying that gives us less time to destroy and consume what's in the real world. The object of the game was to keep people playing, keep them engaged, keep them online
Jim Rymsza
Do you think that despite Neelay's best environmental intentions, his AI world will ultimately suffer the fate of today's internet? Despite its early, altruistic promise, out Interweb has devolved into porn, political discord and cat memes. Can the ecological future of our planet ever really be entrusted to humans?
Ryan
My interpretation would be that it served as a parable to the real living world. The virtual one created by Neelay had its players always yearning for more 'stuff' and achievements, new places to conquer etc. The unsustainability of this was questioned, and how he wanted to replicate the complexity of evolution in the game world, and how this idea was rejected by his team and we never get to see if it could even be done in the end. This has lessons for what is happening in reality on Earth - is it sheer hubris for Man to use his technology to overcome all that is natural, being one of the main points.
Steph
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Mark Walker
I think Powers is pointing out the market for virtual reality gaming, much of which involves players interacting with imaginary landscapes. And he is saying that it is so much better to interact with the wonders of the real world. If only we could harness the youthful passion for experiencing the interaction with nature into a movement that protects the natural world.
Neelay’s worlds are meant to seem silly, exploitative and artificial in comparison with the real world.
This may be stretching it but it’s also possible that Powers is using Neelay’s disability as a metaphor for the inability to engage with the real world. Neelay is physically unable to interact with the grand forest landscapes so perhaps he stands for a broader inhibition of mankind.
Neelay’s worlds are meant to seem silly, exploitative and artificial in comparison with the real world.
This may be stretching it but it’s also possible that Powers is using Neelay’s disability as a metaphor for the inability to engage with the real world. Neelay is physically unable to interact with the grand forest landscapes so perhaps he stands for a broader inhibition of mankind.
Alison
that is the impression I got and I am glad you had the same thought.
Kenny Chaffin
I enjoyed this one very much but felt like it wasn't fully fleshed out in the manner of the first two stories.
Riccardo Cavaliere
I think that Neelay has just a metaphorical role. I was expecting his story to converge with the stories of the other activists but it doesn't. Through Neelays, though, Powers describes an evolution of the society, and of the US more specifically: it's a society that is more and more capable of living without nature, experiencing everything through avatars and not real people. There is also an economic metaphor: people used to get money from trees and farming, Neelay becomes a milionaire by producing videogames.
Gburgard Comcastnet
Was Olivia Ray’s daughter
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