The renowned futurist said in a podcast interview that we’ll reach the AGI singularity by 2045, or maybe 2032. This is when we merge with AI (keeping our own brains functional too, though, so don’t worry because it’s not, as commonly misunderstood, a zero-sum between us and AI, he clarified), becoming a million times smarter in virtually an instant.

I guess that’s fine, but I feel I should apologize in advance for these dumb textual records. Dear my infinitely smart children of the future, please forgive me for having entertained the notion that these words, left for your discovery, might amount to a gift of insight or experience, rather than a dusty bag of souvenirs. Do what you will with these blobs of mud pockmarked with antiquated glyphs. These chipped marbles. Desk-drawer detritus. Pottery shards.

“And what do you suppose the ancient humanoids used this for?”

“Most likely it was a crude calendar, or some means of counting livestock. Perhaps it had a primitive ritual significance.”

Well, maybe in 2046 they’ll have figured out — with all that surfeit of smartness — how to reinvent archaeology so as to be able to reverse-engineer the plodding, mammalian meatscape that obsolesced way back in 2044, and then they’ll know.

“Oh, it was ... well, hmm, mostly nothing, really? A form of cloud gazing? A children’s toy, a string of memory beads, a rustic puzzle ... curious indeed, these primitive humanoids! Can you imagine!”

And so on.

A pigeon flaps by overhead (or underfoot if they’re in one of their glass castles), at once elegant and ungainly, and they glance at it — they don’t even have to wear the glasses anymore! — and know things about it: additional information invisibly overlaid in multidimensional layers of hyperunderstanding.

Meanwhile, I’m back here, stuck in time, doing this the dumb old fashioned way, for some reason. Let’s see what grotesque features are reflected in the facets of tonight’s little trinket.

pigeon

Nanci Griffith’s joy pouring out the top of her head

Ah yes, “joy.” That is one of the “emotions” you proto-humans were saddled with, and consequently inordinately obsessed with, yes? You sweaty animals, striving, procreating, surviving, suffering, and dying —

Wait — has the million-times-smarter race of humans conquered death yet?

Well, in any case, back in the bad old days, I came back to my apartment over Brady Street with Si and, hmm, what should I call my best friend from back then, how about Bo. We had been to see Nanci Griffith live at the Modjeska, back when Mitchell Street was ... well, a little younger, maybe only middle aged, instead of whatever it is today.

My one roommate who was always either at work at the furniture warehouse or anesthetized by fruit juice and vodka by this time of night was nowhere to be seen. My other roommate who it still pisses me off to even really think too much about was probably off with her horrible boyfriend or also drunk or just fucking off somewhere, so my two friends and I had the pleasantly shabby shared kitchen to ourselves; in its diner-colored light we sat and shined back on what we had just experienced. Still thrumming with the golden strains of it, Si described it as “genuine enjoyment and complete honesty.” I said something incoherent along the lines of “candle warm glow heart fire in big black universe,” adding, “other people matter,” which, as it turns out, is another pigeon as well, that we’ll eventually talk about another time.

I don’t remember what Bo said, because Bo wasn’t actually there. It was just Si and I that went to the Nanci Griffith concert, or if it was anyone else with us, it wasn’t Bo. I guess I just retrospectively wanted him to have been there, so I could spend some time with him again in that kitchen, hanging out, winding down, talking about whatever. I miss that so much. Even though he could be an ass sometimes. I miss those times too.

My lingering vision of Nanci Griffith, a beam of light radiating up out of that cozy little stage in that doomed theater, all the way up to our balcony seats: It was like you could see and feel the joy, just pouring out the top of her head, just for free, for all of us to share. Some people naturally seem to give off that kind of incandescence. Si could be like that sometimes, when she wasn’t being depressed. Bo too. Pretty much everyone I’ve known could be a light bulb at least some of the time — even me.

Too bad light bulbs eventually burn out.

But hey, once that singularity hits, I’m sure being a million times more intelligent will enable us to make a light that lasts forever, right? And we’ll figure out a way for it to not be just for rich people, yeah? And it will end well, and the blessings won’t turn out to be a walking corpse, don’t you think? And all this pure, animal emotion that we’re mired in, this wallowing in joy and pain we do while understanding vanishingly little of anything of any consequence — most of us, anyway, the unfortunate masses just waiting around to see what it’s like to be blindingly hypersmart — this’ll all be a prehistoric memory, right? Our pudgy meat brains will be as a crumbling, empty theater — a place that used to be someplace, just like everything else around here. Atrophied. Vestigial.

Back around the turn of the century, I used to leave the old computer on at night, in case it could somehow catch a signal from Bo. A little piece of that light, departed, that had left me in the dark. Maybe I’ll try that tonight, just for kicks. Maybe my computer will become sentient a little bit ahead of schedule, and figure out how to call up his old ghost from wherever it is the disembodied go, so we can talk. Listen to some music. Shoot the shit. Maybe I’ll have a dream. Maybe it won’t be a nightmare. It probably won’t be — I don’t really get those too often anymore.