“Maybe we’ll merge with (smarter–than-human intelligences) to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities...”
— Lev Grossman, 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal, Time Magazine (Feb. 21, 2011)
“Who would have imagined that the computer … could fly a plane and guide a missile before it could ride a bike? … As computers have mastered rarified domains once thought to be uniquely human, they simultaneously have failed to master the ground-floor basics of the human experience: spatial orientation, object recognition, natural language, adaptive goal-setting…”
— Brian Christian, Mind vs. Machine, The Atlantic Monthly (March 2011)
“With all due respect, Hare, you’re a sent. Not my doctor, or my wife, or my mommy!” — Jake Anderson, Harold the House
In the last months, magazines like Time and The Atlantic Monthly have featured cover stories about artificial intelligence.
These articles explore a turning point in human history in which A I figures even more prominently that it does already — a turning point that many contend we are quickly approaching. What might such a time portend, what are its implications? Will the “human era” end, as Lev Grossman ponders, or might humanity assert itself yet more compellingly, as Brian Christian suggests?
Author Jake Anderson envisions a future when A I lords over our homes and private desires. I was not only gob-smacked by this astonishing (and plausible) tale, but I felt Harold the House should be illustrated and presented as a serialized graphic novel. And I knew just the person to bring it to life: Angela Bocage, friend of my youth and underground comic artist extraordinaire.
The next step is for you, gentle reader, to weigh in. Please use this blog to post any comments about the world that you see unfolding in this hot bot drama. Would you be as "chummy" with Harold as our hero Mark? How many years in the future do you think this story is set?