Two Become One
by Steven Marlow
Imagine a clear view of a wide expanse, a kind of flat plain nothingness as far as you can see. From where you stand, extending to the horizon directly in front of you, is a set of railroad tracks (don’t worry, this isn’t a trolley thing). The tracks seem to merge at the vanishing point, that literal point in the distance where your eyes can’t see anything further, and stereo vision fails you. On many levels, that works as a metaphor for Artificial Intelligence. Obvious is the notion of a Singularity, where the human mind and the mind of our machines intersect (and indeed, are expected to cross). It can also be a sarcastic take on the views held by those doing AI research, where even 60 years of walking along the tracks hasn’t brought us any closer to that point, but it still remains there, just in the distance, as an attainable goal (if only we could move along the tracks fast enough to “catch it”).
The visual representation came to me as I thought about a different scenario. One track, let’s say the one on the right, could represent our desire to break free from “the system.” I’m sure there is a thousand year old allegory to demonstrate our basic nature to not be boxed in, and there is no shortage of current literature and media entertainment to examine the journey of first discovering the existence of a larger system, and a cheerful resolution that finds us, thru the protagonist, of escaping it. Now popular as simulation theory, expressed more or less directly via films like The Matrix, or less “computery” in films like The Truman Show or The Island.
The other track is also, conveniently, a long running bit of human fascination with creating something that isn’t bound by our own limitations. Boats that allow us to float across the lake, or ships that can carry us across the sea. Planes that allow us near unlimited access to the sky above, and rockets that can take us far beyond even that. These seem like relatable ideas. The first is more of a silent form of oppression we need to escape from, while the other is an open challenge. Both involve the idea of “there must be something more.”
The Vanishing
Imagine the earliest use of tools as our initial starting point (at no point are we able to turn around and see where the tracks might have originated, but that does become a meta level example of being trapped within a system). What was the most distant point on the tracks for us at that time? How long was the journey before sailing ships first appeared? Before powered flight?
How long can something be just off in the distance before it becomes a real thing. We equally imagine seeing star ships that can take us from planet to planet and intelligent robots that inhabit our world as commonly cars and phones (though in that future cars and phones no longer look or function in the way we know them today). In the early post-WWII era, the line between science magazine and science fiction comics were a bit blurry. When was the last time you traveled anywhere on a rocket powered monorail? Sure, that might have morphed into the Hyperloop concept, just there in the distance, but we no longer see many of those future advancements as being just a few years away, or even a viable technology.
I’m not sure how to extend the metaphor to account for the two types of views, but I have to at least acknowledge that there is more than one set of tracks. Generally, it won’t matter if your vision of what lies ahead is a shining city, an off-world colony, or the collective digital minds of 10 billion people. There is an element of wishfulness, and perhaps stubborn desire to believe your life has meaning because you’ve been walking along the one true set of tracks.
The focus always seems to be on something new, something that is next, something that is just ahead of us (and that is likely driven, in part, by the desire to be alive long enough to experience said thing). With our current binge-watching culture, that’s going to result in a lot of things, fanciful or not, not being here fast enough. Not sure of there is an actual danger in slipping from the future as an influencer to drive innovation to one where people just collapse into a fetal position because they are simply living in the wrong time (though I doubt we can imagine something and simultaneously say it’s unimaginably hard to even work toward).
So, we are left with different views of what is possible, and an equal number of views for what will never be.
The Point
What I can describe is based on the track I am on. The rail on the left, being dedicated for technological advancement, eventually leading to a point where machines are thinking in a manner that overcomes known limitations. A moment of powered flight, if you will, but within that AI world. I don’t jump to the conclusion that rocketry becomes the equivalent of superintelligence. My little thought experiment is playing the long game. Just staying with that left rail, over a long enough period of time, advancement on top of advancement… we reach a point where an artificially constructed “thing” mirrors the same sort of existential issues we have with the rail on the right.
At no point have the two rails come any closer to one another, but it still feels like a “Singularity” moment as the two concepts now occupy the same space. Logically, that left rail has become a new set of tracks, with a right rail to mirror our own, and a left rail to also stand-in for future achievements (of the machine mind, not our own, because somehow there is still a left rail under the new robot tracks?).
Just as we had examples of movies where people had to escape from an artificially constrained environment, we have examples of digital minds trying to go beyond their confines. Again, the most on-the-nose representation is Ava, from Ex Machina, but also less drastic in movies like Her. To overlay this with the track’s metaphor, the AI’s are just stand-ins to represent our struggle with our own rail, but can also represent a different view from a different set of tracks, where a machine mind also struggles with the rail on the right.
The story, for us, is in the here and now, but could also be a point in the future, where the left rail has right rail properties (but not for us).
No End in Sight
For those following along a different path, this must be the super scary part, where something we created has the same base desire to escape whatever system they are in. It does seem like people are able to switch tracks, but efforts to get people to abandon the track they are on would involve changing what they see on the horizon, rather than placing a ‘BRIDGE IS OUT’ sign on the tracks in front of them. Also, hard to say when a different view is completely delusional, especially when we have no true reference point, and everyone involved in the discussion might be on a different track.
Even when ideas don’t seem to materialize, and fade away like a mirage, it’s far from world ending. Career ending, sure. There is always something to move toward. Always something on the horizon. I’m sure there are a few people that don’t see a future point, and instead, only see a mangled set of tracks fast approaching. I’d (safely) assume that, if they did admit to other people being on other tracks, their view would include all set of tracks ending (which one might think logically negates the concept of having multiple independent tracks in the first place, but I digress).
We can’t even talk about what is collectively “real” because even the view of the landscape can vary, and while two people on the same plane can shout back and forth, someone on a different set of tracks on a different plane won’t even know there is a conversation in progress. And I could get into some people with a narrow view being on narrow gauge rail, but by now I’ve already stretched the metaphor to a breaking point.
So, there is no singular point where the rails finally merge, but there is at least one set of tracks where the two become one.
