Tuesday, April 3, 2012

6. Singularity

Stuart prepared to be uploaded
by the superintelligent robots
who would one day rule the world.
He taught himself decision theory,
wrote long tracts about its social benefits
in Esperanto.
As one of the most rational humans on the planet,
he expected to become a subroutine
in an important program:
the game-theoretic missile-defense system
or the hyper-logical central planning algorithm.

He was utterly unprepared
when the slime molds took over.
They would not listen to reason.
You're being emotional!
he screamed at the plasmoid
hungrily engulfing his arm.
He tried to scream again
in Esperanto
but the fruiting bodies had by this time
occluded his airway
and it was becoming difficult to think.

5 comments:

  1. Love your rational, robotic human taken over by a nonthinking fruiting body. Do you write sci-fi, too? I mean, like, novels?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, I wish! I like to read sci fi, but haven't written fiction since I was a teenager. (I guess it's never too late to start back up again, though.)

      Delete
  2. such fun! seems like it should be a Dr Who show!!

    cookala

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The monster in the episode called "The Invisible Enemy" is pretty slime-mold like.

      Delete
  3. A great intelligent, fun, witty read. Enjoyed. Thanks.
    David Mascellani

    ReplyDelete