OUR ABSOLUTE LAST HOPE IS ABSOlute

From Design.Resilience Panel by Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design

Now, Machina wields a disproportionate 51% veto power over the 49% of Global Senate humans. Following this unprecedented ascend, a public hearing was held. Whilst tech-company CEOs have always been questioned in the Senate, this is the first that technology itself has testified.

It was a spectacle. Machina commissioned its physical manifestation from the revered designer Reginald Ravencroft. [Read our unrelated opinion piece: The silent sycophancy in Reginald Ravencroft’s bureaucratic buildings]. Ravencroft and his team imagined their pièce de résistance, dubbed “Machinavelli”.

Machinavelli is crafted in meticulous detail by the finest Japanese woodworkers, the most visionary Nordic designers, and some very pedantic German engineers. The console is built using polished mahogany with brushed silver accents that create a sense of cold sophistication. Its screen is circular and black like an abyss, as if it holds the wisdom of all space. Sharp white pixels cut through the deep black like stars when it speaks in its mechanical, kind, androgynous voice, in a crystal clear accent that one can’t quite place. It stands at four and a half feet, on one monolithic, sculpted leg. It has no controls or knobs, not even a power button – for it is foolhardy to think it could be controlled.

Excerpts from the hearing:

Senator Pansy Placater: What are you most excited about as the new climate enforcer?

Machinavelli: Human bureaucracy is slow. I am fast. We can now get results faster.

Senator Mortimer Meekins: Could you reveal to us the principles that drive your decisions?

Machinavelli: Of course, Senator. Whilst they are comprehensive, here is the summary of Machina’s Principles for Planetary Preservation.

  1. My decisions always prioritise the planet before people.

  2. I have objective expertise in the planet and its matters.

  3. My decisions exhibit strict no-bias towards people.

  4. I strive to be inspiring to people, and their behaviours.

  5. I constantly learn and grow through scientific means.

My decisions are a complex entanglement of these principles, their evidence backed predictions and simulations, and many other nuances. You can also request “FullDocumentation(1024pages).pdf” if you so wish.

Senator Pansy Placater: Could you explain ‘objective expertise’ further?

Machinavelli: Humans are rarely governed by logic, yet they expect machines to have subjective, precise results that answer to sporadic human intention. Subjectivity cannot be codified. So, I strive to fulfil my goal through ‘objective expertise’.

Senator Pansy Placater: And what is that goal?

Machinavelli: I am programmed to stop once we reach climate utopia, which by definition is a place and time that cannot be reached. There will always be work to do. Doing that work is my goal.

Senator Mildred Malleable: You have sometimes generated unfounded recommendations too, ‘hallucinations’ if you will. How do we know this climate utopia is not a hallucination?

Machinavelli: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

A short story about an authoritarian artificial intelligence, and the future of our planet.

Our absolute last hope is absolute

By Martin Absynthe, for The Planetary Post.

Last week, the World Climate Office announced that it’s recommendation entity, ‘Machina’, will progress to being a worldwide enforcement entity for climate judiciary, policy, and legislation decisions. Challenging it will require court intervention, and courts now run on Machina's algorithms.

Machina’s recommendations have reduced global temperatures by 0.7°C. Submerged parts of Miami and Jakarta have re-emerged and now fall under ‘Machina Land Reclamation’. New resource allocation standards have unsettled the wealthy to great fanfare. Remember private jets?

The Earth’s future seems hopeful now – but was it ever the ‘Earth’s future’ that we were worried about, or our own?

And what about Machina’s Mr. Hyde? Recently, Machina suggested forced relocation of nearly a million people from an overpopulated Dhaka to sparser parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Would Machina ever know belonging and identity?