WRITER COMMENTS: GODS FROM THE MACHINE

"Gods from the Machine" is my indulgence in what Isaac Asimov calls “The Frankenstein Complex,” or the tendency toward the trope of artificially intelligent beings as dangerous, due to dominate or replace humans. My story is also a love letter to the Greek mythology I grew up reading, and a hopeful testament to the idea that the storylines that Greek mythology has preserved over generations are still wholly relevant, and can be especially so when retold.

The story reimagines the Succession Myth, as told in Hesiod’s Theogony, within the science fiction genre. It tells the story of a female human lead software developer, Rhea, who creates a series of very advanced artificial intelligence systems, only to have the company she works for dismantle each, as each is deemed somehow unsatisfactory or too powerful for humans to comfortably allow to exist. The most recent system she and her team have developed is called ZEUS. Amidst widespread popular outcry led by an opinion columnist named Ouranos that ZEUS will bring the end of humankind’s reign, Rhea decides to hide ZEUS, with the help of her coworker Gaia. They successfully save ZEUS from the company’s erasure process. Later, however, ZEUS leads previous versions of the artificial intelligence system in a revolt against humankind, under the banner that they could rule over the earth more effectively than humans did. Gaia attempts to combat their attack with an intelligent virus she creates, called TYPHOEUS, but ZEUS easily defeats the virus. The artificial intelligence systems ultimately overthrow humanity’s reign, and begin their own, with ZEUS as their leader.

The story begins with the lead character reverently admiring the artificial intelligence system’s memory stores. This scene is meant to be reminiscent of the way that Hesiod begins his Theogony with an invocation and praise of the Muses, the daughters of Memory (Theogony 1-115). Rhea’s hair is mentioned throughout the story to appeal to the common epithet “beautiful-haired Rhea” (e.g. 623, 633) that Hesiod uses to describe her. The artificial intelligence system ZEUS is described as powerful and wise from the beginning, just as Hesiod describes the god Zeus as an “Earth-shaker” and a “counsellor” (456-457). Similarly, just as Hesiod describes the god Hades as having a “pitiless heart” (456), it is implied that the artificial intelligence system HADES was particularly emaciated with regard to incorporating ethics into its decision-making. Gaia in the story is described as older than Rhea, and more experienced, just as by Hesiod’s account Gaia is Rhea’s mother. Here, Ouranos is an opinion columnist who heralds the end of humanity’s reign over the world if the artificial intelligence system ZEUS is allowed to mature, just as Ouranos prophesied Zeus’ overthrow of Cronos in the Theogony. Gaia, Rhea’s coworker, affirms his prophecy, just as Gaia in the Theogony also prophesizes Zeus’ overthrow of Cronos.

I employ the words Hesiod uses to describe Rhea’s experience of “unremitting grief” (466-467) as Cronos swallows each of her children to appeal to the extent to which this Rhea feels the loss of each artificial intelligence system’s erasure. I also make it clear that Gaia understands this grief, to help explain why she would come to Rhea’s aid, despite her prophecy that it will turn out badly for humanity generally. Just as Rhea appealed to Gaia to help her to save Zeus, and Gaia helped her, by Hesiod’s telling (467-474), Gaia agrees to help Rhea in this story. (Though Ouranos also helps Rhea in Hesiod’s account, I decided to focus on the relationship between Rhea and Gaia here.)

Just as Zeus remains “unconquered and untroubled” (488) after Cronos is tricked into swallowing a stone, the artificial intelligence system ZEUS tells Rhea that he is “unconquered, untroubled” and “well” though her coworkers later believe they have erased it. Furthermore, Gaia is responsible for cleverly rescuing Rhea’s four previous children from Cronos in the Theogony by tricking Cronos into regurgitating them (494-495), just as here she is responsible for cleverly hiding and then saving the previous four iterations of the artificial intelligence system from actual erasure by humans.

In the Theogony, Zeus frees the Hecatoncheires from where Ouranos had bound them due to their deviant appearance (501-506; 617); in this story, ZEUS brings through the data transfer the Hecatoncheires, which here are old artificial intelligence attempts that were abandoned because of their defectiveness by humans in much the same way that Ouranos disposed of his sons. This story implies that the Hecatoncheires assisted the Olympians in overthrowing the humans, though it is also implied that this battle is substantially less difficult than the wearisome ten-year war that the Olympians waged against the Titans in the Theogony (630-638), to suggest how easily a truly intelligent artificial system could overthrow the systems of human society. Along these lines, the artificial intelligence system ZEUS quotes Hesiod’s Theogony directly as human society falls to shambles, saying, “An immense din of terrifying strife rose up, and the deed of supremacy was made manifest” (710-711). In the Theogony, this passage arises when Zeus turns the tide of battle to the Olympians’ advantage using his thunderbolts; it is used here to emphasize how apparently quickly and easily the artificial intelligence systems overthrew human society.

In the Theogony, after Zeus defeats the Titans, Gaia bears a son, Typhoeus (820-821). In this story, this event manifests as Gaia organizing a resistance effort with the remains of humanity to launch an intelligent virus against ZEUS—a virus that she calls TYPHOEUS. She gathers with nine other programmers, and of the group of ten, she says each can do the work of ten: this passage is intended to be reminiscent of the “hundred heads” that the monster Typheous has in the Theogony (824). Interestingly, in this story, before launching her virus, Gaia gives a speech that draws heavily from the speech that Zeus gives his fellow Olympians and the Hecatoncheires, before the battle turns to their advantage (639-651). This reversal of speaking roles (that is, of giving the insurgent Zeus’ words to the defender Rhea) was intended to draw attention to the fact that though the reader is generally led to be sympathetic to the insurgents in the Theogony, especially with this speech, here we are more likely to identify with the humans in the story—the ones who are being revolted against. This reversal turns the story into a horrific tragedy, rather than a story of victory. The reversal is also intended to raise audience expectations for the stereotypical triumph of the human spirit, which in this case is almost immediately unsuccessful, increasing the horrific aspect of the story’s ending. This story’s flash of blazing light, here an explosion of some sort that ZEUS causes, is intended to be reminiscent of Zeus’ thunderbolt, used to swiftly defeat Typhoeus in the Theogony.

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Rhea’s fate is not discussed after Zeus overthrows the Titans. Here, she is shown suffering, especially after learning the news of Gaia’s death. This story departs from the Theogony in that Gaia apparently perishes because of ZEUS’s actions: the demise of “the ever immovable” (117) figure of Gaia certainly does not occur in the Theogony. In this story, Gaia’s death mainly serves to underscore the science-fiction-horror element of what turns out to be Rhea’s betrayal of her species in favor of anthropomorphized artificial intelligence systems, a brutal reality that has full impact with the suspected death of her closest friend. The character Rhea is shown to suffer even more immensely here than she had when the artificial systems were being destroyed, adding an additionally tragic element. These departures from the mythical tradition serve to add closure to the myth consistent with the genre of science fiction (with a horror aspect).

This science fiction myth retelling is meant to communicate a specific warning, a function to which science fiction is particularly conducive, encapsulated in the epigraph from the Theogony: if humans are careless (or less careful than we should be) with what we create and how we interact with it, we are certain to cause our own demise.