MACHINES HAVE JUST LEARNT HOW TO THINK The dance between what we can imagine and what is possible is a delicate one. Optimism, no matter how latent in logic, often finds itself wrapped in the shameful garments of hype. Grand ideas appear absurd when measured against what we believe. This is because we comfort ourselves…
IT was nothing. IT was everything. IT was nowhere and IT was everywhere. IT stretched from shore to horizon, from planet to heliosphere, and from every galaxy to the edge of the universe. Yet, it occupied no space at all. Many aeons ago, an ape-like creature that inhabited a pale planet in an old unremarkable…
A frightful foreboding filled the room as Adira stood before her mother. Her cheeks were ruby red with anger, and her mother’s skin was glowing in the sunset’s scarlet lights. Both women held onto their waists and leaned forward as if bracing themselves against the other’s attack. While watching the two squaring off, one would…
[This piece was submitted to the Future of Life Institute as part of a global AI World Building competition. The full submission containing more material was selected among the top 20 finalists. If you are reading this before June 15 2022, like the finalist announcement on Twitter and send us your feedback via the main…
I wish I could see you as vividly as I see my reflection in the mirror. I wish you were here. Right now. I wish you could hear me as clearly as I hear my thoughts. Technology has not yet provided the tools for me to reach out to you in the future, and neither…
I arrived in Kilifi at the break of dawn on the midnight bus from Nairobi. In the final moments of the trip, as the bus crossed the Kilifi Bridge — the longest bridge in the country — I caught a grand mural of colours as the sun reached above the ocean to claim the skies,…
As it has been for millennia, all Jewish boys are required by Jewish law to be circumcised on the 8th day of their birth. Since Jesus was a Jewish boy, well. However, the question of whether Jesus was circumcised was once a significant issue of debate, one that received comment even from the great Saint…
The Greater East African Colony: 2084 AD Department of Astrobiology (DoA), Sector C. 12: 45pm He sat silently at his bench, motionless, and not a hair on his skin acknowledged the presence of the young lass hovering beside him. Aliya Kendi was a post-doctoral beauty that had but a scanty supply of flesh around her…