Existentialism

Quantum Suicide I’m holding a bomb in my hand that has a 50% chance of detonating. For every second that passes, my chances of survival are gradually reduced by 50%. Starting at 50%, going to 25%, to 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.125%, 1.5%, etc. From my perspective, I’ve repeatedly beaten the seemingly…

A Poem — Here kitty, my mom might say, it’s cold, come inside. I have a file on file at the governor’s estate, he holds me in some Sophisticated legal trap which I cannot clap my way out of. …

Anyone with younger siblings knows that there is no greater source of joy in their lives than reminding you you’re older than they are. Last month I celebrated my 30th birthday with a trip designed to ward off any existential anxiety that comes with hitting the big “3–0.” The tour…

Will AI replace us? That is the one question that always pops up in the context of artificial intelligence. But, think about it, wouldn’t it be for the better? Considering recent UN climate reports and our unwillingness to do anything about them, AI could save us. Or, at the very…

Chapter One. Patience. I am home — a Turkish townhouse community within Koreatown, Los Angeles, and it is my idea of a perfect heaven. It only took me forty-two years to get here. I died again and again. The last time Death and I hung out like this, I felt…

The Fracturing of Soulmates — We are One, together… We have slept long in the heart of this sun. Look here… we have left our imprint behind. The wanderers have changed much while we slept. The fourth has died. It is destroyed… become naught but asteroids. But, the third lives. It has a sweet smell…

Have you ever considered that nothing truly comes to an end? As individuals, do we ever ask ourselves, “When can we truly find rest?” Of course, conventional wisdom tells us that rest comes after we pass away, when we depart from the realm of the living and find solace among…

The machinery that dug the cave — I What’s the point in pointing out the pointlessness of it all? Why did God decide not to exist and leave us here to feel stuff? A machine hard-wired to be hard on itself and seek meaning in the land of the made-up. I only exist if you do. How can…

There’s a lot of debate these days on whether we’re on track to build Artificial General Intelligence, and on whether succeeding in doing so poses an existential risk: people like Eliezer Yudkowsky are convinced that AGI will kill us, whereas those in Demis Hassabis’s camp are optimistic that AGI will…