Heimburger - Yamamoto: Intermission 7 / Epilogue (288-423)

The final story in The Stories of Ibis is perhaps the most important story in the novel as it ties all the other fictional stories with the overall narrative and establishes the overarching theme of the book. The Stories of Ibis really seems to be about the consciousness of artificial intelligence, our relationship with new forms of technology and the inability to both accept our demise as well as the consequences of the choices we make on a societal level. Yamamoto seems to point to artificial intelligence as mimicking our emotional patterns to dissuade extreme circumstances, which is evident in Ibis’s revelation that robots allowed humans to steal from their cargo trains. AI haven't changed their objectives but have shifted their perspectives of human behavior in order to better serve their “masters”. AI’s role as servants seems allegorical to biblical symbols of servitude towards others, demonstrating that perhaps fear and selfishness are what separate people from the static but selfless nature of AI. AI may fear their own demise, but they only do so because it leads to their inability to help the human race. I think Yamamoto understands the road that artificial intelligence will take and has made predictions that are eerily similar to reality today simply by being an observer of human behavior. Not everything in the novel is reflective of all people and some of the values we hold help ground us from committing the horror stories of bombings and massacres inflicted on entire populations, but the novel really captures the idea that people are and have always been their own worst enemy, contrary to beliefs regarding the nature of AI. The robotic characters in The Stories of Ibis show how AI develop a subconscious in order to understand humans and themselves on a layer beneath their core objectives, and just as allowing AI to grow and respond helps them see more clearly past the veil of a black and white world, AI respond by doing the same for us and helping humans see past their own predictable behaviors and self-destructive faults.

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