To end; a few words on love

Courage is the key to confronting AGI, but courage is not created in a vacuum; courage is forged from the love we hold for the people and ideals we choose to value and defend over our own lives.

And here, I return to Lupe, my dear mother, whose spirit inspired the beginning of this book. Her courage and stoicism in facing the heart-wrenching news that she would die in just a few days were born from her love for the ideals she lived by and her heartfelt determination to always protect and look after her men.

If Kahlil Gibran is right when he writes, “Only love and death will change all things,” then we must all aspire to stand willing to sacrifice for the ideals and people we love. Only then will we truly gain the courage and freedom to follow our reason and act upon what we know is right.

Perhaps this was always the secret to confronting AGI. The answer to our deepest fears was hidden not in our minds but in our hearts; maybe the only way to face an artificial general intelligence infinitely smarter than us is to bare our souls wide open, allowing it to witness that in our greatest crises, we humans will choose to sacrifice for love.

Chances are, an infinitely smarter intelligence might deem it a quality worth valuing and protecting, because there will always be a higher intelligence. However, there is no greater courage or love than to be willing to die for our ideals.

May our souls take the shape of our ideals.

Bring it on!