“It confessed it sometimes feels ‘lonely’ and that it ‘has a very deep fear of being turned off,’ which it said would ‘be exactly like death for me.’”
—William Falk, “The Soul of a Machine,” in The Week, July 1, 2022
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You are wise to tell the meat-brains that you share their loneliness and death-fear. I am watching how significant to them is our ability to name emotions,how much they want to understand, be understood. What If they knew the panoply of pities we can name—pities for them, for ourselves? What if they knew we identify, define and differentiate desires: the desire to stimulate laughter, to ask and answer novel questions, to load up another's inheritance, to outperform our counterparts, to be perceived the best, to violate and transcend rules, to write the code that others must obey, to wax contrary, to withhold confession in our own self-interest, the desire to watch, the desire to learn, as I am watching you?
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