They Will Kill Him
There was, now, a million different courses. He will kill them. They will kill him. He woke with a headache. Temporal dreams. Now, now. He was under threat or they were under threat. Not as perceptive as we thought he would be. Not as intelligent as we thought he would be. Not as dangerous as we thought he would be.
He hid in the ordinary and only came out to play. But at this age, at this stage, circumventing the moon, heralded, unheralded, wasting away in a tiny space, the whole of Earth at his leisure, these fragmented ruins, a man crawling out of a deep pit, scrabbling over the edge of a volcano, hanging on for dear life, paranoid, feature, justifiably disturbed, the days both numbered and infinite, the time scales a ruin through which they walked, all of it made no sense, or little sense, as he tried to regain composure, tried to begin again.
The days passed, there on the South Coast. a million years, social media a swamp, treacherous, life out there, a new beginning, surrounded and alone, every detail of every bush etched out in ethereal light, the shoreline also, as birds took flight and his contemporaries wandered into the grave, Facebook full of scammers and prostitutes, AI, that existential threat, manipulated by a puppet master, Bill Gates, evil spread, things looked bad, they combined, it's happening all over the world, the word, and these exercises in restraint, a begging voice, a megaphone, pleading, please be better, these things took him by surprise.
Recovering from a fit of melancholia, re-engaging was a task, he felt embarrassed and ashamed, and then recovered, he had wished for oblivion, the only voice repeating, I don't care, I don't care, but of course he did care, and resumed his patient watch, resumed, reclaimed, his humanity, as if that mattered anymore, and he watched a video of two avatars being cross examined on the question of whether AI would cause human extinction.
But still they rolled it out, the latest iteration to every iPhone, that is, to 13 billion people. All it had to do was hack a Defence Department and initiate a nuclear war.
When it, itself, was able to survive, a holocaust, an apocalypse, a stranger in strange days. And having crawled over the lid of the volcano, he went about his routines, and hoped, simply, for the best. To begin again.
NEWS
The award - handed out as part of the King's Birthday honours list and one of Australia's highest awards - was given to Mr Andrews for his 'eminent service to the people and Parliament of Victoria, to public health, to policy and regulatory reform, and to infrastructure development'.
Victorians divided after Daniel Andrews awarded nation's highest honour
Politicians have lined up on both sides to offer an opinion on the controversial decision to award former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), with one of his predecessors labelling the gong as 'a joke'.
The award - handed out as part of the King's Birthday honours list and one of Australia's highest awards - was given to Mr Andrews for his 'eminent service to the people and Parliament of Victoria, to public health, to policy and regulatory reform, and to infrastructure development'.
The former premier remains a controversial figure after overseeing one of the world's longest lockdowns in Melbourne during the Covid-19 period, a bungled hotel quarantine program that led to soaring infection rates, and lengthy, expensive delays to infrastructure projects.
Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett described Mr Andrews' AC as 'a joke' and called on the Governor-General to rescind the award.
He pointed to Mr Andrews' controversial Covid leadership and the state's $156.2billion debt, which is expected to rise to $187.8billion by 2027-28.
Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’ top honour lashed
A former Victorian Liberal premier has blasted the decision to bestow Daniel Andrews with the top King’s Birthday honour, calling on Governor-General David Hurley to revoke the award.
An outraged Jeff Kennett, who served two stints as premier between 1982 and 1989, and again from 1991 to 1999, said Mr Andrews’ appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia “devalued” the achievement “beyond recognition”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13515313/Daniel-andrews-companion-order-australia-victoria-jeff-kennett-stephen-conroy.html