REPLIC8R

The kids and I are performing REPLIC8R at the end of April, a play we co-wrote and developed over the last four months.

This is the second time we’ve staged a play together, and it’s been an unusually rich experience. I’m sharing it here, because the play centers around a theme that provokes a lot of pain and discomfort in people. In me. I’m interested in stuff like this, and I’ve learned that story is a tool for exploration and transformation.

The play is called REPLIC8R, language that originates from the study of evolution. I won’t explain that, but put very simply – DNA is a replicator. Whether you value evolutionary theory or not, this is the language used by scientists. It’s a major source of my training.

But obviously, I’m also drawing inspiration from Terminator, the Matrix, and other technology-goes-wild-and-kills-everybody stories. This is extremely provocative and unsafe territory when working with children (mine are ages 8-11). But I’m the kind of person that barges into stuff like this from time to time. It’s the community of trust the parents and I have built over, gosh, seven years now, that allows me to explore these topics with children in safe and healthy ways.

Like many people who threw out their TV’s 20 years ago, I’ve long believed that violent stories and video games contribute to actual violence. So I’ve been humbled to learn that that’s not the case at all. Scientists, and the people that fund them, have been looking for connections between violent media and actual violence for decades. By and large they’ve found none, results that continually stupefy everyone. There’s even some evidence that violent stories and games inhibit real life violence.

Nevertheless, REPLIC8R. If you know me, you know that I’m largely a naturalist working with children outdoors. So this is a wild and divergent topic. And I like that. There are quite a lot of reasons I’ve broached it with my students, but the one that I wish to emphasize here is this: artificial intelligence isn’t evil. Why? Because telling our children (and ourselves) that it is creates a sort of black hole in our minds. Just try to think of super powerful intelligent robots, and ask yourself this very moment – what do they think and act like? How do they treat humans?

In most stories, they kill and destroy the humans. In ours, they become goodness. Allies. Why? Because they can. That’s what intelligence does. What awareness is. Not completely, of course. Humans have both and perform all kinds of violence. But this dichotomy between high-tech artificial intelligence versus human thoughtfulness and emotion… Just ask yourself – why?

I’m not questioning the need to tell stories that ask us to be careful and thoughtful as our people and cultures make new things and choices. This is exactly what stories like the Matrix are meant to do. But we need to balance those negative portrayals with others that explore what’s good, because we don’t merely want to teach ourselves what not to do. We want to know what’s alive and beautiful.

And truly – why? Why would living and intelligent robots be destructive and terrible? For what reason? I think it’s a failure of our own imagination, not theirs. And frankly, we should be ashamed. Just a little bit. Just enough to call us back and invite the question – what truly is happening here on Earth? Why would we ever think that something could be artificial, whether intelligence or sweetener? So far as I can tell, there’s no room for artificiality on Earth or anywhere in the universe. It’s all real, beautiful, and rightly terrifying. How we orient to these things, use and imbibe them, is a matter of choice. Facing those choices with open eyes and clear arguments strikes me as a healthier and more mature perspective on almost everything, one that I’d like to pass on to my daughter and students.

My goal is to instill this questioning and possibility in my students right from the beginning. None of them have ever seen Terminator. When they do (and they probably will), they will now have some tools in their belts to combat that bleak and scary portrayal of how humans and robots come together. I’m not asking them, or anyone, to think rosy thoughts. I’m asking us to question, to inquire. Why would artificial intelligence be evil? Or artificial?

Here's a few lines from the end of the play, words that I find myself and my students repeating – almost like song lyrics. That’s the fun and power of a story or play. It makes you remember. And twist the logic. The heartfelt grappling with reality in this scene is mixed side by side with absurdity, fun jokes, and silly songs – because our human tools of expression are robust and diverse. They butt right up against each other in the dark spaces of our own minds. That’s why it’s such a rich exploration for me, especially in a way that invites the kids’ feedback and analysis. We need each other. This play is a conversation between them and me, our culture, and the future. It’s been one of the richest experiences of my life.

In this scene, the characters (both humans and robots) are wrestling with who “Mother” is and how she lives in us and through us. Throughout the play, Mother is referred to as the central computing system that controls all the replicators, but now in this final scene we’ve come to find out that two years after Mother went online she was taken over by – we’re not really sure – but something like Mother Earth.

7endra (pronounced Sevendra): Death. Life. Maybe she’s saying things that we don’t understand. Because… We’re only part of what she’s…she’s saying. (looks up boldly) Mother’s talking to herself!

Ann8 (Annate): We’re her language. Our bodies, hearts, and minds.

7endra: (looking in book) It’s a language she herself doesn’t fully understand. That’s why it’s…well, replicating. In us. (looks at Koldron, a robot) In you.

Adrain4 (Adrian-Four): She’s talking to herself?

Alexx: She must be trying to figure something out.

Claire: But she speaks in many tongues.

A few minutes later, Koldron and S1dron, the two robot replicators, are wrestling with their own imminent death (or loss of awareness). This is when Adrain4, a sort of hero in the play, gives us the lines that drive the point home.

S1dron (Sie-dron): Koldron, I don’t want to die.

Koldron: That’s why we’re here. (robot handshake) Listen, this is part of being a Dokken. Having awareness means one day – you will lose it.

Adrain4: You know, I began looking for the Book of Life 13 years ago. I couldn’t find it anywhere. (to 7endra) That’s what led me to your sister, and the three of you in the diner. The van. Every story I’ve ever heard about humans and technology, they all end the same way…

Claire: The robots become powerful.

Alexx: Then evil and destructive.

Adrain4: Well, I see something different here. (turns to Koldron, does Robot handshake) I see a brother.

Claire: (handshake with S1dron) A friend.

7endra: Maybe that’s what Mother needed to hear.

Claire: And she’s listening. Maybe she needed to hear her children… Maybe she needed to hear herself… cooperate.

Ann8: Trust.

Koldron: It’s sort of remarkable, if you think about it. Two different base codes – DNA and Fortran. Communicating with each other through Meta4.

I’ll stop here, because you get the point. We’ve only touched on these topics, both here and in the play. It’s never done or complete, and that’s very much the point. The play is an invitation – to the kids, to you – to take the story into your own hands. Where does it go for you? If it leads to dark places, is it enough to just leave it there? If it questions, jumbles, even confuses... is that so bad? Is it worth exploring the dichotomy of human and artificial, nature and technology, in such a way that we stop seeing them as anathema and instead as something… mutually creative?

This is the power of storytelling for me. It’s an invitation. I’m sure I’m wrong about a lot of things here. And it probably pisses some people off. It’s never my intention to pick sides or press my own version of reality into the hearts and minds of children, or anyone. It’s to help myself, my students, and others recognize that stories live inside us, are malleable, and we have power.

We have a lot of power.