![]() The few sparrows who remained behind, despite their difficulties, settled on the plan that the best way to approach owl taming and domestication was by not allowing the owl to understand that he is an owl. Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Oxford, 2016īostrom leaves the fable unfinished I will provide one account of what happens next. It is not known how the story ends, but the author dedicates this book to Scronkfinkle and his followers.” Nevertheless they pressed on as best they could, constantly fearing that the flock might return with an owl egg before a solution to the control problem had been found. They soon realized that Pastus had been right: this was an exceedingly difficult challenge, especially in the absence of an actual owl to practice on. Together they began to try to work out how owls might be tamed or domesticated. “Just two or three sparrows remained behind. ![]() As the other sparrows leave to find an owl, the fable ends: One member of the flock, Scronkfinkle, objects, saying, “Should we not give some thought to the art of owl-domestication and owl-taming first, before we bring such a creature into our midst?” The other sparrows disregard the warning, upon the premise that they will first obtain own owlet or an owl egg, and then concern themselves with the control of the owl. Testimony to superintelligence as an existential risk is the book Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, who has been instrumental both in the exposition of existential risks and in the exposition of superintelligence.īostrom prefaces his book on superintelligence with a fable, “The Unfinished Fable of the Sparrows.” In the fable, a flock of sparrows decides that they would benefit if they had an owl to help them. I do not share this view, but I understand why this view is common. "Conference of the Birds" runs through April 16 at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis.In my Centauri Dreams post Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? I noted that it has become a contemporary commonplace that the emergence of superintelligent artificial intelligence represents the greatest existential risk of our time and the near future. Let's surmount all these mountains and valleys to reach the goal to find ourselves." "We come from different places, and yet we can struggle together to reach our goal. "This play actually speaks to the fact that we can all be different," she said. But the point is, nobody will come to solve it unless we solve it! So if your plate is full, get a bigger plate."Įventually, only 30 birds make it all the way to the Simorgh, whose name, in Persian, translates to "the 30 birds." Ultimately, said Meena Natarajan, the birds find that the spiritual divine - their king - is within them. "And yet we sit in a room and bemoan the achievement gap, war in the world, poverty, patriarchy being rampant. "Our excuses are, 'I don't have time, my plate is full,'" he said. She said the story holds a mirror up to the audience, encouraging viewers to ask some deep spiritual questions.ĭirector Dipankar Mukherjee said that just as the birds offer up excuses for why they shouldn't embark on their journey to find a king, so too do we humans come up with reasons we can't change the world for the better. Natarajan adapted the poem into the play. ![]() "And I think there's such an increasing push for homogenization right now, and so it just seemed really relevant for us to do this piece just in terms of just bringing people together, looking at our struggles, and seeing how do we triumph together." "You know what's happening in the world is incredibly polarizing right now," she said. Meena Natarajan said that when she and Pangea co-founder Dipankar Mukherjee were looking for a production to mark their 20th anniversary, it seemed like the right time to bring back "Conference of the Birds," the first play they ever produced. Birds of all different types - hawks and herons, nightingales and sparrows - come together and decide they must choose a king to rule them. ![]() "Conference of the Birds" is based on a 12th century work by the Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. Pangea World Theater is staging a play it hopes can serve as an antidote to all the negative rhetoric. Public conversations in this political season are often fraught with personal attacks and angry accusations. ![]()
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