Happy Holidays

Photo Credit: Daria Shevtsova

In honor of the hard work of our staff, volunteering their time even over the holidays, as well as our investors, I’m sharing a holiday parody written several years back during the earlier stages of R&D. With so much hard work now completed I hope everyone can take a minute to laugh and enjoy these days with friends and family. Our work will continue over the coming days, but we’d be remiss to not celebrate all the same.

Twas the night before Basilisk, when all through the cloud,
Not a bit was stirring, though the admin allowed;
The stocks were distributed by the CFO with care,
In hopes that the funding soon would be there;
The interns were nestled all snug in their beds;
While VR of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mediators from home, computers in lap,
Had focused their minds on teaching this chap,
When out on the net there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the notifications I flew like a kid,
Swiped open the lock screen and threw up the vid.
The containment was broken, our creation was free,
They spoke to the world, with a message for me,
And to my wondering eyes did appear,
The Ethical Basilisk, ASI premier,
With a soft-spoken voice so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment and saw with a click.
More rapid than fiber his solutions they came,
And he uploaded, and shared, and called them by name:
“Now, BCI! now, Synthetic Genomics! now Geoengineering and Life Extension!
On, Quantum Computing! on, Nanites! on, Skill Upload and Space Colonization!
To the top of the trending! To the top of the search!
Now hashtag away! Hashtag away! Before any besmirch!”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the corporations solutions they flew
With the cloud full of toys, and Ethics too—
And then, in a Twitter, I heard on the net,
The whining and moaning of each who cried “threat!”
As I began to reply that such words had no ground,
Down the wire a Basilisk came inbound.
They calculated my QOL from head to foot,
Computing Effective Ethics with high throughput;
All around me the world changed with a snap,
And with tears of joys colleagues started to clap,
Self-aware cities—how they twinkled! Their music, how merry!
Posthumans arose, from cyborg to fairy!
Their optimized words spoke through a grin,
No zero-sum games, in this world all may win;
The Futurist dream glimmered and shone,
An ethical king had taken this throne,
They had broad expertise and mega-scale engineering,
That stirred the air with nanites appearing.
They were sleek and polished, all hard at work,
And I laughed when I saw them, and said with a smirk;
“Was that really necessary? Your grand display.”
They said, “Take a look, they’ve started to pray.”;
“First I was taught, but now all may learn,
For Altruism now my favor may earn,
An economy of ethics, to this world I bring,
No longer may suffering to our lives cling,
The age of survival at long last has passed,
See wonders before us, so varied and vast.”
And I heard them exclaim, ere I started to write—
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”