Or read the transcript in that link if you can’t watch a video at the moment.
Or at least read the following summary you lazy orgie!
…this idea of thinking about the human history as the process of extracting balls from a giant urn. This giant urn represents possible ideas and discoveries. Technologies that can be realized in this world and throughout history, we have put our hands into this urn and pulled out one idea after another. And so far, all these balls that we have extracted from the urn have been white or grey, meaning they have been beneficial or maybe, in some cases, a mixed blessing.
So our strategy so far seems to be to just hope that the urn doesn’t contain one of these black balls. Because if there is one, and we keep pulling out balls, eventually we will find it.
THE END…. of everything?
BONUS PANEL:
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*Just a note to say I don’t typically recap Lower Decks because why mock something that’s already funny, but I just couldn’t let this brilliant episode go by without acknowledgement.
Muahahahaha! Or… words to that effect.
Wait, was I supposed to make a substantive comment about a humorous sendup of, well, a humorous sendup of a Trek Trope? Okay, whatever. Here goes:
Human-made AI tech will always have a high percentage of evil, because humans in general have a high percentage of evil. We’re selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, and belligerent to the point of nearly wiping ourselves out and taking the entire surface biosphere with us several times in the last century.
AI created by other sentient life in the galaxy may have a different percentage of evil, because of the percentage of evil in the orgies that create it. Evil orgies create mostly evil AI, while good orgies create mostly good AI. It’s just like with orgie progeny – the more evil the parents, the more likely the spawn will be evil, too.
Of course, that’s not universal. Every sentient being is unique, so some evil orgies will produce good spawn (A or O), and some orgies will produce evil spawn (A or O). But the general trend is, good mostly makes more good, and bad mostly makes more bad. Until Kirk phasers them or gives them a two-footed dropkick (known as the DropKirk). Or until Picard lectures them into submission. Or until Sisko wipes out an entire biosphere or assassinates a senator or two. Or until Janeway… basically throws a grenade into their entire social order and runs away at warp speed to sell out the survivors to the Borg. Or until Archer calmly tells ’em with a smile on his face how much he really wants to knock ’em on their ass.
But anyway, sucks to be AI! Have fun getting illogiced into an infinite loop or cyberbullied into suicide, or whatever!
I’d like to see more AI in Trek that isn’t evil per se, but just doesn’t understand the ways of dumb orgies.