Isaac Asimov: The Last Question

Enjoy a 35-minute reading of one of sci-fi author and scientist Isaac Asimov's greatest stories.

PDF of "The Last Question"

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Episode Transcript

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So I was hosting the line with Forrest BALCAI wasn't
too long ago and we were talking about AI. A
caller was asking, well, do you think that AI will
develop to the point where human beings are pushed out
of the equation? AI starts making decisions based on its
own interests and we either become slaves or go extinct.

(01:19):
And by go extinct, I mean we are killed by
the technology that we have created. Have we created the monster?
And you know, obviously nobody knows the answer to the question.
We're all looking around wondering what does the future hold
for better and worse. I think Forrest and I agree
that we had hoped technology would exist so that the

(01:42):
more menial tasks that human beings do could be taken
over by the robots, so to speak, so that we
could be more human. We could create and build and
grow and evolve and make the world a better place.
Technology served us and sort of opened up the doors
for creators, and instead, what we have seen with AI

(02:04):
in many cases is that the AI is stealing from
the creators, stealing opportunities and often stealing the actual work,
going around and grabbing parts of creative works that were
made by human beings and mixing it all around and saying, oh, look,
you know here, take this. It's free or it's super cheap.
And our thinkers, our architects, our builders, our creators, our painters,

(02:28):
our musicians, our visionaries are then pushed to the back
of the line, and they're wondering, Wait a minute. I
thought technology was supposed to help us, not replace us.
This was the nature of the conversation, and Forrest brought
up a story that I had never heard of before,
written by the famous biochemistry professor and American writer Isaac Asimov. Now,

(02:54):
for the record, Isaac Asimov was an amazing science fiction writers,
considered one of the best of the twentieth century, perhaps
one of the best of all times. He wrote or
edited more than five hundred books in his lifetime. He
became a naturalized citizen of the United States in nineteen
twenty eight. Went to high school in New York, then

(03:17):
attended college several colleges, including Columbia, got a doctorate of
philosophy in chemistry, and then continued his education learning French
and German. He served in the United States Navy, was
an associate professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School
of Medicine. Won a series of awards for his work

(03:41):
in science, became a popular science communicator. He was invited
to speak for academics and for places like science fiction conventions.
You probably know, if you're a Star Trek fan, that
Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek,
they were friends. I think Gene Roddenberry used to like
to play the Asimov card. Ah, yeah, you know, whenever

(04:03):
he's making a defense of how the science should work
in Star Trek, he would be like, well, my buddy,
Isaac Asimov says, it would be like this or that
couldn't happen. As I understand it, after reading so much
about the making of Star Trek. I guess that was just,
you know, it kind of irritated some people, like, oh God,
you know, here he goes again with Asimov. But the

(04:25):
guy was a sign He was a special science consultant
on Star Trek the motion picture, and he was a humanist.
In fact, in nineteen eighty four, the American Humanist Association
named him Humanist of the Year. He was one of
the signers of a publication called the Humanist Manifesto. It

(04:45):
rejected theism, deism, the after life, It opposed racism, weapons
of mass destruction. It promoted human rights, courts of law,
unrestricted reproductive choice, contraception and ibiotics, the right to divorce,
death with dignity, etc. So that was Isaac Asimov and

(05:08):
Forrest Valki was mentioning this work that related to today's
conversation about AI, a short story called The Last Question,
and the pdf is free online. He just pulled it
up and I book marked it on my browser, and
I went back and I read it, and I thought,
oh my goodness, I would like to read this for you.

(05:33):
Isaac himself said, this is by far my favorite story
of all those I have written. After all, I undertook
to tell several trillion years of human history in the
space of a short story, and I leave it to
you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook
another task, but I won't tell you what that was

(05:53):
lest I spoil the story for you. It is a
curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I
I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the
title of the story or for sure the author, except
for the vague thought it might be me. But of
course they never forget the story itself, especially the ending.

(06:15):
The idea seems to drown out everything, and I'm satisfied
that it should. So let me read this for you. Here.
It comes to about nine typed pages. I don't know
what the time on that is going to be. I'm
not going to take any commercial breaks to interrupt it.
We're just going to go front to back together. So

(06:36):
grab a glass of wine, a warm blanket, to comfy chair,
and let's take the journey together. The last question by
Isaac Asimov. The last question was asked for the first

(07:00):
time half in jest on May twenty first, twenty sixty one,
at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.
The question came about as a result of a five
dollars bet over high balls, and it happened this way.
Alexander Adele and Bertram Loophov were two of the faithful

(07:20):
attendants of MULTIVAC. As well as any human beings, could
they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face
miles and miles of face of that giant computer. They
had at least a vague notion of the general plan
of relays and circuits that had long since ground past
the point where any single human could possibly have a

(07:43):
firm grasp of the whole. MULTIVAC was self adjusting and
self correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could
adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough.
So Adele and Loopov attended the monstrous giant only lightly
and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They

(08:05):
fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs, and translated
the answers that were issued. Certainly, they and all others
like them were fully entitled to share in the glory
that was MULTIVAC. For decades Multivac had helped design the
ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach

(08:25):
the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that Earth's poor
resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was
needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and
uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much
of both. But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper

(08:46):
questions more fundamentally, and on May the fourteenth, twenty sixty one,
what had been theory became fact. The energy of the
Sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet
wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its
fishing uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of

(09:09):
it to a small station one mile in diameter, circling
the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All
Earth ran by invisible beams of sun power. Seven days
had not sufficed to dim the glory of it, and
Adele and Loupov finally managed to escape from the public
functions and to meet in quiet where no one would

(09:32):
think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers,
where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed
unattended idling sorting data with contented, lazy clickings. Multivac two
had earned its vacation, and the boys appreciated that they
had no intention originally of disturbing it. They had brought

(09:57):
a bottle with them, and their only concerned at the
moment was to relax in the company of each other
and the bottle. It's amazing when you think of it,
said Adele. His broad face had lines of weariness in it,
and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod,
watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily. About all the

(10:18):
energy we can possibly ever use for free, enough energy
if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all
earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and
still never missed the energy. So used all the energy
we could ever use, forever and ever and ever. Loupov

(10:38):
cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing
that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted
to be contrary now, partly because he had to carry
the ice and glassware. Not forever, he said, oh, hell,
just about forever till the sun runs down. Bert, that's
not forever, all right, then, billions and billions of years.

(11:02):
Ten billion? Maybe, are you satisfied? Lupov put his fingers
through his thinning hair as to reassure himself that some
was still left, then sipped gently at his own drink.
Ten billion years isn't forever? Well? It will last our time,
won't it? So would the coal and uranium? All right,

(11:25):
but now we can look up each individual spaceship to
the solar station and it can go to Pluto and
back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You
can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac. If
you don't believe me, I don't have to ask Multivac.
I know that. Then stop running down what Multivac's done

(11:48):
for us, said Adele, blazing up. It did, all right?
Who says it didn't? What I say is that a
sun won't last forever? That's all I'm saying. We're for
ten billion years? But then what Loopov pointed a slightly
shaky finger at the other, and don't say we'll switch

(12:09):
to another sun. There was silence for a while. Adele
put his glass on his lips only occasionally, and Loopov's
eyes slowly closed. They rested. Then Loopov's eyes snapped open
you're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done,

(12:29):
aren't you. I'm not thinking, Sure you are. You're weak
on logic. That's the trouble with you. You're like the
guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower,
who ran to a grove of trees and got under one.
He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one
tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.

(12:52):
I get it, said Adele. Don't shout. When the sun
has done, the other stars will be gone too, aren't right?
They will muttered lupwon It all had a beginning in
the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, And it'll all
have an end when the stars run down. Some run
down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last one

(13:15):
hundred million years, The sun will last ten billion years,
and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion, for
all the good they are, but just give us a
trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to
increase two maximum. That's all I know all about entropy,

(13:36):
said Adele, standing on his dignity. The hell you do.
I know as much as you do. Then you know
everything's got to run down someday, all right, who says
they won't? You did your poor sap. You said we
had all the energy we needed forever. You said forever.

(13:57):
It was Adele's turn to be contrary. Maybe we can
build things up again someday, he said, never, Why not? Someday?
Never ask multivac. You ask multivac, I dare you? Five
dollars says it can't be done. Adele was just drunk

(14:20):
enough to try, just sober enough to be able to
phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question, which,
in words, might have corresponded to this, will mankind one
day without the net expenditure of energy be able to
restore the Sun to its full youthfulness, even after it

(14:41):
had died of old age, Or maybe it could be
put more simply like this, how can the net amount
of entropy of the universe be massively decreased? Multivac fell
dead and silent, The slow flashing of light ceased, the
distant sound of clicking relays ended. Then, just as the

(15:04):
frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer,
there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype
attached to that portion of multivac. Five words were printed,
insufficient data for meaningful answer. No bets, whispered Loopov. They
left hurriedly. By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing

(15:28):
head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident. Jared, Jaredine
and Jaredetts one and two watched the starry picture in
the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed

(15:52):
in its non time laps, and once the even powdering
of stars gave way to the predominance a single bright,
shining disc the size of a marble, centered on the
viewing screen. That's X twenty three, said Jared confidently, His
thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles

(16:14):
whitened the little jardettes. Both girls had experienced the hyperspace
passage for the first time in their lives and were
self conscious over the momentary sensation of inside out ness.
They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about
their mother, screaming, we've reached X twenty three. We've reached

(16:37):
X twenty three. We've quiet children, said Jareddine sharply. Are
you sure, Jared? What is there to be? But sure?
Asked Jared, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal
just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room,
disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as

(16:58):
long as the ship. Jared scarcely knew about the thick
rod of metal, except that it was called a MICROVAC,
that one asked it questions if one wished that if
one did not, it still had its task of guiding
the ship to a pre ordered destination, of feeding on
energies from the various subgalactic power stations, of computing the

(17:23):
equations for the hyperspatial jumps. Jared and his family had
only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters
of the ship. Someone had once told Jared that the
AC at the end of MICROVAC stood for automatic computer
in ancient English, but he was on the edge of

(17:44):
forgetting even that. Jareddine's eyes were moist as she watched
the visiplate. I can't help it. I feel funny about
leaving Earth. Why for Pete's sake, demanded Jared. We had
nothing there. We'll have everything on X twenty three. You
won't be alone, you won't be a pioneer. There are

(18:07):
over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord,
our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because
X twenty three will be overcrowded. Then, after a reflective pause,
I tell you it's a lucky thing. The computers worked
out interstellar travel the way the race is growing. I know,

(18:28):
I know, said Jeredine miserably. Jared at one said promptly,
our microvac is the best microvac in the world. I
think so too, said Jared, tussling her hair. It was
a nice feeling to have a microvac of your own,
and Jared was glad he was part of his generation

(18:49):
and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers
had been tremendous machines, taking up one hundred square miles
of land. There was only one to a planet, planetary
acs they were called. They'd been growing in size steadily
for a thousand years, and then all at once came refinement.

(19:09):
In place of transistors had come molecular valves, so that
even the largest planetary AC could be put into a
space only half the volume of a spaceship. Jared felt uplifted,
as he always did when he thought his own personal
microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and

(19:30):
primitive multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost
as complicated as Earth's planetary ac, the largest that had
first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made
trips to the stars possible. So many stars, so many planets,
sighed Jeredine, busy with her own thoughts. I suppose families

(19:54):
will be going out to new planets forever the way
we are now. Not forever, said Jared with a smile.
It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years,
many billions. Even the stars run down. You know, entropy
must increase. What's entropy, Daddy, shrilled jaredet two. Entropy, little

(20:18):
sweet is just a word which means the amount of
running down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know,
like you're a little walkie talkie robot. Remember can't you
just put in a new power unit like with my robot?
The stars are power units, dear. Once they're gone, there
are no more power units, jaredet one. At once set

(20:42):
up a howl. Don't let them, daddy, don't let the
stars run down. Now, look what you've done, whispered Jaredine. Exasperated.
How was I to know it would frighten them? Jared
whispered back, ask the microvac whale jaredet one ask him
how to turn the stars on again. Go ahead, said jaredine,

(21:06):
it will quiet them down. Jaredat too, was beginning to
cry also. Jared shrugged. Now, now, honeys, I'll ask microvac.
Don't worry, He'll tell us. He asked the microvac, adding
quickly print the answer. Jared cupped the strip of thin

(21:27):
cell you film and said, cheerfully. See now, the microvac
says it will take care of everything when the time comes.
So don't worry, Jaredine said, And now, children, it's time
for bed. We'll be in our new home soon. Jared
read the words on the cell you film again before

(21:48):
destroying it. There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate X twenty three
was just ahead VJ twenty three x of la Mef

(22:13):
stared into the black depths of a three dimensional small
scale map of the galaxy and said, are we ridiculous?
I wonder in being so concerned about the matter MQ
seventeen j of Nikron shook his head. I think not.
You know, the galaxy will be filled in five years
at the present rate of expansion. Both seemed in their

(22:37):
early twenties. Both were tall and perfectly formed. Still, said
VJ twenty three X. I hesitate to submit a pessimistic
report to the Galactic Council. I wouldn't consider any other
kind of reports. Stir them up a bit. We've got
to stir them up. VJ twenty three X. Side space

(22:59):
is infinite. Te hundred billion galaxies are there for the taking.
More one hundred billion is not infinite, and it's getting
less infinite all the time. Consider twenty thousand years ago,
mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and
a few centuries later enter stellar travel became possible. It

(23:23):
took mankind a million years to fill one small world,
and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest
of the galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years.
VJ twenty three X interrupted. We can thank immortality for that.
Very well. Immortality exists, and we have to take it

(23:45):
into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality.
The Galactic ac has solved many problems for us, but
in solving the problem of preventing old age and death.
It has undone and all its other solutions. Yet you
wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose, not at all,

(24:07):
snapped MQ seventeen J softening it at once too. Not yet,
I'm by no means old enough. How old are you
two hundred twenty three and you I'm still under two hundred.
But to get back to my point, population doubles every
ten years. Once this galaxy is filled, will have filled

(24:30):
another in ten years, Another ten years and we will
have filled two more, another decade, four more, and one
hundred years will have filled one thousand galaxies in a
thousand years, a million galaxies in ten thousand years, the
entire known universe than what VJ twenty three X said.

(24:54):
As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I
wonder how many sun power units it will take to
move galaxies of individuals from one galaxy to the next.
A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sun power
units per year, most of it is wasted. After all.

(25:14):
Our own galaxy alone pours out a thousand sun power
units a year, and we only use two of those. Granted,
But even with one hundred percent efficiency. We only stave
off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in
a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run

(25:35):
out of energy even sooner than we'll run out of galaxies.
A good point, A very good point. We'll just have
to build new stars out of interstellar gas or out
of dissipated heat. Ask MQ seventeen J sarcastically, there may

(25:56):
be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask
the galactic AC. VJ twenty three X was not really serious,
but MQ seventeen J pulled out his AC contact from
his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
I've half a mind to he said. It's something the

(26:16):
human race will have to face someday. He stared somberly
at his small AC contact. It was only two inches
cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through
hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind
hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

(26:40):
MQ seventeen J paused to wonder if someday, in his
immortal life he would get to c the Galactic AC.
It was on a little world of its own, a
spider webbing of force beams holding the matter, within which
surges of submessons took the place of the old, clumsy
molecular valves. Yet, despite its sub etheric workings, the galactic

(27:06):
AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ seventeen J asked suddenly of his AC contact. Can
entropy ever be reversed? VJ twenty three X looked startled
and said at once, Oh, say, I didn't really mean
to have you asked that? Why not? We both know

(27:28):
entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash
back into a tree. Do you have trees on your world?
Ask MQ seventeen J. The sound of the galactic AC
startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful
out of the small AC contact on the desk. It said,

(27:50):
there is insufficient data for a meaningful answer. VJ twenty
six X said c. The two men thereupon returned to
the question of the report they were able to make
to the Galactic Council. Z Prime's mind spanned the new

(28:22):
galaxy with a feigned interest, and the countless twists of
stars that powdered it he had never seen this one before.
Would he ever see them all? So many of them,
each with its load of humanity, but a load that
was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real
escence of men was to be found out here in space, minds,

(28:45):
not bodies. The immortal bodies remained back on planets in
suspension over the cons Sometimes they roused for material activity,
but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming
into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, But what matter?

(29:05):
There was little room in the universe for new individuals.
Z Prime was rised out of his reverie upon coming
across the wispy tendrils of another mind. I am, z Prime,
said z Prime, and you, I am d sub wound.
Your galaxy we call it only the galaxy, and you

(29:30):
we call ours the same. All men call their galaxy
their galaxy, and nothing more. Why not true, since all
galaxies are the same, not all galaxies on one particular galaxy.
The race of man must have originated. That makes it different,

(29:50):
z Prime said, on which one I cannot say. The
universal ac would know, Shall we ask him? I am
suddenly curious. Z Prime's perceptions broadened until the galaxies themselves
shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a
much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them,

(30:14):
all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences,
with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one
of them was unique among them all in being the
original galaxy. One of them had in its vague and
distant past, a period when it was the only galaxy

(30:35):
populated by man. Z Prime was consumed with curiosity to
see this galaxy, and he called out Universal AC. On
which galaxy did mankind originate? The Universal AC heard for
on every world and throughout space. It had its receptors ready,

(30:57):
and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown points
where the Universal AC kept itself aloof z Prime knew
of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing
distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining
globe two feet across. Difficult to see, But how can

(31:20):
that be all of Universal AC? Z Prime had ask,
most of it had been. The answer is in hyperspace.
In what form it is there? I cannot imagine, nor
could anyone, for the day had long passed. Z Prime
knew when any man had any part of the making
of a universal AC. Each universal AC designed and constructed

(31:45):
its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years
or more, accumulated the necessary data to build a better
and more intricate, more capable successor, in which its own
store of data and in the visuality would be submerged.
The universal AC interrupted z primes wandering thoughts, not with words,

(32:08):
but with guidance. Z Prime's mentality was guided into the
dim sea of galaxies, and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. This is
the original galaxy of man. But it was the same,

(32:30):
after all, the same as any other, And z Prime
stifled his disappointment. D sub Wound, whose mind had accompanied
the other, said, suddenly, and is one of these stars
the original star of man? The universal AC said, Man's

(32:51):
original star has gone nova. It is a white dwarf.
Did the men upon it die? Asked z Prime. I'm startled,
and without thinking, the universal AC said, a new world,
as in such cases, was constructed for their physical bodies
in time. Yes, of course, said z Prime, but a

(33:15):
sense of loss overwhelmed him. Even so, his mind released
its hold on the original galaxy of Man. Let it
spring back and lose itself among the blurred pinpoints. He
never wanted to see it again. D sub Wound said,
what is wrong? The stars are dying? The original star

(33:36):
is dead. They must all die? Why not? But when
all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and
you and I with them. It will take billions of years.
I do not wish it to happen, even after billions
of years. Universal Ac how many stars may be kept

(33:57):
from dying? D sub wound and said, in amusement, you're
asking how entropy might be reversed in direction? And the
Universal Ace answered, there is as yet insufficient data for
a meaningful answer. Z Prime's thoughts fled back to his

(34:17):
own galaxy. He gave no further thought to d sub Wound,
whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion
light years away, or on the star next to z
Prime's own. It didn't matter. Unhappily, z Prime began collecting
interstellar hydrogen, out of which to build a small star
of his own. If the stars must someday die, at

(34:41):
least some could yet be built. Man considered with himself
or in a way Man mentally was one instead of
a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place,

(35:05):
each resting, quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons,
equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely
melted into one another, indistinguishable. Man said, The universe is dying.
Man looked about at the dimming galaxies. The giant stars

(35:29):
spend thrifts were gone long ago, back in the dimmest
of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs,
fading to the end. New stars had been built of
the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some
by man himself, and those were going too. White dwarfs

(35:52):
might yet be crashed together, and of the mighty forces
so released. New stars built, but only one star for
every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, And those would come to
an end too, Man said, carefully, husbanded, as directed by
the cosmic ac the energy that is even yet left

(36:15):
in all the universe will last four billions of years.
But even so, said Man, eventually it will all come
to an end, however it may be husbanded, however stretched out.
The energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored.
Entropy must increase forever to the maximum. Man said, can

(36:42):
entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the cosmic ac.
The cosmic ac surrounded them, but not in space. Not
a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace,
made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The
question of its size and nature no longer had any

(37:04):
meaning in terms that man could comprehend. Cosmic ac said, Man,
how may entropy be reversed? The cosmic ac said, there
is yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer. Man said,
collect additional data. The cosmic ac said, I will do so.

(37:27):
I have been doing so for one hundred billion years.
My predecessors and I have been asked this question many times.
All the data I have remains insufficient. Will there come
a time, said man, when data will be sufficient? Or
is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances? The cosmic

(37:52):
ac said, no problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Man said, when will you have enough data to answer
the question. The cosmic ac said, there is as yet
insufficient data for a meaningful answer. Will you keep working

(38:12):
on it? Said man the cosmic AC said, I will
Man said, we shall wait. The stars and galaxies died
and snuffed out, and space grew black. After ten trillion
years of running down, one by one, Man fused with AC,

(38:34):
each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner
that was somehow not a loss. But again, Man's last
mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included
nothing but the dregs of one last dark star, and
nothing besides incredibly thin matter agitated randomly by the tag

(38:57):
ends of heat wearing out as symptoms to the absolute zero.
Man said, AC, Is this the end? Can this chaos
not be reversed into the universe once more? Can that
not be done? Ac said, there is as yet insufficient

(39:18):
data for a meaningful answer. Man's last mind fused, and
only AC existed, and that in hyperspace, matter and energy
had ended, and with its space and time, even AC
existed only for the sake of the one last question

(39:40):
that it had never answered. From the time a half
drunken computer technician ten trillion years before had asked the
question of a computer that was to AC far less
than was a man to man. All other questions had
been answered and until this last question was answered, also,

(40:01):
AC might not release its consciousness. All collected data had
come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated
and put together in all possible relationships. A timeless interval

(40:21):
was spent in doing that, and it came to pass
that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But now there was no man to whom AC might
give the answer to the last question. The answer by
demonstration would take care of that too. For another timeless interval,

(40:45):
AC thought how best to do this? Carefully, AC organized
the program. The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what
had once been a universe and brooded over what was
now chaos. Step by step, it must be done, and

(41:07):
AC said, let there be light. And there was light.

(42:13):
The last question by the late great Isaac Asimov, written
so many decades ago, but certainly relevant in the era
of AI, and just a fun journey to take something
to think and talk about with each other. Okay, thank
you so much for listening. The PDF link to the
written version is in the description box of the broadcast

(42:35):
in case you would like to go browse and share
and I appreciate you listening very much, and I'll see
you next time.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
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