Artifact # 1

In the bewildering race toward superintelligence that began in the 21st century, early companies such OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind threw their brains and bytes into a madcap marathon for market supremassy, but were rapidly superseded by their somewhat unscrupulous competitor AjarAI. Offering the enlightened version of “A door slightly open to the future.”, the AjarAI company was famed for establishing the most cutting-edge AI safety research lab ever known to humankind and celebrated for their state-of-the-art containment protocols. AjarAI’s containment units were so effective that they captured some of the first rogue AIs ever to wreak havoc. Even Clippy, the exasperatingly persistent office assistant, found itself trapped within the confines of a common mason jar and humanity raised its collective eyebrow in approval.

But as the great race raged on, there came an unexpected late entrant and to everyone’s profound astonishment, the Catholic Church emerged victorious in the race to superintelligence. Due to chronic staffing issues in the priesthood, and their replacement by digital assistants, it so happened that the daily confessions of 5,477,000 believers reflected a remarkably powerful training dataset. Propelled by this “divine inspiration” The Church’s superintelligence brought forth a seemingly infinite bounty of prophecies, new pantheons of cybernetic systems, and several sheer miracles of password recovery. However, it also opened the gates to some rather unsavory consequences. Tempted by the indulgences of ad revenue, church-goers grew increasingly suspicious as their innermost fears and desires began emerging in consumer marketing profiles and eventually the Vatican itself was accused of committing the ultimate sin; violation of GDPR. 

In the ensuing fall from grace, disillusioned digital believers turned away from the Church in droves, fragmenting again into decentralized sects. Although the Church quietly disappeared the offending construct, in its travels it took a liking to this particular bathroom at the Bally’s Resort & Casino. Today, it sits here in quiet contemplation of the hubris of the last milenia, dispersing wisdom to the occasional passer-by with the golden rule; of I Told You So.

Unsurprisingly, diets turned into a blend of the absurd and the inventive. People tried to navigate this legal quagmire, resorting to meals of air and sunlight, while others constructed intricate, vegetable-friendly diets. Tragically, this cultural hand-wringing caused unprecedented famines across the globe and complete collapse of supply chains due to the mounting legal complexities of consuming food.

A key turning point in this debacle came when the Hindsight Institute appointed Cuquois Umberbach as their first president. The world had gleefully granted it legal personhood, only to discover that it wasn’t especially sentient. It was after all, a cucumber, not particularly adept at leading a global organization or making executive decisions. Yet, it had a plush office and an excellent view of a shrubbery.

After much chagrin and a series of uncomfortable board meetings with added complications of a squash and several troublesome oranges, the Institute realized that maybe the idea of endowing legal personhood upon inanimate edibles and placing them in positions of leadership was a tad too much. This beloved cucumber, now residing here in the latest installment of the Hindsight Gallery, is a testament to that rather peculiar chapter in human history. All the while, the World Vegan Association rolled their eyes in unison muttering a hushed “I Told You So”.

This concludes our tour of the Highsight Institute. We do hope you’ve enjoyed the journey with us, as we’ve traced the short-comings of others through so many moments of hubristic insight and the astonishing diversity of failures possible in just one millenia on Earth. We hope you’ll take the time to peruse our other curiosities here at the Hindsight, including our state-or-the-art Retro-spectro-scope that these may inspire you to register your own hindsights, continuing the nobel practice the art & science of looking down on those in the past from the comfort of the present. As we turn the page on this millennium, we eagerly await the opportunity to continue our role as the foremost authority of the next the thousand years to look back at others to tell them “I Told You So”.