0. Beginnings
In the quiet countryside of Southern England, young Elias was an anomaly. While children his age lost themselves in digital escapades and immersive virtual play, Elias often sat by the old oak tree, gazing at the horizons with a furrowed brow, as though he bore the weight of the world on his tiny shoulders.
One day, as a light drizzle peppered the town, his grandmother found him under the oak, his eyes glistening with more than just raindrops. "Why such heavy thoughts, dear Elias?" she asked.
He looked up, his voice barely above a whisper, "Nana, why do grown-ups say the world is ending?"
She sat beside him, her eyes tracing the distant smoke of factories and the wind turbines that dotted the landscape. "They fear the future, my dear. The world is changing rapidly. The air is different, the oceans are restless, and man's greed looms like a constant threat."
"But what are they doing about it?" Elias quizzed, remembering his school teacher's lessons on recycling and renewable energy.
"We're trying," she said, her voice heavy. "We recycle, harness the wind, the sun, and hope for better political leaders."
Elias's heart sank. It wasn’t the answer he hoped for. It felt piecemeal, like applying a small bandage to a gushing wound. "Is that all? Is that enough?"
Nana looked into Elias's eyes, seeing an old soul in a young body. "Sometimes, my dear, we grown-ups don't have all the answers. We cling to what we know and hope it's enough."
That night, as the town slept, Elias remembered a gift he'd received for his birthday: a state-of-the-art computer with a cutting-edge AI. Perhaps, he thought, this machine could provide the hope and vision that seemed to elude the adults.
"AI," he began, hesitatingly, "Can you tell me stories? Stories of the world's problems and how, maybe, they can be solved?"
The screen flickered for a moment before text appeared, "Of course, Elias. Would you like a tale of hope? A vision of a brighter tomorrow?"
"Yes, please," he replied, his heart racing.
As the hours melted away, the AI spun tales—stories of challenges, of despair, but also of innovation, collaboration, and above all, hope. Each narrative painted a future where human spirit and machine intellect wove together, crafting solutions that alone neither could achieve.
Morning found Elias asleep at the small desk in his bedroom, the computer screen still aglow. Beside him in the printer lay the first few stories of a collection that would come to be known as "Humanitas et Machina."
It wasn't just a book; it was a beacon, a torch passed on from a machine to a boy, and from that boy to the world. The stories weren't predictions; they were possibilities, reminders that the future, though uncertain, was not without hope.
Humanitas et Machina: This series of fictional short stories aims to bring visions of hope in the face of humanity’s biggest challenges while also exploring the risks and potential of a future with AI. All stories are co-creations between man and machine. All images are AI generated. Find out more about the project.
This initial story was not originally planned but it then seemed apt that a story would be used to set the scene. Unlike some of the other stories, the process was relatively simple as I simply explained the concept and motivations for the project, specified the writing style and set the scene that the story should be about a little boy in the South of England. This detail was a reference to myself, who grew up in this part of the world wondering (and worrying) about the future. The combination of both my historical and present context forming the brief for the story led to something that while simple, feels quite personal. Beyond the briefing, the story itself was mostly written by the AI with only small details edited by myself prior to publication.
An interesting note is that while the name Elias initially seemed original, it was just one of many characters that began with ‘El…’ in other stories and so I later changed some character names in the rest of the series.
The image was surprisingly challenging to generate. I wanted an oil painting style for all stories in the series because it avoids creating images that could be mistaken for real photos, while also providing an emotive and relatively timeless art style. In this case I found that it was hard to combine the elements of the weather, the scene on top of a hill, the view in the distance, the boy and the oak tree. It took a lot of adjustment and eventually reached something that broadly resembles the type of views that I sat looking at in Surrey when I was growing up, though the immediate foreground with the rocks and yellowing pasture resembles other parts of the England. Eventually I let go of attachment to geographical accuracy as it is fiction after all.