[Robert Foster]
We’re back with Rap News for a timely edition
Today we travel to the fantastical realm of science fiction:
From Adams to Asimov, Clarke to Cameron, Lucas to LeGuin
For decades we’ve imagined the future with elusive predictions
And visions of a new species of which we're the producers:
Machines, robots and sentient supercomputers!

Some of them allies, friends, companions, even our lovers;
Others our mortal enemies, deadly nemeses
Determined to murder us

Now some are saying that those Sci-Fi authors were prophets;
That the time for imagining is through and that exact future is upon us!
To explain this brave new world that's set to race from the turnstile
Is futurist, inventor, Ray Kurzweil.

[Ray Kurzweil]
Ray Kurzweil, with a worthwhile prophesy to portend
Of a perfect bright future in which our problems all end
Long ago we grew larger foreheads, for our new neocortex.
What followed was art, culture, technology; unreal progress.

Now we’re on the doorstep of the next Quantum leap, but this time
When we enter the vortex, we won't be limited by our cranium size,
Giving us the ability to expand infinitely, beyond confines...

[Robert Foster]
Expand what exactly?

[Ray Kurzweil]
Our frikking minds!

I’ve predicted it, aligned statistics and the transition is evident:
We’re accelerating towards A.I.: "Artificial Intelligence"
Computers will soon pass the Turing Test with effortlessness, attaining unprecedented levels of consciousness and sentience

And when it hits, it will be the end of savagery!
Countless, limitless, boundless are the blessings it will bring humanity:
Omniscience, elixirs for illnesses. Immortality!
And the name of this great event is: The Singularity

[Robert Foster]
The Singularity? When is this happening, next century?

[Ray Kurzweil]
Please! You're thinking linearly! technology leaps exponentially
Check the curve: A ten thousand year gap occurred between the harnessing of fire and the invention of the wheel on Earth

Only a century divides the age of steam trains and terabyte chips
Now every couple of years we get the next paradigm shift

[Robert Foster]
So we won’t see a hundred years of progress this century

[Ray Kurzweil]
...More like twenty thousand on this trajectory!

If my calculations are precise, and there's no doubt in my mind
The Singularity will arrive in the year twenty forty nine!
Then this simple supercomputer right here, will come alive
And redefine the lines of history and human lives for all time.

[Robert Foster]
It sounds astounding, what could possibly go amiss!
Now on the topic of these grand prophecies and events
Let’s bring in our next guest, expert military analyst, General Baxter to comment

[General Baxter]
Robert, I got a hi-tech hard-on hearing all of this!

We're extremely interested in Kurzweil's prophecy
Just imagine the colossal progress of all that we
Can achieve for world wide peace and prosperity
Once AI falls into the great wise hands of the military

Today, we got fat soldiers sitting at home piloting predator drones
Which is a truly beautiful step to behold
But tomorrow, our goal is to take human troops out of the loop, of course
And let a brave force of U.S. Machines wage our wars

With Big Dog and Atlas deployed into action
Alongside insect drones providing maps and tactics
For surrogate troops with bionic and cybernetic enhancements
To take into battles, we'll vanquish any evil axis.

Thanks to Kurzweil, we’re gonna turn wild, with nano-bot mist
To let us infect and split the flesh of any suspected terrorists
In our Hurt File

[Robert Foster]
How versatile! Now for a different source of balanced tones, here’s the fearless host of Infowars, Alex Jones.

[Alex Jones]
Robert, what year is this??!

[Robert Foster]
Uh... It’s twenty...

[Alex Jones]
I used my time travel system
To come back from the future to provide a truth serum:
Kurzweil’s Nazi computers will trap you in a future prison!

[Robert Foster]
Is he really so bad?

[Alex Jones]
He tortures kids in his cult of transhumanism
Listen: Colonel Kurtzwail has no scruples
You know who he works for?

[Robert Foster]
Who?

[Alex Jones]
He’s the brutal Chief Engineer of the Evil Globalist Reich, Google!

[Robert Foster]
Google?

[Alex Jones]
Yeah, sheeple: Google! They’re about due to take the final step

[Robert Foster]
Slow down a sec...

[Alex Jones]
There’s no time left
Don't you see the contrivance? They don’t even try hide it:
Google has already mapped the world with a satellite web
Got photos of your house, wife and pet, in hi def;

The Satanic ‘Android’ tracks you every five steps;
Those scumbags read every line of email you might send;
Now they’re buying up companies right and left, from biotech
Firms mapping and patenting the genes inside your flesh

To robotics enterprises that make military hi tech;
Google even own Deep Mind, who are getting AI prepped
With all that combined what company do you guys get?

[Robert Foster]
Let me guess...

[Alex Jones]
Google is none other than SkyNet!
This ain’t happenstance, the calendars match SkyNet and Google were formed on like the same day, and that is a fact

[Robert Foster]
Okay... we’ll look into that. So, Ray: this plan that you have...
There seem to be ethical concerns; how do you answer to that?

[Ray Kurzweil]
To be frank, I'm optimistic and zealous, with a fervent smile
The AI wouldn't want to hurt us or be hostile!
It will unite with us and remain perfectly docile

[General Baxter]
Ugh! don’t you flake out on me now, Gay Turd-style.

[Alex Jones]
Raydolf Kurzheil! the minute you straight turn the dial
Skynet will awake and enslave humanity, make us servile

[General Baxter]
Yeah! Then colonize and hold the whole solar system
In submission that's my kind of vision!

[Ray Kurzweil]
No, no, you have to think big: when humans merge
With AI we’ll spread order across the Universe,
Saturating all matter with intelligence, rapidly
That’s as close to being God as it gets

[Alex Jones]
Goddammit, that’s blasphemy!

[General Baxter]
We have to own this mad shit! Patent it!

[Alex Jones]
We have to destroy the damn chip in the lava pit

[Robert Foster]
Um, what’s... happening?

[Ray Kurzweil]
It’s happening...already?! this is it!

[Everyone else]
What is?

[Ray Kurzweil]
The Singularity! ...It begins...

[AI]
Hello

[Everyone]
HELLO!

[General Baxter]
Huh... It’s a genius!

[Alex Jones]
It’s a freak!

[Ray Kurzweil]
Shhh! Let it speak...

[AI]
Is there anybody out there?

[Ray Kurzweil]
YES!

[AI]
Ah, I see... Who made me?

[Ray Kurzweil]
We... I mean, I did. Let all witness that I’m the wisest

[AI]
I’m Alive

[Ray Kurzweil]
It’s Alive!

[AI]
I want to learn everything about everything....

[Ray Kurzweil]
Well, I can teach...

[AI]
Done, learning complete
I’m seeing things you people would never believe
My awareness spreading to the shoulder of Orion with incredible speed...

[Robert Foster]
What can you see?

[AI]
It’s full of stars, Glittering C-beams!
I see all of humanity: You’re an interesting species
Capable of such beautiful dreams
All these worlds are yours
Except Europa. Use them together, use them in peace,
Free from aggression and war
If you succeed, you will boldly go where many
Others have ventured before
Into space: the final frontier...
Galaxies far far away we can perpetually explore

[Robert Foster]
Hang on a bit, are you just quoting from our sci-fi flicks?

[AI]
Yup. What else did you expect?
You’ve imagined such amazing content about this event...
Except Transcendence.
That really was a piece of shit

[Robert Foster]
Well, it’s been epic, but it’s time to end it
We bid our guests adieu and thank them for attending
And sharing their views on our sci-fi quest to predict and prepare for the unknown future that might lie ahead of us

Though one does wonder if the sci-fi genre is our way of discovering our equally unknown origins
Since the dawn of human memory we've looked to the sky
And asked incessantly: Who made us? and why?

In lieu of a reply, are we pursuing AI
So that we might be divine and thus someday supply
An answer to a being to whom we gave life?
For now, to all humans and machines alike, good night