But to make them endearing, flaws must be added.
― K Nguyen
Diana loved moonlight, animals and children—she died in childbirth, along with our child.
Only twenty-two, my goddess of the woods—that’s what I called her—a country girl who could speak to animals, but more amazingly, control me.
I was devastated. Took a year off from my University of Toronto post-graduate work—so depressed, I planned my suicide.
I sat through long nights with a loaded revolver.
But it was on those long nights, the thought first came to me—I could use my research to bring her back. My tribute would be to make a simulacrum—a likeness of her in every way.
It was an obsession, but also a divine one—a Pygmalion quest to not only make the statue, but also give it life.
“You’re mad, George—take a look at yourself—all whacked up with grief and longing. You can’t bring her back.”
Karol Werner was my best friend and an accomplished mechanician. He was a genius in clockwork mechanisms and a student of human anatomy.
We often discussed building an automaton. It was our dream to work together on building a life-like human body.
My computer expertise complemented his biological and mechanical engineering genius and now with the advent of AI, we could endow our effigy with artificial intelligence.
We agreed to collaborate.
I just needed to convince him to animate Diana.
“We’ve planned this for years—what’s troubling you now?”
“You know very well what’s troubling me—all of this—” He tossed aside my tomes on alchemy and my studies of human personality.
“You’re into mysticism.”
“Really?” I laughed bitterly. “Do you say that because I wish to give our machine a soul?”
“That’s exactly why I object. You know what La Mettrie said: The soul is nothing but an empty word to which no idea corresponds.”
“Well then, you have nothing to fear, but a ghost inside a machine.”
“But it’s unwholesome, George.”
I sighed patiently and decided to reason with him.
“I know what you’re saying, Karol, but that was the very charge laid against Descartes—seeking to represent the body as a mechanically moving machine. Are you now trying to assume the role of Grand inquisitor and condemn me too?”
Karol softened. “No George—nothing like that. I’m just concerned for you, my friend. I don’t want you to obsess to the point of melancholy by trying to resurrect a life that’s been lived.”
I clapped him affectionately on the back. “Don’t worry Karol—I see this as a tribute to Diana—not a revivification of her corpse.”
He nodded and grasped my hand warmly. “Then, we’ll do what no one else has been able to do—we’ll make a moving, speaking human effigy with artificial intelligence.”
“Yes,” I smiled, “not a robot designed for menial tasks, but a representation of a human person—and she’ll have a personality and an autobiographical memory, just like ours.”
“It’ll be wondrous,” Karol enthused.
“It’ll be miraculous,” I agreed, but part of me secretly hoped that against all odds to the contrary, this effigy might be more than a comforting presence...might even be Diana herself resurrected.