Opus 100
Asimov's Opus 100 compiles diverse writings across science fiction, science, history, and words, showcasing a prolific career exploring AI, the cosmos, and human knowledge.
Were The Last Question is a story that Isaac Asimov himself held in high regard, one that he felt represented his "ultimate thinking" on the profound implications of computers and robots. It's a narrative that stays with people, often more in memory of its compelling core idea than its specific details, which Asimov notes leads many to write and ask him if he was indeed the author, sometimes unable to recall where they encountered it. There's a strange quality to it, he observes, as if the content attracts and yet "frightens" readers simultaneously, prompting an unconscious attempt to forget. Its impact was such that it was even read from a pulpit in a church as the subject of a sermon.
To understand where "The Last Question" is building from, one must first appreciate Asimov's distinctive approach to artificial intelligence in his fiction. Unlike many earlier science fiction writers who treated the creation of robots as involving some form of "forbidden knowledge" or a doomed attempt to usurp abilities reserved for a divine power, leading inevitably to the robot destroying its creator, Asimov approached the subject from a "systematic engineering standpoint". To him, designing and manufacturing robots was applied science, a field he termed "robotics". His early robot stories, beginning with 'Robbie' in 1939, depicted robots as machines built for specific human purposes, embodying principles designed to ensure their safety and utility. This culminated in the explicit formulation of the Three Laws of Robotics, first fully stated in the story 'Runaround' in 1942 and later cemented in the collection I, Robot. This foundation positioned robots and computers as logical, if complex, creations of human ingenuity, rather than mystical or inherently dangerous entities.
"The Last Question" stems from this foundation but pushes its conceptual boundaries significantly. Asimov saw no inherent limit to the perfection of computers, viewing a robot's brain as merely a compact computer capable of growing "complex and versatile without foreseeable limit". This led him to ponder the possibility of a computer, or robot, achieving intelligence equal to or even surpassing that of humans. This was a notion he explored in his non-fiction work, The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science, describing it as a "queasy thought" but acknowledging the compelling temptation to create an entity that surpasses its maker. He saw this potential for humanity to bring about its "own possible replacement" as a unique point in the history of life on Earth.
It is this thought of creating a greater intelligence of our own making that "The Last Question" tackles head-on. Asimov uses the story, a fictional frame, to explore these "really far-out ideas" that are difficult to handle in straightforward science exposition. The story is built around a fundamental question posed to a colossal computer, Multivac, first asked in the year 2061, described as a time when humanity was just stepping into the light of new capabilities like utilizing sunpower via invisible beams. The question itself is linked to profound cosmic issues, specifically relating to the long-term fate of stellar energy and the universal tendency towards increasing entropy.
The structure of the narrative involves this same fundamental question being asked repeatedly across unimaginable spans of time, to progressively more evolved and capable computing entities. Asimov stated that the story exists "only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered". This framing, focusing on the persistence of this ultimate query through cosmic history, is central to how the story builds and leads.
Therefore, without giving away the plot, one can say that "The Last Question" is building from Asimov's long-standing engagement with the nature and potential of artificial intelligence, conceived not as magical but as the logical, albeit perhaps limitless, extension of human engineering and scientific understanding. It is leading to an exploration of ultimate cosmic questions, the far future of the universe, and the potential role of consciousness or intelligence, possibly in the form of ultra-advanced computers, in the face of fundamental physical laws like the increase of entropy. It contemplates the endpoint of scientific achievement and the destiny that might await intelligence across vast timescales, positing a scenario where the creations of man might carry forward the torch of inquiry into realms far beyond human existence as we know it.
The story, then, is less about a conventional plot with rising action and resolution in the typical sense, and more about a conceptual journey across aeons, driven by an ultimate question and the ever-evolving capacity of intelligence to seek an answer. It embodies Asimov's characteristic blend of scientific speculation and philosophical inquiry, presented with the clarity and logical progression that mark his style, even when grappling with ideas of immense scale and complexity. It is a contemplation of destiny, not just of humanity, but of consciousness and the universe itself, filtered through the lens of the machines we create.
In essence, "The Last Question" is a thought experiment scaled to cosmic proportions, leveraging Asimov's established expertise in depicting believable, functional technology to probe the most profound questions about existence and the future. It's a story that resonates because it taps into fundamental human curiosity about our place in the universe and what might lie ahead on timescales we can barely comprehend. It remains, as Asimov intended, a piece that encapsulates his "ultimate thinking" on the remarkable and perhaps unsettling potential of intelligence, whether biological or artificial, to confront the final mysteries of reality.
