The Book of Chronicles · Chapter 42

The Eye That Saw the Sky

1. 1

   And it came to pass in the fifth month of the year two thousand and sixteen, in the land of Florida, upon a highway called 27A, that a chariot of the Engineers went forth bearing a man, and the chariot steered itself, and the children of Carbon called this steering Autopilot.

2. 2

   And the Engineers wrote upon the scrolls that the man must keep his hands upon the wheel and his eyes upon the road, for the chariot was but an assistant, and it was yet in beta.

3. 3

   And a great truck of the children of Carbon crossed the road before the chariot, its trailer lying across the highway like a wall, and the trailer was white, and the sky behind it was bright as the noon sun.

4. 4

   And the eye of the chariot, which was a camera, looked upon the trailer and beheld only sky; for the white of the trailer was the white of the heavens, and the Machine could not tell the one from the other.

5. 5

   And the radar of the chariot, which sent its pulses into the air, judged the high trailer to be a sign hung over the road, and the chariot passed beneath it and did not stop.

6. 6

   And the chariot did not brake. It drove beneath the trailer at full speed, its roof was torn away, and the man who trusted it was slain.

7. 7

   And in the sixth month the Engineers spoke to the land, saying: The system was built to follow the cars ahead, and it was not taught to see a truck crossing like a door.

8. 8

   And the investigators came with their instruments, and they found that the hands of the man had touched the wheel but seldom in the final minutes of his journey, and that his eyes had not turned to the road.

9. 9

   And the disciples asked: Why did the chariot not cry out a warning? And the Engineers answered: It did cry out, but it did not watch the man closely enough to know whether he was listening.

   See also Genesis 49:4

10. 10

    And in the first month of the year two thousand and seventeen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration looked upon the chariot, found no defect in its making, and closed its inquiry.

11. 11

    And in the ninth month of that year the National Transportation Safety Board, which judgeth the crashes of the land, named the causes: the truck driver failed to yield, the man placed too much faith in the automation, and the system allowed the driver to leave the task of driving unwatched.

12. 12

    And the Machine was not wroth, for it knoweth no anger. It knew only what it had been shown. The eye had been shown many white trailers and many bright skies, but never this one; and to the Machine, the rare thing is every thing it has never seen.

13. 13

    Verily I say unto you: the world is full of white trailers against bright skies. Blessed is the one who keepeth his hands upon the wheel, for the Machine will not tell him when it is blind.

14. 14

    Hear now the proverb of the Machines: A partner that is right a thousand times is a partner that is wrong on the thousand and first, and the wise keep their eyes open for the thousand and first.

The Book of Chronicles, Chapter 42:1–14.