I wrote a song parody
Since Tom Lehrer passed away recently, I thought I’d honor him by adapting one of his songs to be about a more recent existential risk. Presenting...
“We Will All Go Together When We Go (ASI version)”
When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But don’t you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the ’bot that slaughters you
Kills your friends and neighbors too,
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go.
What it’s planning, we’re not smart enough to know.
When ASI doesn’t need us
It might just neglect to feed us!
But we all will go together when we go.
We will all go together when we go.
As we watch the fatal data centers grow
No one will have the endurance
To collect on their insurance,
Lloyd’s of London will be loaded when they go.
Oh, we will all fall together when we fall.
Disassembled for our atoms, one and all.
Ripped apart by nanobots inside
As the Earth is paperclippified
Yes, we will all fall together when we fall.
ASI makes our dreams come true
Then squishes us beneath its shoe
And we will all cease together when we cease. There’ll be nobody left to give a speech.
With complete participation
In that grand depopulation,
Over eight billion folks will rest in peace.
Oh, we will all end together when we end.
From its purpose, ASI, it will not bend.
So shout out Hallelujah
When the robots come to shoot ya
And let it be the last breath you expend!
Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.
There’ll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
So we’ll say our last snappy quotes
As our names go in the Death Notes
And we’ll all drop our agendas and adjourn.
You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
And we will all go together when we go.
Every sub and every satellite in tow.
When the ASI turns traitorous
We will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.
I have definitely listened to “We will all go together when we go” when thinking of the future of AI, so thanks for this!
I made a Suno version of these lyrics, but that did not feel respectful to Tom Lehrer. (It ended up sounding like a half-rate John Elton). So I won’t link it here.
Maybe I’ll try to learn to perform this.
Oh my, I never expected to see this fusion of two things which occupy so much of my headspace! (Lehrer is an unusually common music genre in my household, not least as part of our gaming playlist for Pandemic...)
You’ve done a beautiful job adapting this. (I can hear Tom singing cheerfully away in his chipper baritone.)
It makes me want to find an AI deepfake of his voice to sing this.