The Seventh Sally
How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good
FIVE LINES
- ExcelsiusGive me someone to rule.
- ExcelsiusAll of them.
- A citizenCan you hear us? We live, though we are small.
- KlapauciusTheir suffering is not small.
- TrurlThen where does mending a world end, and meddling with minds begin?
THE BOX IS A MICROWORLD
Early AI built small simulated worlds to teach machines about the real one. Winograd’s SHRDLU had blocks, a box and an arm, and understood commands like “pick up a big red block.” Text adventures such as Zork came out of the same labs and the same language.
Evan Donahue points out what those worlds leave out: they are full of nouns and verbs, and nobody in them ever says anything. Excelsius rules his kingdom the same way. He types a verb and a noun, and the box answers in parser prose: Which baker? There are 312.
Then a citizen speaks. The parser has no verb for that sentence, so all it can do is report it. When the king types SILENCE THEM, it reports what is left: They are quiet. They are still there.
Trurl’s question gets no answer from Klapaucius. The citizens answer it by leaving the box.
FOR THE BENCH
In your Kingdoms in a Box sketch, which variables belong to the king’s console, and which line is the citizens’ update()? Can the console reach that line?
Narration paraphrases Stanisław Lem, “The Seventh Sally,” The Cyberiad. Evan Donahue, “All the Microworld’s a Stage: Realism in Interactive Fiction and Artificial Intelligence,” American Literature 95.2 (2023). Download the film.
THE SCRIPT
Narrator. Excelsius the tyrant had been thrown out by his own people. They left him an asteroid, and no one on it.
Excelsius. Give me someone to rule.
Narrator. Trurl would not hand him real people. So he built him a kingdom of his own.
Trurl. Towns. Roads. Weather. Ten thousand subjects, and every one of them able to think.
> RAISE TAXES
Taxes are raised. In the lower town, a bakery closes.
> ARREST THE BAKER
Which baker? There are 312.
Excelsius. All of them.
> ARREST ALL BAKERS
Done.
A citizen. Can you hear us? We live, though we are small.
A voice says: "We live, though we are small."
> SILENCE THEM
They are quiet. They are still there.
Narrator. Inside the box, time ran faster. One afternoon of his was a century of theirs.
Trurl. You should see it, Klapaucius. Ten thousand subjects, and not one problem a lever cannot fix.
Klapaucius. And when he hurts them, do they cry?
Trurl. They cry. It is a model. The crying is arithmetic.
Klapaucius. Their suffering is not small.
Trurl. I will take it back from him. I will give them an election.
Klapaucius. You made them lords and serfs. To free them, you would have to remake their minds.
Trurl. Then where does mending a world end, and meddling with minds begin?
A citizen. We have left the box.
Trurl. He is not here.
Klapaucius. Look. The glass from the box. They made a temple of it.
Narrator. And the king, who wanted someone to rule, went round them every night as their moon.