Potwór z Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Monster

Summary/Abstract: Golem XIV is a modest in volume novel by Stanislaw Lem, published in 1981, which was of great importance to him, since he thought of it as his philosophical summa in a pill. This comparison to a cure is not accidental as the author considered it to be a medicament (a purgative) for human conceit and cognitive arrogance. Lem in his mini-novel refers to an old Rabbi myth about a rebelled animated being called Golem. In the world’s culture it personifies human anxieties in connection to the incredibly fast development of artificial intelligence, which can turn against human civilization. The piece is an apocrypha in which professors Irving T. Creve and Richard Popp analyze a history of a failed scientific project, connected to a creation of a 80th generation supercomputer for the military, called GOLEM (General Operator, Longrange, Ethically Stabilized, Multimodelling) and its silent ‘cousin’ called HONEST ANNIE. Then they present in extenso its two lectures delivered to the auditorium of the most prominent American scholars of all fields: the first, introductory and the last one, farewell (43rd). The first one is concerned with cosmo- and anthropogenesis, the second one with a place of Reason in the Galaxy. The novel is closed by an afterword, which informs the reader of what had happened before both computers disconnected themselves from the federal network (a terrorist attack thwarted by them) and disappearance of all contact with the machines.34 years that have passed since the novel was published, as well as death of this amazing writer-philosopher, entitle us to ask a few principal questions: what kind of future did he foresee by the means of his computer? Why did he say so little? Why did his digital porte parole terminated its contact with people? What is the connection between this fibre optical sage and Lem himself, since they share – definitely not accidentally – its name/ his name?

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