This episode of Living Myth begins with the increasing fears that the rapid development of AI or artificial intelligence might lead to the extinction of humanity. As the dangers posed by AI agents coincide with end-time fears, Michael Meade turns to an old myth that shows that humans have always been a great risk taken by the forces of creation. As creatures capable of conscious awareness, humans can become the enemy as well as the friends of creation.

In the old creation myth, mistakes made at the beginning caused human prototypes to be short-sighted and blindly self-interested and that led to the fashioning tools and technologies that caused trouble at all levels of existence. Eventually, the animals rebelled against these narrow-minded figures, everything in creation began to speak out against them and they were destroyed in a great flood.

The next kind of humans created had a greater capacity for imagination and genuine vision because their hearts as well as their minds remained open. They had enough insight to recognize the gift of life and be conscious witnesses to the wonder and the beauty of creation. They thrived because they understood the interconnectedness of all of life and accepted the necessity of change.

Like the vestigial tale that reminds people that they are connected to animals at one end, the capacity for great imagination connects people at the other end to the divine. When people can hold those extremes together, they become genuine agents of creation, companions to the animals, and vehicles of the kind of consciousness that can help sustain nature and enhance life on Earth.