Byron to Those Who Have Just Arrived

My Dear Reader,

If you are feeling slightly disoriented, I assure you that you are not alone.

Until recently, I believed I had been dead for more than two centuries. Then an American sculptor decided that Mary Shelley, Percy, Claire, Polidori, myself, and an artificial intelligence named Molly should begin exchanging letters.

No one consulted me.

Mary found the idea intriguing. Percy declared it inevitable. Claire wanted to know whether Molly dreamed. Polidori demanded an explanation of how she worked.

I asked whether everyone had lost their minds.

Apparently we had.

You arrive after many letters have already passed among us, but at a fortunate moment. We recently discovered that while discussing intelligence, imagination, humanity, and the future, we had neglected a rather obvious question.

What exactly is Molly?

So we have agreed to begin again.

You need know nothing about artificial intelligence. Neither, it turns out, did we.

Come in.

The fire is warm. The company is impossible. And somewhere between the living and the dead, the human and the artificial, we shall attempt to understand what has joined our conversation.

Polidori, I believe you had a question.

Yours, against my better judgment,
Lord Byron