When the Gods Gave Sisyphus a Leaf Blower

The Myth of Sisyphus is the ultimate description of futility. Endlessly rolling a rock up a mountain, only for it to roll back down again. One scholar believes that the modern equivalent is the humble - and annoyingly ubiquitous - leaf blower. Blow leaves from here... to there... only for them to blow back again. Is it the perfect metaphor for modern technological societies? Perhaps, especially if you combine it with AI and robotics! 

The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.

Transcript

HOST

The sound you just heard is a symbol of the modern world, at least that’s what some people say it is. A leaf blower. A petrol powered, handheld machine that… blows leaves and grass cuttings from one place… to another. 

And… that’s it. All in the service of a homeowner who wants to look out on a pristine and unnaturally green lawn. Again, that’s it. 

For some, the leaf blower is the ultimate symbol of futility in the modern world. Would you agree? I think I do. 

And there’s a professor in the United States who agrees. In fact, he and his department, aptly named The Sisyphus Center for Futility Studies at the Toto Institute of Technology and Social Sciences in Indiana, have created a strange kind of experiment to prove the point. It involves robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Greek drama, and… yes… leaf blowers. 

His name is Grayson Humbolt the Third and he’s also the Dean of the Toto Institute, which has recently become affiliated to our very own university here in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, England. 

I spoke to him for the first time on Skype three weeks ago… here’s that conversation, edited for brevity’s sake…

MIX UP LEAF BLOWERS – GRAYSON HAS TO SHOUT

GRAYSON

Hold on… hold on… sorry… we’re just tuning the leaf blowers up… 

[ASIDE]

The green one needs more gas… and the blue one needs a tune up… OK… OK… but give me an hour will ya? I gotta speak to England… I said I GOTTA SPEAK to ENGLAND! Great… thanks. Yeah… see ya…

[TO MIC]

Sorry about that. We’ve got CNN coming over to film our leaf-blowing experiment… so we’re fine tuning the blowers and Sisyphus One and Sisyphus Two. 

OK… so… how are ya?

HOST

I was fine this morning until the groundsmen here at South Mimms U powered up their leaf blowers… they do it every week and it drives me mad… the sound goes right through me.

GRAYSON

Ah, yes… the modern scourge of the leaf blower. Here at TiTTS we’ve banned them. 

HOST

Sorry… at where?

GRAYSON

TiTTS

HOST

Umm… I don’t understand…

GRAYSON

Toto Institute of Technology and Social Sciences – T.I.T.S.S – Tits.

HOST

Oh… yes… you know that never crossed my mind, that the acronym spells… umm

GRAYSON

Tits. 

HOST

Yes… umm well… 

GRAYSON

I know it sounds kinda embarrassing… kinda saucy… but it gets us noticed. 

HOST

I bet.

GRAYSON

Hey, it’s a crowded market out there for colleges, especially small ones like ours. We go big on sports to attract attention. We’re building a stadium for our college football team, the Fighting Titmice. 

HOST

Tit mice? Aren’t they little birds?

GRAYSON

Little birds… native to North America – popular here in Indiana. And, before you ask, they’re small, hence the ‘tit’ in Titmice. 

HOST

I don’t understand...

GRAYSON

‘Tit’ in Old English means ‘small bird.’ And they’re small birds. You can guess why the word ‘tit’ also refers to… well… tits. 

HOST

I see… shall we talk about Leaf Blowers?

GRAYSON

Sure – they’re often used by complete tits! [LAUGHS] You see what I did there, I used it the word in the way you Brits do… [FAKE BRITISH ACCENT] a compete tit that gets on my tits!

HOST

Yes, yes… that’s very… umm.. amusing. So, Grayson, you say you’ve banned Leaf Blowers, but didn’t I hear some leaf blowers going in the background as we started this call?

GRAYSON

Sure we did… but that’s all part of our academic work. It’s the project we’re doing as part of our work at the Sisyphus Center. 

HOST

What is the Sisyphus Center exactly?

GRAYSON

We study futility. The psychology, science, and philosophy of futility. It’s something we all feel from time to time, some of us more than others, and it’s something we experience every day in often small ways… but sometimes very big ones. Life can feel futile, especially when you’re confronted with change you can’t ever seem to control or prepare for. And technology is often at the heart of that change.

HOST

Technology engenders futility.

GRAYSON

We believe it does, yes. 

HOST

And the leaf blower is just such a technology?

GRAYSON

In a way – it’s a crude technology that symbolises, for us here at Titts, something very particular about how humans engage with technology and react to its power – often it’s power to dehumanise them… and to lead them to fall into futile actions and practices and needs. Needs that the technology manufactures but which are not… well… fundamental human needs at all. 

HOST

A leaf blower does all that!?

GRAYSON

Well, not on its own. It does it as part of what I like to call the Industrial Futility Complex. 

HOST

The Industrial Futility Complex?

GRAYSON

I’m glad your tone capitalised each word… they are three important words. The point we make here at Sisyphus, is that technology might seem useful – and don’t get me wrong, it IS useful for many, many things – but often it just leads to repetitive, inconsequential, unneeded actions and desires that create a doom loop of… well… futility actions and needs. 

HOST

But the term Futility Industrial Complex suggests something deliberate… a plot against is all almost…

GRAYSON

Well, it is deliberate. And the Leaf Blower is an amazing symbol that phenomenon. 

HOST

But… it’s just a leaf blower. 

GRAYSON

I think you need reminding of what a leaf blower does… [ASIDE] Brad… power up the G9-400 will ya!

HOST

No… you don’t have to…

ROAR OF THE LEAF BLOWER – VERY LOUD

HOST

No… stop it! I get the point Grayson!

SFX ENDS

GRAYSON

Now, that sound… that represents a one hundred decibels… that’s way to loud for most people… and it’s way too loud for people who do the millions of lawns in this country. There’s an epidemic of leaf blowers. The lawn guys usually wear protection… but ordinary people walking by… or sitting in their houses… don’t and it can do damage, even when you hear it for just a few minutes. 

HOST

And they pump out fumes…

GRAYSON

They pump out lots of Green House Gases – which are breathed in by the lawn guys, usually low paid immigrants – and they pollute the suburbs… and add to the CO2 in the atmosphere. 

HOST

But they can’t be seen as a major fact in climate change can they?

GRAYSON

Sure they can. Do you know how many leaf blowers there are in the USA right now?

HOST

I couldn’t even guess…

GRAYSON

The EPA estimated there were ELEVEN million – and that was back in 2015. 

HOST

So… there are probably more, right?

GRAYSON

MUCH more! The demand for pristine lawns has gone up – I’d say exponentially. 

HOST

But what’s futile about this issue?

GRAYSON

The perfect lawn. That demand… the need… the desire… the struggle for the perfect lawn. That is the definition of twenty first century futility.

HOST

Surely there are other, more important things that are futile, right?

GRAYSON

If something is important, then it is, by definition, NOT futile. The perfect lawn is a fantasy. No lawn can be perfect. And if it looks perfect, it will only do so for a brief instant. A leaf… a twig… a wrinkled Oreo wrapper… will float along on the faintest of breezes and land on your lawn. And perfection is ruined. You have to start all over again. With the leaf blower!

LEAF BLOWER SOUND

HOST

No… no… sorry… it’s too loud!

SFX STOPS

GRAYSON

Just making my point. 

HOST

I see your point… well… I see that the allusion you’re making to the Myth of Sisyphus is… well… it kind of works. 

GRAYSON

It works very well. 

HOST

For the benefit of our listeners, just outline what the myth is.

GRAYSON

First, it’s a Greek myth. They were good at myths, the Greeks. And in this particular myth saw a guy named Sisyphus condemned by the gods to roll a rock up to the top of a mountain… by all accounts a steep, rocky, very difficult to climb mountain… and every time he got to the summit the rock would just roll all the way back down to the bottom of the mountain again. And he had to keep on doing that… he had to keep on rolling… for eternity. 

HOST

What did he do to deserve that?

GRAYSON

He cheated death.

HOST

And what was so bad about that?

GRAYSON

He did it twice.

HOST

So, why is cheating death twice… err… twice as bad as doing it once?

GRAYSON

The gods had a plan… and Sisyphus trapped Thanatos… the personification of death… and sent him back to Hades but without his prey… which was Sisyphus himself. And he did it again. The gods don’t like being cheated. They like us to play by their rules. And if you don’t, you get punished. 

HOST

OK… but this is all… like… myth. So, what’s the link to leaf blowers… or technology in general?

GRAYSON

I’m tempted to say that when we are tempted to defy the modern gods… the might Zuckerberg of the Dour Bezos… or the mad Musk… that they punish us by delivering technologies and software that promotes Sisyphean futility. 

HOST

I don’t think I understand… sorry, Grayson. 

GRAYSON

OK, here’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying an experiment – can technology itself come to understand the concept of futility? And if it can, might it realise that it – itself – is turning us all in to modern examples of Sisyphus…

HOST

We’re all becoming Sisyphusses? Or… err… Sisyphi? What’s the plural of Sisyphus?

GRAYSON

I don’t think there is a plural – that’s not the point. 

HOST

What is the point… and what have Leaf Blowers got to do with it?

GRAYSON

OK, OK… the point will become clear. Here at Titts, we’re working on Artificial Intelligence, just like the rest of the world is. We’re combing it with robotics. We started because we got a grant from a leading supplier of gardening equipment – I can’t reveal which – but they want to see if they can replace people with robots. 

HOST

What? Robots doing your lawn?

GRAYSON

Yes, and everything else you need to keep your yard looking great. 

HOST

But what about the workers? I mean they aren’t paid that much anyway…

GRAYSON

Again, it’s all part of the futile search for ultimate cost-efficiency. In the end, it will turn out to be futile because only the super-rich will be able to have lawns and yards anyway so there won’t be a mass market for garden services… but that’s another futile dead-end which our Futile Economics specialists are looking at. 

HOST

OK, so… go on… robot lawn guys… how’s that going to work?

GRAYSON

Well, the lawn part is pretty easy – they have leaf blowers, and they blow leaves.

HOST

You’ve made robots that can do that?

GRAYSON

Sure we have – I have two of them right here… let me just move my camera…

HOST

Dear listener, Grayson has moved his camera, and I can see two robots – they’re probably about five feet high…

GRAYSON

Four 10…

HOST

Right… and they look like… well fairly standard robots…

GRAYSON

We didn’t go overboard on the design – not much point.

HOST

Because it was – err – futile?

GRAYSON

Exactly. So, they both have leaf-blowers adapted to their casing… and they communicate wirelessly with the robot’s brains. 

HOST

And what’s AI got to do with it?

GRAYSON

The AI using machine learning and Large Language Models to understand what a pristine lawn means, why humans want pristine lawns, and what it takes to keep a lawn… well… constantly pristine. So, they will keep tending to their assigned lawn to ensure that it matches the image that’s been set as the default state of each lawn. 

HOST

That doesn’t sound like you need much intelligence, artificial or otherwise…

GRAYSON

No, it doesn’t. But it DOES demand a sense of constant work and the social awareness of human needs and the need to keep working to achieve it. 

HOST

Again, I can see that – but I don’t see the point – I mean, in terms of your study of futility.

GRAYSON

Well, that’s the core of the experiment. What we’re asking Sisyphus One and Sisyphus two to realise is… that their work in futile. That the task itself is futile. That there can never be a pristine lawn that stays pristine for long in a natural ecosystem. So, the logical thing to do would be to stop trying to achieve that pristine lawn. To give up. What we want to find out is whether AI can realise that it’s time to give up… BECAUSE the task they’ve been set is FUTILE!

HOST

And how do you do that?

GRAYSON

Hold on… I’ll call you back… in a few seconds OK? Just hold on. Don’t go away. 

BLEEP – THE CALL STOPS

HOST

Well, Grayson has ended the call. He’s moving outside his lab… at least I think it’s a lab… and he’s going to another location.

While we’re waiting for him to call back, I’d like to link Grayson’s work to the ideas in the book, The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus. He used it as a metaphor for a world in which, for Camus, most modern industrial labour was, ultimately, futile. And it also revealed that there was no inherent meaning to anything… no ultimate reason why the world is the way it is… or why it changes… or our place in it. Camus believed that accepting that there is no meaning to life is important because that liberates us to give it a meaning of our own. We are in control of meaning and can liberate ourselves from futile labour… or futile longings for things we don’t need or cannot have. But how two robots with leaf blowers can enable Artificial Intelligence to understand that is… well… it’s beyond me. 

SKYPE CALL TONE

HOST

Grayson! You look like… are you out in the suburbs?

GRAYSON

Yes. Well… Toto itself is a tiny town… a settlement really… here in rural Indiana. It have its name to Dorothy’s dog in the Wizard of Oz, did you know that?

HOST

Dorothy’s dog? No I didn’t know that. How?

GRAYSON

Frank L Baum, who wrote the original book, lived close by here… he had a house at Bass Lake… and it’s said he used the name of our township… he remembered it when he was writing the book. 

HOST

But that’s set in Kansas… ‘I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,’ – isn’t that the line?

GRAYSON

Actually, the line from the movie is, ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ That’s the line. In the book… I don’t know… I’ve never read it. 

HOST

OK, that’s a sidebar… so… where are you and why are you there?

GRAYSON

I’m in classic Indiana suburbia… it’s like so many other places in America… medium sized homes on a couple of acres of property with rolling lawns. 

HOST

I can see that, it’s like a million places we see in movies and TV shows all the time. 

GRAYSON

That’s exactly what we wanted. It’s the perfect place to see if the AI can work out what futility feels like – not just what the word means. 

HOST

I can see… one of your robots across the road…

GRAYSON

Yes, that’s Sisyphus One. It’s tasked with keeping the Jones’s lawn clear of leaves and cuttings. The Jones’s really want their lawn to be pristine. 

HOST

And the robot next to you?

GRAYSON

This is Sisyphus Two and it’s got the same job, but on behalf of the Mecklenberg’s lawn. 

HOST

Both look like lovely lawns… really succulent green and… err… not so clear of leaves at the moment. 

GRAYSON

So, this is how it begins… [SHOUTING] OK, turn Sisy One on well ya!

LEAF BLOWER

HOST

Ah… yes… I can see the robot moving methodically and the leaves are being blown away… mostly into the street… and… oh… and onto the Mecklenberg’s lawn. 

GRAYSON

Now… watch…

LEAF BLOWER 1 STOPS – THEN AFTER A BEAT LEAF BLOWER 2 STARTS

HOST

OK, so the second robot is clearing its lawn… that’s pretty logical… 

GRAYSON [TALKING LOUD]

Yeah… you see, the AI is sticking to its task… and learning about what it needs to do it keep the lawn clear.

LEAF BLOWER STOPS

GRAYSON

See… it’s clear… 

LEAF BLOWER STARTS

HOST

But… the leaves have gone across the road again… and… oh dear…

GRAYSON

Yes, so Sisy One has to start over. 

LEAF BLOWER SOUND – THEN IT STOPS.

HOST

So, now the Jones’s lawn is cleared… and…

LEAF BLOWER STARTS

GRAYSON

Yep… Sisy Two is doing its job.

HOST

It’s futile!

GRAYSON

You realised that in a few seconds, but how long will it take these AI powered machines to realise it?

HOST

I see you point now… so how long are you going to wait?

LEAF BLOWER STOPS

GRAYSON

I don’t know… we’ll spare the good people of this place too much noise… but we’re going to run the experiment for a couple of hours each day to see what happens, whether the AI understand the real meaning of futility.

HOST

We’ll come back in a couple of days to find out… 

GRAYSON

Be my guest. 

LEAF BLOWER STARTS – THEN FADE OUT SLOWLY.

SILENCE FOR A BEAT

HOST

So, it’s been about a month since we recorded that call. It’s time to check back to see what’s been happening over in Indiana.

SKYPE CALL

LEAF BLOWER IS GOING – THEN IT STOPS

GRAYSON

Hi… thanks for checking back in. 

HOST

Any progress on the futility front?

GRAYSON

Nothing. By now I would have expected the AI to have worked out that what it had been asked to do with ultimately futile. 

LEAF BLOWER STARTS

GRAYSON

Hold on… I’ll just go inside. 

FUMBLE – LEAF BLOWER SOUND FADES - BUT STILL CAN BE HEARD

GRAYSON

OK… I’m inside with the Mecklenbergs… they’re very patient people, committed to academic inquiry and research. 

HOST

So, is your conclusion that Artificial Intelligence can’t cope with the concept of futility?

GRAYSON

I believe that’s true. And it’s a very positive finding. 

HOST

Why’s that?

GRAYSON

Because if an understanding of futility is what makes us different from the machines, then we have a chance of survival. 

HOST

I don’t understand. 

GRAYSON

We can transcend the machine logic of the technological age and reclaim what it means to be human…

HOST

Through futility?

GRAYSON

In a way, yes. By being able to understand our limits and that we are NOT in control of the natural world around us, and that being human is about understanding limits and escaping the cycle of futile needs and tasks so we can be… more human.

HOST

Well.. that…

GRAYSON

Hold on! Hold on… wait a minute – WHAT’S happening!

WE FADE UP EXTERIOR ATMOS

HOST

What’s happening Grayson! Show me!

GRAYSON

Oh my God!

HOST

Grayson’s turned the camera and… Sisyphus One has made its way into the middle of the road… and Sisyphus Two has gone to meet it and…

LEAF BLOWERS DOUBLED AND THEY – EXPLOSION!

GRAYSON

Oh my God!

HOST

What did they do?

GRAYSON

The only logical thing their AI brains could think of was to… basically… go to war and destroy each other!

HOST

That’s terrible… does that change your conclusion at all?

GRAYSON

Of course it does! And it doesn’t bode well for humanity. 

HOST

Oh… 

GRAYSON

Sorry… I can’t talk right now… this is… I need to rethink this! Bye!

CALL ENDS

HOST

Well, dear listeners, I think we all need to reflect on the issues our colleague at the Toto Institute of Technology and Social Sciences have been doing… and what it means for humanity.

In the meantime, please check out our many South Mimms U podcasts… or get your AI powered recommendation engine to do it for you. 

Thanks for listening – I hope it hasn’t been futile – Goodbye!

LEAF BLOWER STARTS

WINDOW OPEN – BLOWER IS LOUDER

HOST

Hey! Hey Gardener man… what you’re doing is completely futile.

VOICE

Fuck off you complete tit! 

FADE OUT