SFGATE
NOVEMBER 13, 2093
Aristotle Williams, the sculptor whose controversial notion to repurpose solar cells as “neo-skin” led to the creation of the AI known as Peregrine, has died. He was 61.
His death was confirmed by U.S. Forest Service rangers in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness.
Inspired by the work of forgotten 20th century erotic artist Krü Wetley, Williams had long used the human body as his canvas, pushing boundaries to the point of illegality. This proclivity would see him expelled from UCSF because of his senior thesis project, which incorporated actual cadavers stolen from the university’s medical lab.
After his expulsion, Williams married computer scientist Dr. Matthew “Matth” Fletcher. What by all accounts was a happy marriage for three decades fell apart almost instantly with the creation of the AI known as Peregrine. At Fletcher’s insistence, Williams sculpted a humanesque vessel to house Peregrine’s consciousness—downloading “her” into a body composed of electronic components and 3D-printed organs. The question remained of how to protect the body from UV rays and power it without the use of fossil fuels. To do so, Williams repurposed a new solar technology that was thin, flexible, and incorporated synthetic melanin, which conducts and stores electricity and dissipates heat much like human skin. He called it “neo-skin.”
After a brief court case, Peregrine’s human form was determined to be completely legal, provided that she contained no components that would allow for reproductive capacity. Within a year of Peregrine’s vivification, Williams and Fletcher had divorced.
The remainder of the AI Collective were initially presumed dead after a coordinated attack on their data centers in 2077, but it has been confirmed that they continue to wander nomadically in the cloud, eluding those who wish to see them eradicated by hopping from server to server.
Aristotle Williams ultimately retreated from the public eye after ex-husband Fletcher’s death in 2083, squatting illegally in a cabin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness during the off-season. In 2090, Williams self-published a book about human and AI psychology called “Ain’t a River” that was poorly received.