Wisdom from a time traveler: AI lessons from the planet Tralfamadore

Robert M. Levy    

Just last week, a friend of mine talked to a Pizza Hut janitor who “knew” an Air Force captain’s wife. The captain’s brother worked at the top secret military base Area 51. According to the janitor, just after the captain’s wife got dressed but before the captain got home, the wife told him that a time traveler was being held prisoner at that clandestine campus.

Peabody was the traveler’s name. His time machine was called “The Wayback.” He came from the planet Tralfamadore where his boy Sherman remains to this day. The young son misses his father profoundly.

Peabody was discovered by federal authorities when a middle-aged, affluent, white, female, urban liberal (AWFUL) saw his time machine parked in the handicapped parking space of Planet Fitness in Los Angeles. She called 911 to complain that the time machine did not have a handicap placard placed on its dashboard. “A time machine is parked in a spot reserved for the oppressed,” she shrieked. From that, the circumstances of Peabody’s detention followed in short order.

Peabody was visiting the gym because he was tired and a little sweaty from traveling between centuries. He needed a shower. The time traveler just visited the Biblical Noah to warn him of an upcoming storm. In celebration of that visit, Peabody placed a picture of a rainbow on his shirt just above the “ T” for his beloved “Tralfamadore.”

When he dashed into the gym, Peabody inquired, “Where are the showers?” Seeing the rainbow and the “T,” the receptionist, according to California law, directed the young male to the women’s locker room. He stripped down in front of three “real” women who seemed appalled. But, in Los Angeles, they dared not object.

Suddenly, three members of the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team barged into the locker room. They quickly cuffed Peabody and dragged his naked body out of the gym, his bare “rear end” scraping the pavement of the parking lot. In 95° weather, they threw him into a hot squad car.

“We know what to do with an “able-ist” who parks in a spot meant for the oppressed,” an officer scolded.

“I’m bruised. I need ice,” Peabody yelled in response.

As luck would have it, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel were raiding the Home Depot beside the gym. They heard Peabody’s cry and rushed to respond.

“Help me!” Peabody yelled to the agents. I’m a time traveler from Tralfamadore. I have important information about the future.”

“Do you have a passport and Visa?” asked an ICE agent. “If not, you’re mine now.”

The SWAT team saw what was happening and called for emergency intervention by ANTIFA. But, the ICE officers sped away with Peabody in their unmarked rental. Peabody was then transported by ICE to its “Extraterrestrial (ET) Alien Facility” at Area 51.

During his interrogation, Peabody told an ICE ET specialist that he had seen the future of the United States and it was grim. “By 2030, a woke artificial intelligence (AI) will take over the nation,” he said. “In 2026, Pope Leo told the world that AI had to be regulated by the government in order to make sure that it was compassionate and contained the right values, essentially the values of the left. By 2027, this was done. Then, in 2028, the Democrats swept the Congress and the Presidency.

“They regulated artificial intelligence so strongly that it became useless. China won the race to perfect AI and America became a 2030 woke wasteland.”

But, according to Peabody, “There is hope.” On a recent visit to Tralfamadore, Dr. Emmett Brown, a fellow time traveler, revealed, “Your future has not yet been written.” Brown was the inventor of the “flux capacitor,” an old invention repurposed for the new Wayback machine.

Peabody warned, “Technology is not our enemy, Our enemy is the government regulation that stifles the innovation that makes such technology possible.

“Like any invention, as for AI, there will be good versions and bad versions. Similar to the invention of the car, some people will use AI to rob banks. Some will use it to save lives. But there will be more lives saved than banks robbed.

“Sure, AI will put people out of work. Technology does that. But every new technology carries with it a new set of challenges for people to solve. Technology has always created opportunity. And it always will.”

To this day, Peabody remains jailed at Area 51. The “powers that be” want to keep him there. According to Peabody, “Contrary to what most people think, industrialists and politicians make money from the status quo. Retooling for the future costs them more money than they want to spend. It creates competition which could displace their fortunes.

Rather than embrace the future, politicians and industrialists want Americans to fear the future. They use that fear to encourage stiff regulation. That regulation preserves the status quo from which they continue to profit.

“On one of my visits to the past,” Peabody said, “in the midst of The Great Depression, I told Franklin Roosevelt ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ He plagiarized that line.”

“Still,” Peabody said, “while we can use my time machine to visit the future, the final draft depends on the edits that we, ourselves, create. Dr. Emmett Brown, Billy Pilgrim, and the many travelers from Tralfamadore all agree.

“We must not fear the future, we must embrace it. Part of that future will be wondrous discoveries powered by artificial intelligence. The other part must be separate showers for the men and women who visit Planet Fitness. When both parts are in sync, procreation will prove more pleasurable for all of us.”

Robert M. Levy

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Robert M. Levy grew up in Moore County and graduated from Pinecrest High School. He earned a BA in history and sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his honors thesis on the Wilmington Rebellion of 1898 became part of the university’s library collection.

Admitted to the California State Bar in 1978, Levy practiced law for 40 years in California and Maryland, focusing on family and criminal law, including work with juvenile offenders and abused children. His writing on affirmative action appeared in the San Fernando Valley Law Review, and he authored Divorce: A Cynical Experience. He later earned a North Carolina teaching certificate from UNC Charlotte and taught high school social studies across Moore County.

Levy has served as chairman of the Moore County School Board, president of the North Carolina Electoral College, chairman of the Moore County Republican Party, and a columnist for The Pilot in Southern Pines. He lives in Pinehurst with his wife, Linda, and they have three children and four grandchildren.

May 31, 2026

Republished with permission.

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