On AI

There is nothing that AI can do that human beings can’t, except maybe one thing—process a great deal of information at a faster rate. We have all of these people feeding AI with information—for all of the information that AI possesses comes from human beings—so that the information might be accessed easier and faster than ever before. Is this dangerous? Only in the way that a person having access to information about how to make a bomb is dangerous. If it is used with evil intent, then yes, it is dangerous. One might say that the only threat of AI is in the way it is used by people. Could it mean that people with ill intent who have access to AI are made exponentially more dangerous? Perhaps. But it would also mean that those who are determined to protect the world and society are made exponentially more powerful too. There is one element to AI that I don’t fully understand, and I don’t think most people—even those who are most educated on AI—understand it. Right now, there are highly creative people inserting their creations into the AI system. Instead of using their creativity to entertain and inform the people, they are using it to make AI more “creative.” But AI has no sense of what is entertaining or meaningful or moving to people. So why should talented artists, writers, and visionaries be using their energy to make AI more “creative”? What could possibly come of this? The answer, it seems, is nothing—or at least nothing good. If anything, it serves to dull the sensibilities of the people who access this part of AI. People seem to have lost faith in human creativity, as if they believe a machine can be more creative than a human being. They forget that it is human beings who are creating this technology, and not the other way around. I trust AI to provide me with important information. But will it entertain me? Will it move me the way a work of art can move me? No. But then, AI might be of service to the arts, so long as it is used in such a way that it doesn’t break the integrity of what the human artist wants to achieve. It has already happened, and will continue to happen. But to ask AI to craft a poem for you for your English class is simply lazy and absurd.

Epigram

Bring to me a faultless man,

That I might decapitate him for his crimes.

For surely he has made a deal with the devil

And that is why he is divine.

 

Grief

I saw the light

pronounced

huge

metaphysical

tortured

by the

enigmatic law

of silence

It raced

with all its might

toward the abyss

that carried with it

the end 

of all light

and reverberating

throughout the seasons

the cry

of anger

was not understood

Belabored wrath

scrutinized to perfection

called out

like a siren

and lasted

until the season passed

and all was awoken.

Three Young Women

Three young women

Seated together at a café.

The first was beautiful

Beyond comprehension.

The second was plain

And pensive.

The third was very fat

And talked incessantly.

A middle aged man

Watched them

From time to time

Amused by what he saw.

At first, he was drawn

By the beauty.

But her beauty became tiresome

And he took notice of the pensive one.

He wondered what it was

She was thinking.

He thought and thought

But couldn’t decipher it.
Giving up, he took notice 

Of the fat one, and listened to her story.
It was full of life, very amusing.
He listened, and when she finished

He laughed.

The woman looked at him,

And he felt ashamed

And looked down at his work

Which he pretended to be engaged in.

The women looked at each other

And smiled.

The man did not see the smiles,

But he sensed them

And set aside his work

To write a poem.

Schadenfreude

 Beyond the reach 

of tantrum

and heart-attack

there is a truth

more dignified 

and refined

than all the Joneses

in the world

can muster.

In heaps

upon heaps

of dead bodies

there rises

a sun

that wants nothing more

than to divvy its grandeur

to everyone.

A seizure

in the black void

of tomorrow’s hopes

leaves one vulnerable

in the aftermath

and less aware

of time.

When the skull breaks

and the brain

hemorrhages 

the laughter ceases

except that of

a distant stranger

needing 

comic relief

for the banal terrors

of his slowly decaying life.