They talk of all-powerful AI.
Perhaps this is Sci-Fi.
Or maybe it is true.
But you and I
Will surely die,
Unless we
Achieve immortality,
And perhaps live on
After the body is gone
In virtual reality.
But would that be
You and me?
When men
Reach the stars
And girls lose their bras
At the click of a mouse.
And men
Can be
Whatever they wish to be
In the virtual house,
I wonder will we
Be happy
Or free.
It will all end in tears before teatime
And the poet’s rhyme
Has nothing to say to those obsessed
With what some call progress.
The technophiles delight
In maintaining the future is bright
And themselves excite
With a dream
That does seem
To others, to constitute a nightmare
Ending in despair.
The neural net
Has not been seen yet.
A place where man himself entangles
And mangles,
Or maybe he
Is free
I have been aware, for some considerable time now, that there is emerging a wholly new kind of book. I am not speaking here of ebooks for these are now “old hat”. Rather I am referring to the Sensation Book.
So what is the Sensation Book I hear you ask?
I was recently contacted by Sensation Books International with a request that I take a look at their forthcoming book, “The Traditional English Garden”. Being a lover of gardens and, in particular scented flowers I, of course jumped at the opportunity.
My experience of this book is rather painful! On turning to the first chapter “The Rose in the English Garden” I was blown away by the scent of the many roses which wafted up from the paper (the scent is, I understand kept fresh and ever changing by a series of tiny chips in the paper which keep the pages constantly refreshed with scents deriving from the Cloud, a kind of virtual reality). My pleasure was, however soon curtailed by a most painful sensation, that of being stung on the nose by an extremely large bumble bee.
The dratted thing was concealed smack bang in the middle of a gorgeous red rose which I had, until that moment been savouring.
Needless to say I closed the book immediately and have written a strong letter of complaint to the Director of Sensation Books International, one Ms J Ker expressing, in the strongest possible terms my dissatisfaction with the company’s offering.
In conclusion the idea of connecting books to the cloud and the utilisation of virtual reality to enhance the experience of the reader is, in theory a wonderful concept. However such projects should be handled with great care as my poor nose can testify!
A researcher has launched a project to make simulations of the dead a reality. In future, he postulates you could be having breakfast with your spouse then leave for work. However you would not, in fact be eating with your partner but rather a simulation of the dear departed. This, the researcher hopes will enable those left behind to cope better with grief. Ultimately, as the technology improves the line between the living and the dead will become increasingly indistinct.
The article does touch on the dangers of such simulations, the main ones identified being the people left behind finding it easier to converse with the departed (or rather their simulation) rather than connecting with those in the living world. To my mind another risk with simulations of this nature is that rather than assisting the bereaved to move on, they become trapped in a cycle of interactions with the simulated departed spouse or friend. Of course this already happens to some extent, for example the bereaved may keep a photograph of the loved one who has died on a locket and/or a bedside table where it acts as a reminder of former times. However photographs and recordings don’t constitute full emmersion in the personality of the departed, for one is always aware that one is looking at a picture or listening to a recording. How easy to lose one’s grip on reality and come to believe the simulation is, in fact your friend or loved one and to quite literally lose the plot.
For details of the research please visit, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3935362/Would-bring-dead-spouse-life-VR-Researchers-say-simulations-evolution-bereavement.html).
In my poem “Death is Dead” I imagine a world in which the Grim Reaper has finally been conquered. Is this the world to which we are slowly moving?
Death is Dead
“Funeral orations are no longer spoken.
Death’s scythe is broken.
His tread echoes not
And the graveyard plot
No longer inspires dread,
For death is dead!
The ageless sit.
Some wit
Cracks a joke, but there is no laughter
As after
Countless repetitions, humour palls.
Lothario calls
On his latest conquest.
Going through the motions, he longs for rest,
For all passion has long since gone,
And women’s faces have merged and become as one.
Yet he must carry on and on …
The celebrity’s aplomb
Is frayed.
No longer is attention payed
To her.
People can only stare
Or listen to the same old song
For so long.
Death is no more.
Even the bore
Tires of his own voice
But he has no choice
Other than to bore on
For the reaper has gone
And tedium eternal is in store
For the noble and the whore”.
Will the click of a mouse
In the virtual house
Of the brain
Replace
Nature’s sweet face?
Or can man restrain
The genie who, perhaps already half woken,
His words as yet unspoken,
Holds out visions of heaven and hell.
Will men dwell
In the half light
Where day and night
Lose all meaning
And seeming
And fact become as one?
Has man gone
So far
That we lose who we are?
Can rich variety be reduced
And man seduced
By the girl made up of data?
Sooner or later
These things may come
To pass, but history does run
In strange ways, and the historian shakes his head
At the futurologist, now long since dead
Who said
“It is inevitable, For X must lead to Y”.
Ideas live and die.
The historian sighs
And thinks on why
Man tries to make the world conform to some abstract law.
He has seen it all before
And puts but little store
On those enamoured by neat little rows.
The futurologist may into the future stare
While history’s winding track leads heaven knows where.
When there is no night or day
Man will have lost his way.
When the harsh bulb does forever shine
And man is caught in a mesh so fine
He can not see
And believes himself free
Methinks he will have passed a line.
When the face of love
Is replaced by a glove
And lonely people
Hide in a steple
Of the mind
Humans will find
They have crossed the Rubicon
Something indefinable has gone
And the fluorescent tubes burn forever on.
Desires
Carried by wires.
She burns
And turns
To one
who enters in.
Will cables that coil
Contain passions that boil?
Will dials
defile
Smials
As man plays
Out his days?
Will the machine control
The soul?
Is man’s destiny to slowly fade away?
to be lost in perpetual play?
The gosimer thin thread
in his head
breaks
and he takes
a step over the abyss
to wallow in bliss
where machines dream
and Alice is not who she seems.
The sun rises.
There are prizes
For the movers and shakers.
To be caught in a movie maker’s
dream,
a scene
from which there can be no escape.
As we roll with the never ending tape.
(The above was prompted by an article in yesterday’s Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/07/artificial-intelligence-homo-sapiens-split-handful-gods).
Existence broken up, segmented numbers and letters displayed on a cold, bright screen.
Searching, bits of data revealed, my life spread out (well the part of it which I choose to reveal) on webpages replete with ads.
K Morris? Yes but not me, whoever I am? No someone else, a lady from a land far away possessed of dreams and aspirations, as am I.
I click,
“404. The page you are looking for cannot be found. Perhaps searching may help”.
I search. K Morris no longer exists. He was here but now is no more.
Solid desk on which my computer rests. Unreal cyberspace, a shimmering mirage leading us astray.
K Morris - Poet 