Yes, the world does seem to be shuddering – though the eclipse passing our way can’t really be blamed on human misbehavior.
The nearing eclipse has brought back to my mind one of the first books I ever read and thoroughly enjoyed: Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with its climactic eclipse of the sun.
Feel lucky the eclipse is passing up Vermont’s way. And the predictions are for a sunny day! Unusual lately, with a couple feet of snow still on the ground.
Haven’t blogged for ages, but thought I’d get back on the horse. Thinking a lot about AI lately, so here’s a quick thought:
Is AI is simply the next progression in computing, which everyone, everyone, knew was coming It is certainly fair to say that it is a “game changer”, a “quantum leap”, etc. sure, but is it truly a paradigm shift? Depends on what happens next.
Isn’t it essentially the same paradigm?: We can create things that can “out-think” humans, solve problems that we can’t figure out with our own brains. We could go back to the abacus for a prime example of this: The human moves the levers and the abacus provides the solution. A simple pocket calculator proves in an instant that computers can crush human cognitive powers.
So, albeit a rather large increment, the change brought by AI is incremental. Significant, but not a revolutionary change in our understanding of how things work and what is possible to accomplish through electronics, coding, and vast server farms.
And so with AI as with the internet, DNA research, and nuclear physics: the real question is not what we discover, but what we do with what we discover. Ah, there’s the rub.
Joe Norris’ vibrant show exploring the edge between representation and abstraction at Next Stage in Putney, Vermont.
Bill Dixon’s marvelous exhibit of his portrait photography at the Crowell Gallery in Newfane, Vermont
I had a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Nancy Storrow on this project. It was a fascinating experience. We were also lucky enough to receive permission from the talented pianist Misuzu Tanaka to include an excerpt from Leoš Janáček’s “On an overgrown path” as the audio for the video.
A totally absorbing, fascinating project completed! Two and half years its starting point, the video combines a live talk in the library with video excerpts from Ulysses and images drawn by talented current graphic artists whose work captures the humor and the human drama of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The idea of the project was to share the fun I’ve been able to have in reading Ulysses over many years and to make Joyce’s kaleidoscopic novel more approachable.
Here’s the result:
Today, Friday, June 24, when Roe v. Wade died an untimely and grotesque death. The Supreme Court, the “law of the land,” what a mockery. My god, has it come to this? Yes, it has. It is.
How can we so amazingly destroy ourselves ? What is wrong with us? Our curiosity drives us to unravel the inside of an atom and our madness uses the knowledge to destroy the planet, mad enough to bring it all to a horrifying end?
I think of Dylan’s Masters of War.
My god how rapidly our world approaches the brink.
I’ve written a play that deals with the insanity of so-called civilized society. We’re done an initial readthrough and are planning a full full production for early this fall.
Also planning a talk on James Joyce’s Ulysses along with actors reading excerpts from the work in celebrating of the Joyce’s incredible work. It will air on Bloomsday June 16 at 7PM.
So we keep on doing what keeps the heart going during these incredibly stressful times.
Ricia was a wonderful friend. It was a pleasure to work with her husband Bill to create this video of her show at Newfane’s Moore Library this November.
I take a small dose of reality by reading the paper for a few minutes in the morning with my coffee and muffin.
Today’s news was the UN’s report on climate change.
Oh, and, if that weren’t enough there was the article on how the US thinks Russia may be attacking CIA agents and diplomats (there’s a difference?) in Havana, with illness somehow done via microwaves.
I definitely felt I’d overdosed on reality and I attempted, unsuccessfully, to escape to a jigsaw puzzle.
Is our species hell-bent on its own destruction?
Who the hell left us humans in charge of the planet?
Turing Test
We are quick to apply the “Turing Test” from computer science — that something could be created so brilliantly complex that, without a strand of DNA, it could pass for human. We jump to the conclusion that it’s plausible to attribute conscious to electronic things with simulated skin— the sci-fi trope that such a thing could emulate sexuality, perhaps even the full range of human feelings.
Many find this a frightening prospect…which is why it works so well as a plot device.
But matter does not become conscious on account of its complexity. We don’t consider a cuckoo clock with intricate gears to be more conscious than a sundial. Moving from mechanical to electronic changes nothing. We don’t think our digital clock knows what time it is, even if the clock is infinitely more complicated than, say, a phone charger. No amount of complexity, no skill at mimicking make a conscious being.
A perfectly decent person who is an actor can convincingly play a vicious murderer.
This sci-fi trope can be unnerving because it seems there’s nothing that separates a being that exists and feels from one that only simulates experiencing.
It’s perhaps another indicator of the fragility of our sense of our humanity that can feel so tenuous in this tremulous time.
Sometimes I think the world’s leadership has seen too many sci-fi movies and are bent on transforming this world into their version of totalitarian triumphalism.
Sci-fi can never match scaring us as much as reality can.
In addition to all the terrible blow of the pandemic and its handling, the separation of artist from audience is a form of damage that the human spirit finds hard to bear. Yes, thankfully, new modes of artistic communication emerge. But it is not a simple matter.
To put it a different and perhaps more scary way, the struggle of art to express itself and for us to express ourselves through art, to satisfy our own need to creatively communicate, is being suffocated not only by the pandemic, but by our culture giving up on itself.
Theater, music, dance, painting, sculpture, literature, poetry and every other human creative endeavor are there to challenge, to open the mind, when it is so much easier to just not bother. Why open a book? Why act in or go to a play? Learn an instrument, join a band? So much easier to let one’s pod take over a la The Body Snatchers and let creative energies fade.
And to exist in more than the creator’s ego, there must be an audience, a community of those who appreciate what the creator strives to do.
And here is the great struggle for us in the pandemic. Not just to exist but to do something that satisfies the soul. For most artists that means doing something that affects someone else, that moves the other, the unites people through the act of creation.
We let go of this too easily. We take its loss too lightly.
Many, many artists, at the same time as fighting for their health and economic survival, suffering these days. Many find outlets, moments of expression and sharing. We must find more.