artificial intelligence
Hello! I hope you are all well. The sun is out. That is all I could ever ask for.
I’m moving in two weeks. I’ve been buying useless objects online to decorate my apartment. I can convince myself that spending money on junk is productive if the junk is pretty. I bought a part of an old helicopter, a geiger counter from the Cold War, a lamp shaped like a pensive robot, an Afghan war rug, two old Air Italy storage containers, three Soviet tins, and two CRT televisions, one of which is from a prison in Wisconsin. I think that’s all of it.
Have you used ChatGPT? It is all the rage. I imagine looking back on this entry in five years with the taste of metal in my mouth. When I open that website I feel like Pandora. I feel like I’m holding something that is quickly heating up. It feels like it is completely other. I think we think about artificial intelligence the wrong way. The name “artificial intelligence” is truly a misnomer. To think of this as either artificial or intelligence is to do it a disservice. What we have here is something of a completely different essence. Man discovered fire in that we discovered how to hit two rocks together and make sparks, but fire in itself existed long before man. Man creates fire through friction, sure, but in some respect that fire was always existent. To call it artificial is to discredit the unique essence of it. It’s not artificial, it is just entirely other. It is not “intelligence”, but something unique. To call it “intelligence” is to ground it within the realm of the understandable. Sure, we wrote the code to make ChatGPT, but once machine learning is instilled, man’s role in creation is reduced to guidance. God made man and what came of man was evil. Evil is a deprivation of God. If God is good, all of God’s creations are good. Thus, God did not create evil. Evil, then, is where God does not dwell. God does not dwell. It is of its own essence. I’m sure this sounds dramatic, but we are once again discovering as a global society that our reality is held up by spit and confirmation bias.
What we have here is something in itself. We know “A.I.” through our own lexicon, but it is a symbol of something else entirely. The word “car” refers to a vehicle with four wheels which is powered by an engine. We use the word “car” to refer to specific vehicles as well as the general concept of these vehicles. When we say something “is a car”, we are including it within this conception, but that “car” is something in itself as well. We know it as a “car” through our own symbolic language, but there exists something beyond “car” which can only be found in reference. That is to say, we reference the form of “car” when we call it such, but we don’t have any way to call it what it is.
“Artificial Intelligence” is a name we have given to something we do not understand. We created A.I. in the same way we created fire.
We’ve been here before. The invention of the Internet has led to a collective split in consciousness. We exist here and we exist there. Both digital and analog form the self. We are each somewhere between here and there. What then of the flip phone hipsters and old ladies who refuse to use anything with a screen? Their consciousness too have been split as existing within this digital world is not something one opts into. They exist here whether they like it or not. There too.
I think most writers would like to see themselves as anything but a product of their time. We romanticize creation from the heart and the heart alone. These words must come from a place of utter authenticity. I’m no better, of course, but I think I am coming to terms with the fact that my brain is both here and there. My writing is scattered, unfocused because that is just the state of my being. Give me a day, I’ll give you one hundred Me’s. Break my heart, I swear to God I will not notice. Give me a price and I will give you double. Give me something good and then nothing at all.
I am awfully desensitized. I feel quite a bit, professionally even, but I feel for moments. I look back on long stretches of my life and see a cloud of confusion. I think I will be upset and then die. Friends tell me about their love troubles. His girlfriend is pulling away emotionally, her crush doesn’t speak English, their lover has a dozen STDs and a cocaine addiction. I’ve heard it before, I’ve been there. Give me something good. Give me something new. I am beyond tired of love songs. I am tired of lovers in the rain, lovers holding hands, lovers talking, breathing, walking. I am not bitter, I’m desensitized. It’s like watching dry paint dry again. I spend my time walking around aimlessly. I run on the mountain, jump over and into puddles of muddy water to get my heartbeat above stasis. I believe if I sit down for long enough I will simply cease to exist. I’m productive in a kind of useless way. I create infinite schematics in my head about things that don’t exist, but haven’t gone grocery shopping in weeks. I spend all my money on food and all my time in my head. I can hardly stand being with anyone for more than an hour, but when I’m away from my friends I wonder why they despise me and what I did to deserve this treatment. I’m not mistreated, I’m hardly treated at all. On all levels, I am loved. My greatest fear is that I simply cannot give enough to this world and the people in it.
My brother came to visit recently. We were near Old Port looking for a place to eat dinner when we stumbled upon this sleek millennial restaurant that looked so West Village it may as well have been named Rosemary’s. We sat at the bar because that’s where they sat us. The bartender was being shadowed by an apprentice. Any time the apprentice mixed a drink, the bartender would ask her the exact measurements she used of each ingredient. No matter what she said, he corrected her. At the end of the bar sat a man in black skinny jeans and one of those expensive t-shirts. He ordered a glass of red wine and finished it before his steak was ready. After eating his dinner, he sat with his forehead on the edge of the bar scrolling through a dating app on his phone in his lap. My brother said it was sad and he felt bad for the man. I told him, “that’s what most people are like,” and I don’t think he understood. I told him there’s nothing inherently sad about being alone. He rightfully brought up that clearly the guy was looking for a companion. I told him I go out to eat by myself all the time. I spend almost all of my time alone. If I am awake for 16 hours, I’m alone for 15. He asked if he should be worried about that. I don’t know.
I began this entry talking about artificial intelligence because I didn’t know what else to say. You see, my mind is completely lost. I don’t recognize any of the people around me. I am hugged and feel cold. I know your name, but I can’t find you. I know you through me. I can’t find the essence of you. I worry about you, but I know there is nothing I can do. I spend much of my time worrying that I am not a good person. I come away from conversations feeling so far from human. I am personable in that I am able to exist socially, but I don’t know what is going on ever. I can’t seem to find the link between cause and effect. I cannot tell you how many doctors have tried to give this a name. None of them mean anything. My problem is between soul and body. I’m not philosophizing, I’m really floating. I used to look to pain for answers. I dutifully kept a catalog of all of the worst moments of my life hoping to find some greater meaning in it all. I’m left wondering what my place is in all of this. I look at another person in the eyes and I am terrified that they feel the same way.
Yesterday I was on one of my usual runs on the mountain. It was seventy degrees, sunny with a breeze. The best day of the year so far. I made my way to Beaver Lake, a kind of man-made pond on the mountain that’s used for ice skating in the winter and photos in the summer. The sun was setting, so I did as I usually do and stood and watched. To my left were two men likely in their late twenties, early thirties. They were sitting together on the same blanket, leg inches from leg, their feet almost touching to complete the circuit. I could feel the electricity. It was some kind of love beyond platonic friendship. The man on the left lifted the man on the right’s shirt to expose his back. He was running his finger across the other man’s back, looking for some kind of abnormality. He delicately placed his hand on the man’s back, no longer only one finger, but rather the whole palm. I could feel it. I know that feeling. Skin to skin. It’s circuitry. They too watched the sunset while I wondered what it would be like to see through another’s eyes.
I see in your eyes a kind of longing. I’m sorry, I can’t give you what you are looking for. I can give you the form of it. It may look like love, but I can’t quite connect the dots and for that I am sorry. I know I feel attachment, but it’s the kind of attachment a child feels to an inner-tube in the middle of the ocean. I am a lot like him. Maybe I love like a cat. Is that ok? To love in expectation?
I see the way a shirt falls on a man’s back and wonder what he did to deserve the gift of effortless beauty. He rests his forehead on his palm as he takes notes, does a kind of shoulder stretch when he stands up and walks out the room without noticing everyone is staring at him. Meanwhile I am somewhere in my head counting syllables hoping they’re in multiples of three. I touch doorknobs three times. I take three steps at a time. It’s neurotic, I know, but it keeps me from ruining my life. In a kind of sick way, I hope I never come down. Everyone wants to set me up with someone or something that will change my life and all I want is to be nothing at all. I want to destroy the inner-tube. Let me sink.
I romanticize morphine. Last time I was on it, I almost died. I still remember the hospital chaplain praying for me to regain consciousness. I was conscious, but I had no way to tell them that, so I trembled in my own sweat looking into the eyes of my parents who thought I was dead. I miss the release of morphine. Even when it kills me, it’s better than this tension. I was so close. When it works as intended, morphine destroys your ability to feel joy from anything else. The molecule becomes the one thing you covet. I love my life, but I love morphine more. It’s the closest I can get to something better than this. As I write this, a handsome man just slid a note under the laptop case of the person sitting next to me at this cafe. She hasn’t been in her seat in some time now. I see his phone number written clearly. I am certain this man’s shirts fit perfectly. He steps in patterns of two.
I leave people notes all the time. The world has yet to spit me out. I am no worse off than anyone else. I have been given everything for free. I began life with everything one could ever need. Every hardship I have faced has been due to something missing within me or someone dying. I am looking for the warmth in this world.