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—
Two soaked sheets,
dripping slowly to the street,
turn blue
from looking too long.
All along the avenue,
air brakes compress
into song.
After the news
last night, headlights launched through my eyes.
Grief is long.
—
—
—
Germany: Romantic irrationalism can ride around inside an extraordinarily rational machine.
France: We oscillate between the grid and the appetite. Also, lunch.
Britain: Contradictions don’t need resolving. They need procedures.
America: If the old world doesn’t work, move west and start another one.
***Bonus question: What is the likelihood that recursively self-improving AI, operating outside the human loop, will deploy sensors to gather empirical data for purposes humans neither directed nor anticipated?
Current Answer: About one chance in three by 2050, with embarrassingly large error bars. The hard part isn’t an AI inventing a reason to measure something. It’s us giving it a credit card and a screwdriver.
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—
For those who didn’t make it through, and those who did, and those who have worked every day to make it better…
Addition: At the NY Observer, a firsthand account from the 77th floor of the 2nd tower.
Thanks for looking.
—
What could it mean?
—
A Warning To My Readers
Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.