I have lived through the Stone Age, the Bronze Age,
the Iron Age, the Middle Age, the Industrial Age,
the Space Age, the Communication Age.
I am human, so it seems,
and able to look back as well as forward;
a mere mammal trying
to become part of that thing
we like to call humanity.
How do we know who we are
when we do not know the neighbor next door?
How much effort does it take to explore
each member of a community?
We do not even truly know our family.
Strangers pose a serious threat
that we have not learned to handle yet.
We play with religion and philosophy
to understand what humans are meant to be.
We have become the source of inhumanity
around the globe we once thought flat.
The more we learn, the more we fear.
The less we know even where we are at.
We who do not know ourselves, can
never feel safe.
Without self we are never in a truly safe space.
Democracy is as fragile as we.
If we cannot trust ourselves, whom can we trust?
In a democratic republic, trust we must.
Demagogues know this is so.
Wealth and power are hard to let go.
To seize power from “no-nothings” comes easily.
Divide and conquer rallies laughingly.
It has become a right-wing norm
used by our nation’s enemies
who need never use their armies
to cross our borders, when we are so willing
to allow them to sway and inform us who we are
day after day after day after day after day.
Only because we do not know who we are, anyway.
Or, in any way useful to ruling ourselves.
Like human children, human adults vote to play.
Humans are entering a new age every day.
A I will now become the new me,
a me I never expected to see.
One I never knew, it is true.
A I will know me much better than I do.
It will write and speak and act for me.
Deep inside what I once felt was free
will wither and wonder if I could have become
the real human, the real man or woman
the real me.
annarino writes 
ESSAY ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
In 1965 my best girlfriends and I (each of us avid readers) took a speed-reading course at the local YMCA. By the end of that course I could read page in seconds, not minutes. And we could not increase speed to a higher level, unless we reached 100% accuracy. This was perhaps the finest educational tool I ever used. Throughout life I have been able to ingest information rapidly and accurately. All because of those weeks of study outside a classroom.
In today’s fast-moving communication era, that skill keeps me informed. Otherwise, it might be overwhelming to even try to stay informed. I might be tempted to turn off the flow of information and just “go about my business.” It can be necessary to emotional health to live in denial. But, it does little good for those in need of our attention, our support, our love. It undermines the concept which is the basis of any democratic republic – the common good. Checking back in is necessary to the common good.
Thus, I suggest, temporary, not permanent inattention. Most of you have discovered this tactic on your own. I guess I am writing this today in response to numerous comments I often hear: She cannot read all this stuff. She cannot find all this information. She must make this stuff up. She could not possibly have read all this. etc. etc. Well, I do read all this stuff! I just speed-read it.
I do not know if such courses are currently being offered. Perhaps it is no longer necessary to those who use A.I. But, as for me, I choose to read directly from the source; or to check the source directly after A.I. tries to tell me what it knows. A.I. is a great speed-reader. But, one must be assured it is reading material based upon real facts and not fiction. A.I. is also good at helping us find proper sources of information. It, however, will never excuse us from the need to be factually accurate. We live in a time when disinformation is deliberate. Propaganda is a tool to undermine our votes, our democratic principles. Judges are beginning to point out lies presented by DOJ attorneys in ways heretofore unseen. A.I. will only give us what it has been fed. And it is fed by factual inputters; but also, by bottom-feeders preying on us with lies.
As Sister Robertine, O.P. taught us in my Catholic high school, “ Be careful what you read. Garbage in…garbage out.”
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