Sitting at my empty table
Trying to write when I'm unable
Maybe struggle for a word or two
Hoping new ideas start coming through
Something different not yet done
A raging rant or just for fun
My rule's to write in double time
A massive writing wall to climb
But then again one just like this
From writer's block without remiss
Well there it is and there I go
Written fast for reading slow
Not too much to think about
No masterclass insights to flout
Talking to the inner me
When we are both on other sides
In two minds guessing what to do
Hoping reason overrides
Indecision is a luxury
If doing nothing makes good sense
Though lack of action may bring outcomes
Whereby a stance is no defence
So who is it that speaks a mind
When common sense is streched
Ad-lib is better left unsaid
Should rationale seem too far fetched
Photo by david Griffiths on Unsplash
Yes and No’s or does and don’ts
Spinning coins and rolling dice
Compass points and journeys
To arrive and not think twice
To live means making choices
Results not always clear
Pathways take you who knows where
Indecision brings on fear
Do not ask if I can say to you
Where you should or should not be
If you ask then you have no idea
Like a cat lost up a tree
Leaping deep down a rabbit hole
On a rope with too much slack
Best not to take the unknown road
For there may be no way back
Many thanks to Lewis Carroll and his wise Cheshire Cat
George Harrison used the idea in his song and check out this link:
https://philosiblog.com/2011/07/13/if-you-dont-know-where-youre-going/
Alice asks Cheshire Cat: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”
Inside a mind of strained connections
Where every 'now' goes out of date
From what it was to what it is
Becomes a wildering relate
In the depth of heavy thinking
The way our lives must substitute
Letting go seems our imperative
In hope there’ll be a parachute
Many options string the future out
Making now your driving force
Sketching out some possibilities
Will need the power from your source
A round-the-corner dealer
Opportunist looking grand
Counting out a coin or two
Which he passes underhand
Skilled with untold aptitude
Inner confidence purveys
Sharper than a razor blade
Pares the light on darker days
Scoping out off-chances
Entertains a curious crowd
Disarming them with humour
In a most acceptable shroud
Much more than a worry
The state of global weather
Nature's means of fighting back
Getting ready to untether
Howling gales and cyclones
High water everywhere
Fires like slashing sabres
Everyday a new despair
The money men they prosper
Stashing everything in safes
Buried deep inside a mounain
Castaway felonious waifs
Maybe a million years from know
Found in a bony clench
Future beings cannot understand
The value of a lonely trench
Moving on is now a frenzy
in a rhapsody of change
Ideas and dreams escaping
To overwhelm and rearrange
Nothing left for holding onto
As what was once is now bizarre
Pulled apart and redirected
In algorithm’s coup d’état
Humanity in its wistfulness
No longer has a wish to make
The state of hope has limited scope
As new patterns overtake
Properly is everywhere
Exactly as it should
Thoroughly without a doubt
To properly do good
Or maybe there’s a proper mess
Like Properly chaotic
To get your goat up properly
To leave you properly neurotic
Back when things were properly
In yardsticks properly set
Written properly in statutes
A standard properly well met
If where you go
You do not know
The nature of
Your destination
Like what is what
And where is that
May need more
Detailed explanation
Going there
Is not the same
As coming back
More well informed
If what you found
When on the ground
Brought you back
Transformed
Passing time on purpose
With new beginnings and old ends
Should there ever come a time
When evolution has its way
Mortality at the Speed of Thought
Will be the final game to play
For those who wear the virtual mask
Will first be blinded by the light
Immobilised by silent stealth
In a petrifying plight
No need to clean up after you
You'll stand there frozen in the mire
As the digital Grim Reaper
Sucks up your dust out of the pyre
|
|
Could AI wipe out humanity? |
This week, more than 350 artificial intelligence experts signed a 22-word statement warning that humanity faces “extinction” unless the risks of the technology are properly mitigated. The big danger, says the so-called “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton on The Daily, is that these machines will stop at nothing to achieve what we ask them to do. Say you tasked an advanced AI with making money for you: it would happily break into an online banking system and steal funds, or buy oil futures and foment a revolution in Central Africa to boost prices. These machines are essentially “psychopaths”, devoid of any moral compass. |
Our “era of intellectual pessimism” tends to view technology as the source of, rather than a solution to, our problems, says Henry Shevlin in The New European. But when we weigh up the risks, we have to consider the harm caused by doing nothing. Haunted by the ghosts of Chernobyl and Fukushima, for example, we have largely stopped building new nuclear plants, often in favour of polluting fossil fuels. Fears about genetically modified food have stalled the adoption of Golden Rice, a GM crop “capable of saving millions of Vitamin A-deficient children from starvation”. Properly implemented, AI could deliver “profound benefits” for society: in healthcare, it could help formulate new drugs; in education, it could effectively provide every student with a personal tutor. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. |
The truth is that it’s “already too late” for any meaningful pause in AI development, says Iain Martin in The Times. As with the creation of the nuclear bomb in the 1940s, the pressing question is whether democracies or dictatorships get there first. If the West and its allies fail, we will be at the mercy of autocrats who can swarm us with thousands of lethal drones, or deploy sophisticated programmes which “relentlessly search for weaknesses through which to launch cyber attacks and shut down our financial systems”. This is a race “we have to win”. |
She's been laid up in hospital
At the mercy of the probes
Stripped of all her lingerie
Made to wear metallic robes
They stuck in tubes and filled her up
With liquid cold and runny
Her temperature then plummeted
It wasn't very funny
Although it's crass this miners lass
From Merthyr in the valley
Is made of stuff extremely tough
With a spirit fast to rally
We are sure with time her wounds will heal
No more feeling chronic
Resuming jaunts and Milkwood haunts
With a reviving Gin and Tonic
Written for my mother-in-law in March 1996
Dear Jessica the Lord beholds
Her name is in her eyes
Not hidden from the simple mind
Her Spirit beauty flies
Today she waits so patiently
For the homing of her dove
As we give thanks for this precious gift
And surround her soul with love
Jessica is a traditionally feminine name with Hebrew roots meaning "rich" or "God beholds" — it comes from the Hebrew "yiskah," and variations include Iska, Jeska, Yessica, Jessika, Jess, Jessie and Jesse. Iscah was a daughter of Haran in the Bible's Book of Genesis.
There is no known usage of the name Jessica itself prior to Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice," in which the character Shylock's daughter is named Jessica. So despite its Hebrew origins, Jessica herself was invented by the bard himself.
