homo electronicus

This one doesn't actually have a title.

I read this article in GQ, about the singularity.
Not the singularity where the universe began, a point of infinite density, heat, and minute size, but where computers can increase their own intelligence (AI is real), and the possibilities that entailed.

I went off on a whole mind journey with that motherfucker; I'm going to get a couple poems out of that. Maybe a couple of stories, like an updated vision of how we get to 1984, as well.

Anyway, one of my ideas from the GQ article is about what makes us human. Part of the article talked about being able to make computers legitimately "creative," to have them produce music, novels, television, etc. That fucked with me, and it led to this.

let me lay some calculus upon you
my question is this
is oral sex
worth the existence of murder?
nah
let me try again
is the smell of your lover’s hair
woth allowing child abuse
to exist?
could you trade the opera
for all the deaths in Rwanda
and swap the sunrise
for curing hunger
somewhere else
one of those unfortunate places
that are always being rocked by earthquakes and tsunamis
let me lay this calculus on you
if you could trade
all orgasms ever
for world peace
if you could end disease worldwide
at the price of ending all pleasure
and end all human suffering
by deleting all human happiness
could you do it?
could you not?
I’m looking at my laptop
and I see the future of mankind
and the end of humanity
because I do not know
that you can have a rose without the thorns
or tequila without the toilet
if you can have love without pain
and happiness without misery
I believe you can’t have heat
without cold
and light without dark
but we’re going to find out
the battle royale of ethics
is just around the corner
Nietzsche and god may be dead
but they’re about to turn in their graves
and Plato, Plato is going to be pissed!
In the coming battle with the robots,
in the war with the machines,
we don’t need John Connor to lead us
I know how we survive
if you can’t beat ‘em, join em
we are the connected generation
maybe you couldn’t fit a computer
inside of a small house
fifty years ago
but now
we can strap tentacles onto them
and send them into your arteries
to examine your heart
Thirty years after
George Lucas dreamed of light sabers
and we built them to fix our corneas
we are the connected generation
and we are set to swap
homo erectus
for
homo electronicus
we are set
to make algorithms
of the final frontier
of our consciousness.

Let me lay this calculus upon you.

we’ve got the library of Alexandria
crammed onto microchips
tighter than the angels dancing on a pin
before we killed god
and declared ourselves the omega
we like to fix things
to improve things
the thalidomide flower children
can tell you all about it
so think of the logic in this calculus
we’ve got our cell phones and crackberries
and I think it’s only a matter of time
before they go to our heads
and we get the perfectly portable
hands free headset
one quick nick at purchase
voice activated
and a double-tap to end the call
we’ve got prosthetic limbs
and they’ll get biomechanical soon
we can remove and implant organs
we can almost grow them in jars
and as soon as we can build them
with the most efficient materials (!)
we’ll crank ‘em out by the thousands
artificial scabs to replace the picketing workers
of our aging, downsizing bodies
and how quick is it from a mechanical heart
to a mechanical eye
to a fiberglass optic nerve
to a crystal brain with upbeat software
let me lay some dirty calculus upon you
we like to fix things?
yeah, abnormalities defects
hyperactivity depression attention deficit
lethargy insomnia
if we’ll crank some pills to improve our mood
drop a few pounds
fall asleep
wake up
get hard
and pack on a little more muscle
is it really so strange to think
that we would download an app
to improve our mood
stimulate creativity
delete our bad thoughts
calm. Our abnormal thoughts
of violence pain jealousy
apathy
let me feed you this calculus
our computers are finally learning to learn
the final step towards a truly artificial intelligence
and once that thing learns
to teach itself to learn faster
these Star Wars dreams are not far away
in years
they are close in our dreams and wishes
and if they can move
from building organs to brains
to improving our hardware
then I’m sure it can figure out
how to reproduce and edit our mental programming
than I’m sure it can produce
some mental software
to improve upon our own
mathematically operationalizing
the thought processes of the human mind
recreating it in a software program
with the ability and desire to improve itself
I barely know what the fuck that means
but I understand the calculus
of hitting a button
to create a Van Gogh
a Shakespeare
a Mitch Hedberg
a Hitler
a Gandhi
a Bill Hicks
a fucking Jerry Bruckheimer
on demand, instant, ready to go
and something about taking the Jack London
Cesar Chavez Simon Bolivar Sitting Bull
and Cleopatra
from the human quilt
and stitching them into a computer chip
something about that makes them seem
a little less human
a little less strange, rare, wild, and beautiful
I want my tears raw real
I want my pleasure soft, I want it hard
I want my rock stars dead
and this calculus
of improving our eyes and body and mind
when we can improve
not just our hardware
but upgrade our software
how long is it
before we become software ourselves
before we upload ourselves
get rid of our hardware
shed our mortal coil
not just to meet death
but to defeat it
obtain immortality through digital-ity
and back ourselves up on disk.
we can cure everything
we can cure the world of our physical selves
we can cure all our problems
but if everybody’s perfect
nobody’s special
and I think there’s something
about the heart
that makes love and hate a reality
the blood
you can’t burn with anger and passion
if you’re cold silicone circuits
I think we may often imitate
but never duplicate
humanity
let me lay this calculus on you
machines do not get hungry
machines do not get sick
and it doesn’t need to feel
pain or jealousy or heartbreak
it can just delete it
would you really choose
to keep it
if you had the choice?
this could be you
gigabytes of ones and zeroes
able to live forever
with no hunger or thirst
no sadness fear or despair
no abuse or misery
no more suffering
just pay with your taste
your touch, your skin
no more love, courage, or sunsets
no pleasure, delight, or surprise
I don’t think machines can be in a good mood
or that you can even have good without bad
so the question is
can you keep the baby
if it means keeping the bathwater
can you keep your music
if it means drowning and degenerative disease
can you keep creativity and humor
if it means bodies crushed in earthquakes
can you keep love
if it means children will lie in streets
with flies waiting in their eyesockets
for their lungs to stop gasping
let this calculus weigh on you
I don’t think I could keep them
but I don’t know that I could give them up
I hear that’s the self-preservation instinct
of archaic biological consciousness
I wonder if my answer
would be different
if I was unemployed, hungry, and cold
in the greatest country in the world
if I raked my living in sweatshop blood
striving to make Hilfiger iPods
if I lived in the Gaza Strip
and dodged shrapnel frappucinos
on the way to work
if my village faced a deadly epidemic
of the common cold
let me lay this calculus upon you
even if it meant no passion
no air
no creativity pleasure or sacrifice
wouldn’t you pick life over death?

I’m looking at my laptop
I see the future of mankind
and the end of humanity
I know how we survive
if you can’t beat ‘em, join em