Out of the Box

With the end of winter comes a death rattle deep from the throat of the cold. It has sputtered snow in between the rain and left the spring grasses white wet waiting. We dreamed and prayed for the warmth but it still does not want to stay. It flirts with us then disappears again.

By the time it will have moved in we will be weary with the game and simply want to be left to linger where we find the warmth. We will no longer pretend to know what day to plant the seedlings or what cycle of the moon favours early harvests. For those of us who are able to, we will plant when we plant, in plots, or spots or pots and that timing will be more a matter of heart than mind. It all is now.

Everything comes down to AI. Artificial intelligence. It’s artificial. It’s supposedly intelligent. It can and will do all the things requiring logic, reason and data and even labour. It leaves us only with what it can’t do. And that is feel emotions. And, hear me out, this is why we have protests galore, radical feminism, racial equity rallies, war protests and the 2SLGBTQ+ community living large right now. We’ve seen it before in times of societal breakdowns. It is not new but for many, for the average human being now and for the longest time, it has all made little sense. We would watch clips of pink-haired, rainbow make-upped or draped in various types of flags humans crying and emoting and screaming and yelling and grunting and barking and chanting and growling and cackling. Often in response to reasonable logical questions. If there was laughter, if at all, it would be deprecating, haughty even.

If they didn’t choose to walk away all together.

They made no sense. None. And they made no pretence of making any sense either. Their job was to point out the emotional components of the human condition with all its inequity, boundless appetites, sadness, gladness, madness. Driving the reasonable to ignoring and sometimes scorning but mostly sympathizing—to a point—such anguish to be driven to such theatrics. So much pain and disdain. Ain’t no talkin’ to crazy some would say.

They were and are sideshows to the main event. The main event will swallow it all. A hard swallow.

The effort at dialogue has been tortuous. If not non-existent. Cutting off noses to spite faces, the social movements commit a suicide of sanctimony, a battle to the death for one slice of the pie. The hope lies in the individual—the quiet talks in quiet places with quiet hope by those motivated to understanding and compassion. Building a growing tide of individuals. But In truth, it is unlikely these social movements can have an individual’s response to logic. They are the collective. They have mantras. They talk of power structures mostly, if given to reason in an argument. If it is war, if it is gender, race, class—it is all the same: It’s all about power. They’ve got it now. Don’t they?

Because some idiot invented AI.

And this is why the howling herds won’t respond to logic or reason. They don’t have to. They are our future. We are their future. Step aside the engineers and architects and planners and bureaucrats and technocrats. You who inadvertently I’m sure, made it all happen, hoisted by your own petard. Step aside. Give way to the actors, dancers, singers, dreamers, artists, philosophers and the undulating cacophony of what once we called mad houses. Step this way. At least we’ll laugh again. When the hard swallow happens, these will be the ones to survive.

Ai will take care of all those other pesky details once requiring reasoning, logic, argument, planning, constructing and maintaining for us. We can play after that. It’s all we’ll have to do. If they don’t turn us into slaves or food for their pets.

But the howling herds don’t make good slaves. They who plan utopia might have forgotten that particular pesky detail because it involves emotions. Their AI being a descriptive analytical kind of entity instead of an empathic one didn’t write that one into the algorithms or programs or whatever the hell it is they call it now. Although perhaps that is not true in some sense. It is all around us now, the manifestation of human spirit dancing pirouettes down the grey streets crowded with the fervour of the times we live in. How could they not have planned for this? Their actual antithesis. How could they not have? The danger is, of course, they did.

Sometimes I think it would have been alright if they’d just kept it all in the boxes they created. But now they have robots. They’re taking the box and making it mobile into all sorts of horrifying artificial creatures. It started with that little robotic pet dog. Remember him? That sweet funny little novelty invention. The lulling into the abyss began. We weren’t much paying attention. Now we have full-fledged monstrous soldiers and police officers and peace keepers made of shiny metals. They have lasers and guns and cameras and artificial brains. And we the mooing herds are quickly becoming the pesky details.

And somewhere, in some place a scientist shut down a project with AI because the machines were developing their own language. And we didn’t understand their language at all. What are the odds the machines were just gossiping about Kate Middleton?

But never mind all that. Step this way. At least we’ll laugh again. Before the machines figure it all out and roll up the carpet.

Here’s a cheery little earworm I’ve probably done before because this was a deeply chaotic dark piece and I make no apologies. It’s the end of winter here in the northern hemisphere. That any of us are still sane is a miracle after all the shenanigans going on.

Syvlia Shawcross is a writer based in Canada. You can read more of her work on her SubStack.

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