A Guild of Authors
A friend and I were returning from a meeting in which authors from different genres were presenting their works. We fell to discussing the books that appealed to us, and what worked in the format, and what didn’t. I, for one, felt that giving folks a platform to present their books, while noteworthy, could just as well have been done via a YouTube short, but what would have been harder to achieve would have been moderating a discussion about the overlapping topics between the authors. That was something I would have loved to see.
A Company of Authors – Stanford Guild
The sections were grouped together by genre, and topic, so it would have been a good panel to have discussions around.
Even AI Knows!
As conversations usually go, we meandered, and I said something to the effect of the housework and the truth of an Indian woman having its effect on writerly ambitions etc, to which he mentioned a joke he’d chanced upon, and I guffawed at the truth of it.
“With AI, I thought, it would take over monotonous tasks such as dishwashing and house cleaning, so I could take up Poetry & Art. Instead AI has taken up what little I had of Poetry and Art and left me to do the dishwashing and cleaning!”
Even AI knows to steer clear of household tasks, while humans (women still bear the brunt of the housework) are in charge of these mundane tasks. Who says the universe doesn’t have a sense of humor?
“Really! Of all the things I wanted help with – it was Art that was the least. Give us one tough thing to spend our lives mastering and perfecting!” I said. “Help me with robots – one for the chores, one for help to care for the aged, another with companionship for the lonely etc. Why art, literature and poetry?”
“I do think there are startups for every one of these in the off-ing somewhere.” said he – sanguine as ever and optimistic in the ways of the world’s future.
He was right of course.
Intuition & Instinct?
It did help us loop back to a book that was discussed in which the author spoke about intuition/instinct being a precursor to our conscious thinking, and whether AI would be able to simulate that level of prescience. Which made me wonder, whether that was what made us human, but plenty of us have learnt to ignore these things over time (after all, we don’t need to know when a tiger is lying in the bushes). But would it help us identify dangers in our life?
More importantly, if that too can be modeled, what does that leave us with to claim our humanity? Messy emotions and imperfect decisions maybe?
Which brings me to the most important question: What would you like AI to help with, and what would you prefer AI kept is nose out of?