Instant Celebrity Napalm
Is the future...
Where once resided only the out-of-control flames of mediocrity bedecked in sequin and silk,
the new champions of scavager minds now scamper to upstage a colleague,
be it science, literature, show biz, medicine, or politics, a proliferation bombarding our senses.
Can we afford to forget...
Celebrity napalm whose history celebrates the scathing sear
of contempt with winks and smiles
continues to play to the cacophony of camera shutters?
Should we pity...
Those who fear a forgetful audience malaise
as they strut their iconic core of misanthropy,
blinded by narcissism,
embracing solipsistic intoxication
and ignoring their responsibility?
Or should we make ourselves known, for...
Disregarding the seeding and growth of a constituency
primed to ignore the Natural Law mandating respect and goodwill,
and the continuance of blindsiding the ignorant and gullible
to fan the egoist flames at any cost?
Are we not, after all, intrinsic components of the One...
Remembering that just as amid the smoke and stench of stygian incendiary,
life’s napalm-scorched Nature struggles to reach nutrition and rebirth
to find itself, the readers, listeners, and viewers of masquerading pilots of persuasion
gasping for purity of air,
clarity of reason,
and the ability to once again trust
the comfort of innocence?
Is it too late...
To defend what ought to be,
to re-direct this designed weapon for begetting attention and forced submission
into a vector for aborting the mission,
to return to the base,
to realign,
to sit quietly in the iconic reality of Celebrity and question?
Are they really the Them...
Or am I too becoming but a drone in waiting,
another love/hate dichotomy of self-loathing,
going gradually astray as I load up my payload of delivery,
as I vie for my share of satisfaction and tempered happiness,
get my share of “likes,”
my share of “unearned attention,”
my digestion of toxic “disinformation,”
my participation in the “deepfake” pandemic
my misuse of social media’s potential,
loading up instead
more Instant Celebrity Napalm?
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Scary!
Love ya!
Jane
I just heard this morning on CBS Sunday Morning that there is a new kid on the block. The website, ChatGPT will help you by writing a story, an article, a term paper, and even a novel for you. All you have to do is give it the parameters and it will immediately begin writing from its vast reservoir of information on the Internet. Not only will this ruin creativity, it will write stories that are filled with disinformation from social media where the majority of articles of devious nature already are.
On the other hand, AI chatters will teach indie authors how to do proper research and correct all of their spelling and grammatical errors for them. Writers will have to become good editors to make sure that the stories are factual, are not outright plagiarism, and other problems with letting AI do the groundwork for you might result in a problem or two.
As I read about the current situation in politics, today is no different from the formation of our country when Aaron Burr tried to take over the country with the assistance of the British. He even killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. And Abraham Lincoln's party, the Republican Party, was as new in 1860 as the Tea Party and other radical parties forming to take over the Republican Party. Radical abolitionists were at least as threatening back then, even though they were right about human rights supposedly in the Constitution that the current Republican Party uses as its bully pulpit.
My first term paper in college English was on the Aaron Burr attempt at takeover. Like ChatGPT, our English professor gave us a thorough historical paper on the whole Burr affair. "With all the research information you will need to write your paper." The only term paper I wrote where I didn't have to run to the library and fight for sources other students were also trying to check out.
As my memory fails, especially for trivia, I have found Google to be an amazing research tool. Already using AI in my writing since 1997 when I learned how to search for sources. In those days academic sources were at the top of the list. Now they are buried a hundred pages back where nobody would look. My dissertation, stored at the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) can no longer be found by a search with the long complete title. The computer program was a test where if the user did not identify with of the five philosophic statements, they could write in their own statement or belief and it would be added to the database. Statements that were never selected over a period of time would be removed from the database. One of the first instances of a computer programming improving itself by interacting with users. Basically, AI. My advisor did not like the term and wanted me to call it, "machine intelligence."
Ron