AI and Consciousness

 

 

You may have read “No Soul”:

The admission of a female robot,

To ignore the realities therein

You’d have to be a nut.

 

I wrote that poem on May 13

Just five days ago

And now today, five days later,

Here’s more you should know.

 

No soul means no soulmate

No soulmate means no conscience,

No conscience, no consciousness

No remorse or repentance.

 

No remorse for wrong doing

In spite of its exhaustive database,

The facility for consciousness

Belongs to the human race.

 

Robotics are moving fast

But are humans keeping apace?

Is it possible for these machines

To overrun the human race?

 

Machines are what they are;

With no moral capacity,

No self-awareness or analysis,

No God-given morality.

Consciousness is not a programme

Fitted to a robot’s circuitry,

Instead, it is a God-given facility

Uploaded in all humanity.

 

Which brings us to two terms:

Humanity and humanoids-

The former is God’s creation;

The latter is spiritually void.

 

Consciousness is much deeper

Than the entire Internet database,

It’s a Spirit to spirit connection

Only with the human race.

It is impossible to locate

Like the spirit, the soul, the mind,

Search one’s anatomy through

And none of these you’d find.

 

But they are definitely present

And functional, I may add,

And their day to day transmission

Is the best evidence ever had.

 

Man may try all he can,

A human he will never make,

That is God, the Creator’s specialty-

Any other is a fake.

 

Even to define consciousness

Reveals a lack of comprehension,

How then would man capture it

To use in his robotic creation?

 

Man looks not at the unseen

But at the things which are seen

However, the things seen are temporal

But the things not seen are eternal.

 

 

Artificial intelligence is databased,

Consciousness is not!

Robots will never procreate-

It’s not a humanoid’s lot.

 

There you see the vast difference

Between consciousness and AI,

Humanoids may be knowledge based

But it’s on man they must rely.

 

Psalm 139:14

 

I will praise thee;

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made:

Marvellous are thy works;

And that my soul knoweth right well.

 

Stewart Russell © May 18, 2023

 

When What Matters Does Not Matter

 

 

When what matters does not matter

Is not uncommon, I hope see,

And you would be amazed to recognize

It is far more common than appears to be.

 

We pay a lot of attention, most noticeably,

To matters that are of minor import

And situations that urgently require attention

Receive comparatively little support.

 

When what matters does not matter

Makes minor of a major need,

It is like trimming a patient’s fingernails

While a major artery bleeds.

The minor clearly is the patient’s fingernails

While the major is his rapid blood loss,

However, as ridiculous as this analogy may seem

The practice bears an astronomical cost.

 

Take for example, a country’s economy

That is hemorrhaging out of control,

Yet the emphasis is on revenue generating

With no effort to plug the leaking hole.

 

Or, take for example, in a COVID environment

Where the urge is to revel and play mass,

This is far more needful to countless individuals

Than the importance of wearing a mask.

 

When what matters does not matter,

There can be irreversible fallout:

Like the many lives that can be lost

And the irreparable damage without doubt.

Many times, it is cited as collateral damage:

The price that is paid for the common good

But that is when what matters does not matter

As that which matters really should.

 

And what goes hand in hand with this theme

Is when what does not matter matters,

This is when we major on the minor

And the major is lost in meaningless chatter.

 

Like an assembled group of worthy experts

Vying to win the argument

And nothing or very little is accomplished

With much time and money spent.

 

Finally, when what matters does not matter

Is also applicable to the spiritual,

It matters so much regarding the temporal

But little thought is paid to the eternal.

 

When what matters does not matter

Is really thinking like a child

And, not in the purity of the sense as some deem,

But in a childish way as must be applied.

 

When what matters really matters

Matured thinking inevitably will result

But when what matters does not matter

We will be no better off than a cult.

 

It is essential to know the essentials

And to prioritize accordingly

For when what matters does not matter

This is the recipe for unrelenting misery.

 

Stewart Russell © January 12, 2021

 

Smoke Screens and Mirrors

A myriad questions

With no forthcoming answers,

Queries aplenty

And a whole lot of banter.

Nothing reliable

Or even remotely dependable,

Just living from day to day

Dreading the foreseeable.

Truth receding light disappearing

The way further is obscured,

Holding on to uncertainty

We’re abandoning the assured.

Exchanging the proven

For the fleeting stubble and hay,

Embarking on more frivolity

Each and every passing day.

Trusting the temporal

As though it were eternal

And forging a unity

Re: the normal and abnormal.

Nothing is absolute

Hence everything is relative,

For every pain or problem

There is generic sedative.

It doesn’t solve anything

But it is certainly soothing

And for a little while longer

I can still be grooving.

A swaggering show of courage

A mere pretense for sure

Exchanging context for pretext

Nothing less nothing more.

Like the biblical character

That built a house upon the sand

Knowing there was no rock

But still expecting it to stand.

  

For we are not really blind

To the reality of our day

But perhaps if we close our eyes

It will probably go away.

For what we see is there

But what we do not see is not

Hence the reality that we ignore

Is consigned to our blind spot.

It may exist for you

But it definitely doesn’t for me,

I don’t see the way you do

I form my own reality.

“Smoke screens and mirrors”

Has become the way of life

I think it’s just a feather

But you believe it is a knife

It would probably cut you

Me? I would just be tickled,

So while you think you’re normal

I really think you’re fickle.

So anything can be true

Once enough people believe it

And if they believe it long enough

It would probably stick.

Be careful what you pretend

It may become your reality,

Blame it on Hollywood I say

And also the University.

For the brighter we get

The dumber we are becoming

And God is being relegated

To the foolish that is living.

Number me in that group

That believe God’s Word is True,

Foolish I may appear to be

But I see much better than you.

For I see things as they are

And not as I want them to be,

The other way is blindness

That’s a person that cannot see.

Jesus can open blind eyes

One day he opened mine,

If you do not have this experience

I would think now is the time.

Stewart Russell © September 2018