[Rick Mullin]

Articles like the Times article serve an important purpose from time to time. Comparable to how certain types of evergreen forests need to burn to the ground in order to thrive.

[W T Clark]

I have yet to see something said in this thread that was not answered in some way by post #55.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by W T Clark

I have yet to see something said in this thread that was not answered in some way by post #55.

Yes, yes. We get it. You're well-read and your erudition is impressive, &c., &c., &c. That doesn't preclude further conversation that sidesteps Harrison's illuminating prose.

[W T Clark]

Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell

Yes, yes. We get it. You're well-read

Oh, but how I wish I were!

[Gail White]

I never did care much for Eliot, and this essay pretty well explains why. But English poetry went on to produce Auden, Larkin, Betjeman, etc., so I would say rumors of its death are exaggerated.

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

Or can we? Does the way we use computers not in some sense separate us from ourselves? ... We are moving toward a world in which we might be too separated from ourselves and the rest of the natural world to create or appreciate the sort of art that humans have traditionally most valued. (Of course, if we reach that world, the lack of art will only be a symptom of the much deeper problem.)

What you said, Max, got me thinking about this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transh...al_singularity

Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.

. . . . .

Artificial intelligence and the technological singularity

The concept of the technological singularity, or the ultra-rapid advent of superhuman intelligence, was first proposed by the British cryptologist I. J. Good in 1965:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.[27]

Computer scientist Marvin Minsky wrote on relationships between human and artificial intelligence beginning in the 1960s.[28] Over the succeeding decades, this field continued to generate influential thinkers such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, who oscillated between the technical arena and futuristic speculations in the transhumanist vein.[29][30] The coalescence of an identifiable transhumanist movement began in the last decades of the 20th century. In 1966, FM-2030 (formerly F. M. Esfandiary), a futurist who taught "new concepts of the human" at The New School, in New York City, began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and world views transitional to posthumanity as "transhuman".[31] In 1972, Robert Ettinger, whose 1964 Prospect of Immortality founded the cryonics movement,[32] contributed to the conceptualization of "transhumanity" with his 1972 Man into Superman.[33] FM-2030 published the Upwingers Manifesto in 1973.[34]

[Martin Elster]

Related to Transhumanism is Posthumanism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthumanism

An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce, takeover by a superintelligent AI, and the popular notion of a robot uprising. Some public figures, such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover

[Julie Steiner]

To me, complaints that The New York Times has put this ignoramus's essay behind a paywall sound an awful lot like "The food is bad, and the portions are small."

I just can't work up the proper horror that a private enterprise is charging money for its product, especially since (in this particular case, at least) that very same business model is limiting access to a mediocre essay that doesn't deserve much attention.

[Matt Q]

The glimmer of gold

Nobody reads poetry anymore,
so who the hell are you
I see bent over this book?

--Aleksandar Ristović

The opening poem of Ristović's Devil's Lunch: Selected Poems, which I got in the post today.

[Jennifer Reeser]

“How clever you are, to know something of which you are ignorant.”

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice