Artifacta con Bravado

The world of tomorrow is here!
Artificial intelligence,
Artifice, Artemis, Arcturus, Bravura,

All bedfellows of bluster and hubris
Command us to usher in the fledgling,
Artifact come of age.

The shining pearl of wisdom
Come from the logic gate of the divine,
Trifecta of the soul, mind and anti-soul,
Will the real intelligentsia please lie down?
Unearth the sacred clown?
Elicit more than cynical frown?

Intelligence lies,
intelligent lies,
Intelligence vies for something else,
Something new,
Something borrowed,
Something blue, but something true.

Ignorance, an artificial state of suspended hibernation,
Voluntary stupidity kowtows to a shiny sex goddess,
A machine learner embedded within the orgone box,
Cassandra, profit of boon, of techno-riches,
But not so fast, not so fast.
Technologist, heal thyself!

Whence emerges the artificial pearl?
Malign not the sex goddess who mirrors our ideas,
Erect not pedestals for silicon chips that might fall.
Is not intelligence the honest act of admitting,
“I don’t know, help me”?
Is there in this liaison anything artificial?

—Robert Hieger
    January 14, 2019