Between The Logarithms

that give us more of what we liked before
because it is what they know we liked
-like parents pleasing a child not realising
that children grow and change their minds-,
the astounding copying facilities of AI
-where the sense of the uncanny spooks us-,
and last but far from least the human capacity
for rumour, error, and disguising how we lie
-both to ourselves and to each other-
the men who seek to sell us powerful computers
have to do a lot to convince us of why to trust them.

But then as children we grew up with families
who liked recreating pasts past their sell by date
by the time we tried to live them out,
grew up with teachers who wanted their pupils
to be better copyists of the best of the near past,
and grew up with liars for whom the last thing
they wanted was to be found to be fabricating.

If that was the analogue, and human, version
of what computers can do with greater consistency,
if not also greater ease than we dare imagine,
then let us not be surprised when the digital version
of ourselves replicates all our faults
as well as our sense of human invention.