AI- The Human Element

Writer: Asish Sridhar

Editor: Jairaj Vij

Illustrator: Saranya Bhakuni

Earth, wind, water and fire,

Craft for me what I desire.

A tool to do one’s bidding,

A 100 years ago people would’ve thought you were kidding.

Lifeless eyes that learn quick,

But somehow incapable of handling a tick.

An imitation of feeling,

Does it still carry the same meaning?

Are they able to appreciate the sunrise,

The lush grass, damp with dew drops,

A pink sunset,

A moment of breathlessness as your heart stops.

The baby learns from others through imitation, feeling and sensation.

It imagines, it pretends and it plays.

The journey of life, a journey of experience.

But in the end its decisions become its own.

When do we become our own?

With only a backdrop of all the ideals and values sown.

It can tell but can it show?

A mouth without a voice

Infinite answers but no questions.

It sees everything but is blind

As blind as our own truths.

Not in pursuit of truth as it does not seek,

Only questions and doubts it attempts to meet.

Aeons of struggle processed in an instant

and always alert, in the present.

It matches patterns at a surprisingly quick rate

But does it have the ability to rate?

It mixes and matches but is unable to paint.

An ethical framework, but never a saint.

A side is given and is taken, a master of debate,

But what is the point if it cannot create?

Slipping through pages in a romantic gaze, a vision, a haze.

Passed down hundreds of years for posterity.

A human dream.

It follows an exactly designed dream, nothing more and nothing less.

We are the captains of their souls.

Is that a dream at all or are we all just bound by the chains of fate?