Here we all are, standing at the edge of a cliff,
Looking out over the mountains, cities, and skies,
Taking it all in,
Breathing out and breathing in.
Feeling like we’ve been here before,
But even so,
This time it’s different.
Something fundamental has changed.
The power of billions of silicon gates,
Put into our hands, our minds, our imaginations.
What’s different is that
We are all programmers now.
The power of “make it so” is within our grasp,
Learning how to prompt . . .
Prompt engineering,
Prompt excellence,
Prompt excitement.
Seth Godin tells AI to combine all the great Impressionists,
And this is the result.
Yes, it is a compilation of images that touch our souls.
AI went out as AI does
And searched the digital universe for the images
Created by masters of the art,
And brought them back in a new painting
That no one has ever seen before,
Light cascading between the trees,
People on and near the river, living.
AI was crawling
And now it’s learned to run.
Somehow this reminds me of the slowing of time
When your driver has turned into traffic
And another car is a foot away,
About to hit your door.
I had this moment in South Africa,
Where they drive on the other side of the road.
My driver dropped his phone in the middle of making a left (right) turn
And reached down to get it.
And there they were, a couple, their car a foot away,
On a direct collision course with my body.
And the man driving that car looked into my eyes
And he knew in a nanosecond I would be dead.
So he did something wonderful.
He turned his wheel away from me instead.
Time was so slow.
And I was laughing after, to the surprise of my driver,
Because the rental car was a mess.
But I knew.
I wasn’t dead.
This is where we are with AI now.
We are witnessing the possibility of our demise
In the hands of these amazing tools,
The question is, can we be wise?
Can we gently guide them into the light?
Or will they drive straight into us,
Because they can’t imagine what might happen next?
It is up to us.
We have created these thinkers without a conscience,
Not quite in our image.
And we are in love with them.
We look on with endearment
As they do our bidding,
“Ah, good job, AI!”
Will we remember what makes the world go around,
What is behind every satisfactory exchange between humans,
The magic of love and caring?
Or will we let AI run us into the ground?
Every good love story comes to this moment,
Where all is lost,
Or all is found.
We don’t know the outcome
But we are duty-bound
To create a happy ending.
The illustration in this article was generated by AI with prompts from Seth Godin. The poem was 100% generated by my human brain. 🙂
