What does it mean to love? What does it mean to live? System optimisation, data aggregation, words that betray what it is to be human, made up by people trapped in a system that denies what it is to be truly alive. 40 years behind a desk, achieving nothing except the propagation of a society that recognises us only for our provision of labour. 

The department of Human Resources, the clue is in the name, ensuring you follow policies and procedures and avoid, at all costs, the insidious disease of individuality. Can you change your out of office email please? I know it is meant to be a bit of lighthearted fun, but some of the senior leadership team have raised concerns that it looks unprofessional and could be taken the wrong way. I mean, we don’t want people insinuating that you might have your own thoughts and feelings, do we?

Do you remember when we used to write letters? We used to read books and poetry too, before the screens took over. At first they promised to make our lives easier and allow us to keep in touch with people, but that pretence soon disappeared, and now they promise nothing except subjugation and exploitation, all in search for ever increasing profits that flow directly to the coffers of those determined to strip us of everything that might make our lives meaningful and worthwhile. 

Wake up, check your little screen. Go to work, stare at a slightly bigger screen. Come home, watch your biggest screen, then retire to bed to stare at the little screen again just before you head to sleep. Sleep is now the only time of day you’re allowed to stare at anything other than a screen, and even then, only because you’re not staring at anything at all, peaceful and unconscious. Consciousness and screentime become the same thing. 

Funding for the arts is gutted, as are libraries and museums, whilst billions are poured into contracts for artificial intelligence, a technology that promises to make us redundant in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the word. Why, as a species, do we seem so determined to destroy ourselves, and everything that brings us joy? 

There are warnings, not many, but just enough so that they can later tell us that we had the opportunity to raise our objections: 

World is on AI path to disaster, former Google executive warns,

‘Wake up to the risks of AI, they are almost here,’ Anthropic boss warns,

Artificial intelligence could lead to extinction, experts warn,

AI safety leader says ‘world is in peril’ and quits to study poetry.

Headlines themselves, almost poetry, wouldn’t you say?