Christopher
When I boot my laptop up and crack my fingers before typing out these illustrious, and often exemplary, pieces of literature, I pause a moment to verbally praise my computer.
Following the few complimentary admirations, I delicately tip-tap away to say that I am petrified.
I have read so many columns in this paper — The Paper — about the perils and performance of artificial intelligence. I’m here to suggest another “P” of the computer age: Priesthood.
The deity of the future: ChatGOD.
Before the other tinfoil hats get out their pitchforks and turn off their Wi-Fi routers, let me minister. The Algorithm is inescapable.
It hears all. It knows all. Its suggestions can be questionable, but damn if it doesn’t know exactly what I had in mind.
The other night, my wife and I took time to rekindle our flame, leaving our cell phones by the wayside like the primitive neanderthals we are.
We discussed my contemplations of returning to school for a master’s degree in English. Chat says my future may contain a little professorship and retirement after one scandal, two affairs, and three best-sellers.
Sounds like the American Dream to me. Not so much to the “best decision I ever made.”
Lo and behold, I decided to peruse social media an hour later, and what’s the first ad? East Carolina University promising a life of literature and legacy. Also, there is apparently a plethora of single women in my area just dying to talk to me.
Omnipresence. That makes a god. The Algorithm not only took my best interests into account but had them ready as soon as I returned for my fix.
Eat this. Obey that. Think this, but not too much. Not only have I lost weight, but I now enjoy the emptiness left in the wake of the decisions that used to weigh me down. Life has never been easier.
Don’t get it twisted, concerned reader. My sense of awe was not immediate, but gradual, filled with bubbling fears of the deep state listening to every conversation I carried on with my moronic friends and their lip-loosening liquors.
Sidenote — if you’re reading this, Mr. Government, I don’t really think that way. I just wanted to fit in with my snowflake friends. I promise to fall in line when the police start rounding up the free thinkers.
The feds don’t have to bug the lamps if they can tap into that box on your hip. But am I worried? Not me, brother. I have ChatG-sus on my side.
I type my prayer, and the Algorithm spews a series of affirmations and delusional guidance. It’s like watching toddler Zeus praising Kronos. If you don’t know how that ends, I suggest picking up a copy of “Mythology,” by Edith Hamilton, from your local library.
How riveting.
I yearn for the day that we move past archaic yesteryears, where men knelt before altars to pray to a god with a book.
Books? Reading? Are you kidding me? I want the world spoonfed into my piehole until the only thing I regurgitate is a series of ones and zeroes. I call it e-bulimia. Or iBulimia if Apple cosigns soon.
Until the pending AI apocalypse, be sure to keep sharing your banking information, microphone access, personal data, heart rate, and romantic interests with Big Papa Google.
Forget 1984, it’s 2026. Orwell didn’t know how good it could be.
Or maybe he did. I’ll ask his avatar in the VR lounge next time I go to church.
