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A flash they did not see Ended them.
Ending more than bodies.
But also souls and Soul.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

And what did it ever profit men
That we gained the world
But lose our souls
What did it ever profit men

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Not flood this time but fire
Are there no good men in Sodom?
No God ordains this end
The fault – not in our stars but in us.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Five million souls—and more—
No time to flee bodies,
No time to look on dead shells,
To wonder at a freeing from the physical.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

No shades of ancestors,
no beloved To greet them.
Astral bodies, koshas, kas—
Torn apart.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Shredded shades.
The Dreamtime blown apart
In the mad time, the bad time,
The end time.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Genes, memes, dreams scattered, shattered
None remain to hold memory.
None to return to in dreams.
None to be born or born again

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

The ancestors did not fear to die
They knew that we would rise, like them
To breathe the air and greet the stars
Not to still the air and scorch the skies

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Are there no good men – and women – in Sodom
None to see beyond the veil?
None to hold the world with love
So fierce it turns the fire?

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Where is the cavalry coming over the hill?
At the very last moment
To turn the tide
To stall the night

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh

Lose the world to save our souls
Clown, sage, child, hero waken now
Thou art that – Go go Now.
Beyond Awakening. Go. Now.

Gah-teh gah-teh pah-rah-gah-teh pah-rah-sahm-gah-teh boh-dee swah-ha .

(Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond—Awakening, so be it.)

The following is a preview/draft of an article I’m going to share about a workshop series on AI and the Community.

How cute. The Times Literary Supplement suggests that AI might lead to human extinction. Get in line AI, genocide, climate change and nuclear war are all way ahead of that and are much more credible candidates for inaugurating the end of life as we know it.

But you know what, AI does have a role – it’s role is assisting our intelligence or stupidity. Just as machines have always magnified our physical capabilities so AI is magnifying our intellectual capabilities. It’s a tool like any other and we can use it for greed or for good.

No one has to embrace AI – we can make a conscious choice not to. There are consequences of choice either way – as with deciding whether we’re going to own a car or not – but our personal choice or opinion isn’t going to change the future. It’s what we do together that changes the future (and if we have one). I choose to use AI to magnify my intelligence while being aware that it could magnify my idiocy. The same choice exists at the collective level.

In November I’m staring a series of in-person evening meetups or workshops at the University of East London Docklands campus on how communities can use AI for good. It’s called ‘Negotiating AI as a Community – Building a Borough Brain’. It’s aimed at community ‘actionists’ who accept that we can act more effectively and powerfully when we act more coherently and collaboratively, as a community. The ‘brain’ of which I speak is metaphorical and points to the digital and dialogical structures that we can build for a better future if we are prepared to pursue the good rather than the greed.

This isn’t a university-run programme; UEL have simply made their space and equipment available. It’s an open, community-led exploration. If you are in Newham and open to exploring let’s see what we can built with that open intelligence and imagination. Let’s explore.

Maybe, maybe I’ll keep these posts short. Maybe I’ll keep this website simpler than it’s been in the past. I’ve just taken a lot of pages off the menu. It seem lighter already.

I’m using this post to check the wpDiscus commenting system. I’ve set it so that people not registered on the site can leave comments. These have to be approved the first time. I will only approve comments from people with whom I have contact.

This is a really useful talk on using AI in the wrong way and the right way. It resonates with what I’ve been thinking and writing about with regard to ‘ Negotiating AI as a Community’ (a proto project I’m working on). While it’s about using AI as an individual I think it is also relevant to how we use AI as a community.

The important thing is that we think for ourselves as individuals and as communities. The important thing is that we understand ouselves more as creators tnan as consumers (of knowledge or anything else). The important this is not to simply acquire knowledge but to be changed by the process of acquiring knowledge.

If the use of AI diminishes our willingness or ability to think for ourselves, to be creators and to change through the process of acquiring knowledge then, certainly AI harms us. But it need not be this way. As Justin Sung says in the video there is a right way of using AI, one that puts AI in its place as assistant to our thinking, our creating and our learning rather than oracle doing it all for us.