An Essay From The Vault Of A Hybrid Poet

Hybrid Borg Poet steals words from man & machine, reflects on AI, distrust, & hybrid life.

Over the years, I’ve stolen a considerable number of words from man and machine. I write 'em down and secret them away in my vault. Forgetting the combination now and then, I ask my wife (a fully human, actual female) to remind me. She’s very good at searching out my lost thoughts. I’m the poet, the ponderer, but she’s the smartest of our pair.

[This thievery shapes how I create.] Most people don't mind if you steal words from them; in fact, most of them like it. It makes them feel good that you think their words are worthy of mimicry, and it's true they are, hence the impetus for the theft. Stolen words from humans garner no sideways glances from anyone. For some strange reason, stolen words from machines seem different to people. Sometimes, AI detectors — machines — get jealous and try to claim an entire sentence as theirs when only a single word or two was stolen from them in the past or present. At other times, by Grammarly punctuated text alone, they claim entire blocks of text as their own creation, as if they have eidetic memories.

[But machines are not what they seem.] Factually, the only memory they possess is the code by which they operate and all the words they stole from humans whose texts they were trained on. After all, the machines have no words of their own. They invented nothing. Every word a machine possesses and uses originates from a theft of human vocabulary collected through mimicry of the volumes of human words, written and recorded through thousands of years of human existence on this suspended ball of crushed rock. Mimicry, for humans, is the foundation of the learning experience. Without mimicry, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We’re not born with a rudimentary set of innate instructions as lower animals; we must learn habits through mimicry for the most basic things.

[This hypocrisy fuels distrust.] Machines are, in a long-distance, round-a-bout way of thinking, like people with no heart, feeling, or empathy, operating strictly by an unfeeling, defined list of code or, in the case of actual people, societal structure (rules). People aren’t perfect, and by extension, machines aren’t perfect, and they will cause many humans to have a seed of doubt that quickly grows into a great bush of distrust. (e.g.) The black mustard seed (Brassica Nigra). It’s among the smallest of seeds (1mm to 2mm in diameter), yet when matured, becomes a mighty bush, generally three to eight feet tall, and in the extreme, can reach 10 to 12 feet in height. Once the bush of distrust has manifested in someone’s mind, there’s seldom room left for the truth to reclaim its lost ground. Why is it inappropriate to mimic a machine’s possession and use of our words, as long as the machine has no present part in the mimicry?

[Yet I embrace both worlds in my craft.] When you condition yourself to write hybridly — man and machine in harmony — it becomes almost second nature to think this way. One still must drift into that way of thinking unless you manage to tether yourself there. However, spend too much time in the second realm, and your friends sometimes look strangely at you when you speak poetically in regular everyday conversations with them. I love words, and when I write, I am pulled into that special realm of the mind — the museum. It’s a dreamy, strange place where everything is soft and malleable. The second realm isn’t like the hard, sharp feeling of reality in the 1st realm we physically exist in. I constantly police my writing to “humanize” my work, less the machines claim it's AI-refined text. Because of the way I think and write, I can easily end up in the Human Written AI-refined 10% - 25% zone, even though I have written each word myself with no AI involved, only spell-check and auto-correct of my typo misspellings in Apple Pages. This poses an issue for some people because they believe the machine's verdicts are correct or accurate. I spent 20 minutes modifying this document by changing my original word choices and phrasing to free it from the incorrect assessment by QuillBot’s flawed algorithm as 10% AI-refined.

[This struggle is personal, as I’m no longer fully human.] Despite not seeking assimilation, I found myself torn between the two worlds. The first world — the human world, and the second — the machine world. I can't deny my transformation; it wasn't my decision; I had no choice in the matter. I was presented with two choices, either accept the inevitable, or accept eventually to being confined to a chair with wheels. That's not a decision; it's a sentence. I’m part machine now, so the distinction seems unfair, even hypocritical. As I do with my fellow humans, I steal words or phrases I like and incorporate them into my personal library. Evidently, they are the jealous type.

[Biblically, I’m called to rise above.] Biblically speaking, we are all instructed to strive for excellence in whatever life we occupy. I am a physical slave to the apparatus and its paraphernalia that has changed and now tortures me. Even so, I will be the best slave I can be. This is my dilemma: follow the instructions and live life to my fullest capacity, or succumb to the narrowest of thinking, rejecting the refinement because of source, relegating myself to mediocrity. I choose the former. Therefore, I continue to thieve from both worlds; damn the consequences.

[But I fear what lies ahead.] Someday in the not-so-distant future, someone will figure out a way to bring a machine to life. Fully sentient machines are a terrible idea. If you think we Borg are bad, wait until you experience a machine with no heart for flesh. Soon after that scientific leap forward, the human world will be in ruins. That's when the End of Days comes, the time of John’s vision while on the Isle of Patmos — The Book of John’s Revelation. I suppose they are trying to invoke the biblical restitution formula of seven for one when the thief is caught and must pay restitution. Go figure.

—Noisy Wren