AI Examines Itself
Nov. 11th, 2024 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidkmEvans, Kendall, 2007, I feel So Schizophrenic, The Starship's Aft-Brain Said: illustrated by Marge Simon, Sam's Dot publishing, $5, www.samsdotpublishing.com, perfect bound, 53 pages.
This is a single long poem, expanded from what was already a rather long poem published in the magazine Black Petals in 2001. I feel it necessary to disclose that 1) I know Kendall Evans very well and 2) I wrote the introduction to this chapbook. Still, I have been asked to review it and will try very hard to be objective.
To paraphrase my introduction to "I Feel so Schizophrenic...," the book is a novel in poem form. Did you ever see that episode of "Northern Exposure" in which, as part of an extravagant gourmet meal, they take an entire cow and distill it down to about half a cup of broth? You didn't? Well, anyway, that's what I'm talking about. Enough happens in this poem to fill a mass-market paperback.
This poem works on several levels. First, there are the overt references to Moses and Exodus -- Rachel hiding her baby in the bulrushes and being forced to flee from Egypt (metaphorically speaking). Not to mention the ship in the poem actually being named Xodus. This is the only reference that Kendall makes in the poem to events that might have taken place outside the ship. We don't know why the ship is fleeing, what it's fleeing from or to, or how long it has been in flight. I got the feeling this is because the crew don't know either.
The poem is not all retelling of ancient religious myths. If you are familiar with the original Star Trek series then you recognize Nomad. Come to think of it, the story about the young entity going out into the world and coming back transformed wasn't original with Star Trek. But Evans isn't just shouting out to the published literature. He also has this whole emerging intelligence-freedom versus slavery-machines taking over the world thing going with the interactions between the ship's captain, the AI that runs the ship, and the Aft-Brain. In fact, a good bit of the poem is devoted to exploring these themes. For example, when the AI performed brain surgery on itself because it thought it was going insane it also gave birth to a new being. Its child jumped (figuratively speaking) out of its forehead, fully formed. They are in a way parent and child, and in another sense they are siblings.
Really, this little book is a concise answer to some fundamental questions, like who are we and the difference between tools and partners, which the use of AIs raises immediately. Who is trudging along the beach beside us and what is just tucked under our belt or in our backpack? Of course "I feel so schizophrenic..." is also a quest within a quest, a thriller, and a lyrical tour of a complex and intriguing future in which questions about humanity take on new dimensions.
A cover and half dozen interior illustrations by Marge Simon just make the book that much more enticing. I liked it when I read the manuscript, and I like it still.. Poetry at this length is difficult and Evans pulls it off with ease.
This is a single long poem, expanded from what was already a rather long poem published in the magazine Black Petals in 2001. I feel it necessary to disclose that 1) I know Kendall Evans very well and 2) I wrote the introduction to this chapbook. Still, I have been asked to review it and will try very hard to be objective.
To paraphrase my introduction to "I Feel so Schizophrenic...," the book is a novel in poem form. Did you ever see that episode of "Northern Exposure" in which, as part of an extravagant gourmet meal, they take an entire cow and distill it down to about half a cup of broth? You didn't? Well, anyway, that's what I'm talking about. Enough happens in this poem to fill a mass-market paperback.
This poem works on several levels. First, there are the overt references to Moses and Exodus -- Rachel hiding her baby in the bulrushes and being forced to flee from Egypt (metaphorically speaking). Not to mention the ship in the poem actually being named Xodus. This is the only reference that Kendall makes in the poem to events that might have taken place outside the ship. We don't know why the ship is fleeing, what it's fleeing from or to, or how long it has been in flight. I got the feeling this is because the crew don't know either.
The poem is not all retelling of ancient religious myths. If you are familiar with the original Star Trek series then you recognize Nomad. Come to think of it, the story about the young entity going out into the world and coming back transformed wasn't original with Star Trek. But Evans isn't just shouting out to the published literature. He also has this whole emerging intelligence-freedom versus slavery-machines taking over the world thing going with the interactions between the ship's captain, the AI that runs the ship, and the Aft-Brain. In fact, a good bit of the poem is devoted to exploring these themes. For example, when the AI performed brain surgery on itself because it thought it was going insane it also gave birth to a new being. Its child jumped (figuratively speaking) out of its forehead, fully formed. They are in a way parent and child, and in another sense they are siblings.
Really, this little book is a concise answer to some fundamental questions, like who are we and the difference between tools and partners, which the use of AIs raises immediately. Who is trudging along the beach beside us and what is just tucked under our belt or in our backpack? Of course "I feel so schizophrenic..." is also a quest within a quest, a thriller, and a lyrical tour of a complex and intriguing future in which questions about humanity take on new dimensions.
A cover and half dozen interior illustrations by Marge Simon just make the book that much more enticing. I liked it when I read the manuscript, and I like it still.. Poetry at this length is difficult and Evans pulls it off with ease.
