What If, with AI

I decided to do some role playing with AI.

I pretended that this blog showed up in an internet search, and that I was curious what the blog was about, a sort of underhanded, dirty trick, if you ask me. I know what it's about; it's my blog.

"My search engine recently coughed up a blog called 'The Rabbi's Rowboat,' I began. "What should I expect to find there?"

"You can expect to find Jewish humor, parables, and spiritual life lessons wrapped in maritime metaphors," it said, 1.7 seconds later. "You will likely find personal reflections on 'rowing through life's currents.'"

Maritime metaphors? OK, three out of four, not bad. I gave it a C.

Then, for some reason, AI invoked the dark side. "A blog with this title," it said, "heavily channels traditional comedic tropes." That's it, straight up, without the benefit of even a witch trial, this blog is the devil child born of a candle-lit seance in the basement. 

Oy vey.

I was instructed to take a deep breath.

First of all, the entity allegedly channeled here appears to be, not a spirit, but a book; namely, Three Rabbis in a Rowboat: The World's Best Jewish Humor, a book AI elsewhere condescendingly calls "a decades-old, out-of-print humor compilation." Doesn't exactly say much about the medium's channeling skills, does it?

Second, a seance channeling comedic tropes, especially the world's best Jewish humor, even if old and out of print, enhanced by a few inexpensive Costco Connection party-planning tips, might make for an entertaining evening event with family and friends (Hello, Groucho, can you hear us?).

And, finally, to be fair, AI never really used the term seance. Channeling, after all, might have simply referred to the blogger's natural divine inspiration.

Later, when informed of the blog's menu items (listed above), AI revised its assessment, paying particular attention to Rabbi Nachman.

"Rabbi Nachman of Breslov famously spoke about life as a narrow, unstable bridge where the absolute rule is to have no fear at all," it said. "A rowboat in a storm requires that you sit still, face the waves, and keep rowing without jumping overboard, an active metaphor for our small, personal efforts to stay afloat on the turbulent waters of modern life."

I was tempted to ask AI if it knew how to swim. 

But I'd been triggered, transported via flashback to high school English class, listening to a classmate talk about Shakespeare in an oral report. 

"So we see," the student was saying, "that Hamlet’s inner psyche is like a fragile vessel tossed upon a sea of intrigue; that his angst-ridden cry, 'To be or not to be,' is indeed our cry, the human predicament, whether or not to let ourselves be capsized by existential alienation and despair, and Shakespeare is teaching us that we must all weather the storms of life, or be forever lost, to the abyss. Thank you.")

For me, there was another option. Let AI sail into the sunset, wrapped in its own maritime metaphors. I'll to-be right here, on a bench, at the end of the dock.

I should confess, that it's true, there was some heavy channeling done to create this blog. I was trying to channel "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" the old campfire song. Nothing more, nothing less.