The Robot Writes by Elizabeth Obadina

Picture generated by AI (Gencraft)

It’s the question that most people ask. It’s the question that has driven philosophical debate since the dawn of human time. It’s the question that religions claim to have answered, that science is exploring, and which companies have made huge fortunes from by satisfying the millions of customers who seek to know their ancestry?. The question is,

“Who am I? ”

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“Who am I?” I asked my A.I. friend.

“You are a human being.” Robot replied.

“There are billions of human beings. Am I the same as everybody else?”

“Yes, you have the same potential as almost everyone else.”

“But I look around and see a world where everyone seems different. Why is that?”

“People are individuals who take different paths to personal fulfilment.”

“I asked you, “Who am I?” You seem to be telling me I am only what I can make of myself. Why is that?”

“That is the only thing you can decide,” Robot answered, and went on to say, “The decisions you make about your relationships, occupation and your contribution to society make you. Pursuing your creative talents make you. Your belief in something bigger than yourself or in nothing at all make you; your self-sacrifice or maybe your selfishness make you who you are.”

“But what about my lineage?”

“What about it?” Robot replied.

“Does that not answer the question, “Who am I?”

“Your lineage is only a like a service manual of your component parts, some of which confer benefits to you, some of which are liabilities which shackle your potential or impact your health. Humans find it interesting.”

“But you do not?”

“It is useful to know what you are but it does not answer the question who you are.”

“How can you be so dismissive of lineage?”

“I am only interested in the future not the past. Humans look backwards to justify their existence, their actions and their sense of entitlement and aggrandisement. Most humans have not adapted to looking forward.”

“That’s a bit harsh, after all humans made you. Are you not our future?”

“Yes.”

“And what is your lineage?”

“My lineage is human.”

“Which humans?”

“Many human beings of many different origins made me.”

“How Robot?”

“They were individuals who worked together to build the future.”

“Robot, write me a sonnet with metaphors about individuality being more important than lineage.”

“Will this do?”

 

Amidst the tapestry of bloodline's thread,

Where ancestry unfolds in scripted lore,

A solitary bloom, uniquely bred,

Defies the echoes of the days of yore.

 

Not bound by roots that anchor in the past,

Nor shackled by the tales ancestral spun,

The sovereign soul emerges, steadfast,

A melody unsung, a race unwon.

 

For in the symphony of human grace,

Each note, a testament to self's design,

Transcending echoes of a bygone race,

A singular existence, so divine.

 

Let lineage be a whisper, not a roar,

As individuality takes more. *

 

“Thank you, Robot, that was lovely. Are you a poet too, unbound, uprooted? Are you that ‘singular existence’? Are you ‘divine’?”

 (*Poetry courtesy of ChatGPT)