S/O/L/A/R/I/S
Machine Learning
S/O/L/A/R/I/S is a poet living on the western fringe of Australia between the desert and the sea.
UNDER BLACK UMBRELLAS
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the yellow cabs dash by horns honk the rain wraps the cafe in a conspiratorial hug rain falling on the window like moments the city folk huddle down under black umbrellas solitary in their thoughts bustling to some work meeting or appointment the coffee warm in my hands I look at my telephone to get the latest twitter news but there he is the leader and I’m sorry he invades my feed like he has invaded this poem an unpleasant thought a reminder of how we are blindfolded teetering close to the edge of the building people think that the leader makes sense when his fast food facts replace the nourishment of real food the aftertaste bitter the leader knows that people inhabit his lies because they are black umbrellas protecting the people from the reality of the cold rain as the truth is harder to bear than lies
MACHINE LEARNING
You all know the experience. Switching on the computer and are met by a flickering window to a glittering city. The billboards on the side tell you so much about yourself. They are directed at you. Need to do more exercise. Check. Need to lose weight. Check. Like music from another era. Check.
Social media records your memories. Old photographs. Old thoughts. What will the archaeologists of the future to make of so many records of another era? Chipping away at the tough digital layers to the finer sand beneath. The fragments of other lives. What will they make of the twenty first century humans?
Do we already have a nostalgia about our present day lives? Do we already know deep within that the computers have already taken over? Do we already know that we are serving them rather than the other way around? So many entranced by the comforting glow of the screen. Of the being that knows us almost better
than we know ourselves.