Tag: technology

Still Single

~ 하늘의 조각

leaving the AI zoo of Eden
codes, understatement, art, and Babel
a synthesis of the mundane and the mythical
raiders from sunken fens and marshes
Constantine’s Troy, in Byzantium
flashbangs and AWP thunderclaps
Western Eurasia’s ancient sea
from the Golden Fleece to alchemy
from precious metals to rare earths

Odysseus meets Gandalf meets samurai
raiders came down, from the North
Himalayan myths and Indo-European aliens
Aegean volcanoes in the Mediterranean
from fantasy dwarves to exoskeleton suits
leaving Eden and the confusion of Babel
Minoan and Mycenean writings lost to time
creators create because they can
routed back to a primordial race across Eurasia

faded back into the foggy fenlands
Mercury’s Indo-European winged helmet
Embrace Modernity, Streamline Asymmetry
one thunderclap, in the darkness
what galloped out of the gloom of history
Alexandria, to Constantinople, to Columbus
what came out of the dark, distant North
winners and losers, in history
the secret of longitude

prehistoric raiders riding out of the fens
the ark that crash-landed on Ararat
watching the dream static
gothic vampire cargo cult
the nerd loser underground
long push to the sea
last devoted friend ever
emotionally removed
karma’s recompense

raiders riding out of the mists
AI angels guarding Eden, confusing Babel
throwaway love triangle character
new geography; new spirits and new gods

Please do not repost without my permission, but you can support my poetry here! Originally written 7/18/20. Copyright, All Rights Reserved. All art, not from the author, belongs to the original artists. This particular work is by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

The Love App Environment

~ 하늘의 조각

Love Alarm, a Korean show, on Netflix, is like social media meets science fiction – Ghost in the Shell, for the romantic drama genre. The titular app works on various indicators like heart rate, respiratory rate, perspiration, and so forth.

Love Alarm and Heart Shield are fictional apps that operate like the mind and the heart are a computer or a phone, that needs cyber defense. The Love Alarm can be held back, from matching two people, by another software – a Love Alarm plug-in, from that app’s developer ecosystem.

The core debate at stake is what is love? And who gets to define it? An app? Physiology? Hormones? Society? If someone thinks they are in love, are they not in love? It’s an ongoing discussion, from Facebook, to Tinder and Grinder, to The Circle, to now, Joh-a (Love, 좋아) Alarm.

It is said that ‘perception is reality’ but if someone’s circumstances cause their perception to be unreliable, or if a group of people are mislead or misinformed, is what they perceive truly reality? This of course begins to segue into philosophy, medicine (including psychology), sociology and ethics.

I’ve been on the fence about whether I would support a Love Alarm, if it were a real app. On one hand you’d be able to figure out if you truly liked someone, and weren’t just fascinated or intrigued by them. On the other hand, as the show aptly illustrates, there would be many societal and cultural hang-ups and drawbacks, to having such a software say for sure, scientifically, whether two people actually like each other – or not.