Artificial stupidity will never replace the real thing. This motto, of which I should commission an embroidered sampler, is brought home to me on a daily basis as I blunder through life’s little I.Q. tests, leaving wreckage in my wake. Referring to last month’s sermon, “I Am Not a Robot,” I begin to consider that it might be better if I were. One’s fleshiness might be where all the inspiration and fun is—the syncopation, if you will—but it is also the home of blurry vision, clumsiness, hubris, and walking out onto a ledge that isn’t there.
It is in that spirit that I confess to having published a ten-year-old press release almost without having read it simply because it was sent to me by the publicity director (now fired) of a well-known jazz festival. Oh, I waded through the thicket of commas and extra spaces and misspellings but with no comprehension that the whole bundle was a bit stale. That the writer was looking forward to events in 2014 should have been a clue. Even a not particularly bright robot would have caught that discrepancy.
If I were indeed a robot, I’d be the Roomba rolling through a pile of cat barf and painting the carpet with it. It is merely vainglorious that I take pride in my meat and sinew and cranial jelly and the marvels they can accomplish. “Yes, but can a supercomputer do this?” I might have said as I stumbled down the stairs and sta
