“Writing again?” asked the nurse.
The old woman in the hospital bed looked up from her work. She didn’t recognize the white-clad woman. There were so many nurses here.
“Yes, almost finished.” The old woman smiled to herself, revealing for a moment her toothless grin.
“What I don’t understand Mrs. Behrman, is why you do it?”
“Why I write?”
“Yeah. There is no need. No one does that anymore. You can just ask one of these things,” she said motioning to the iTab in her hand. “It will write whatever you want in 50 seconds flat.”
“It’s not the same,” Mrs. Behrman said unable to continue. Her fingertips were numb with age, so adjusting the pen in her hand was a job for her free hand that she used to steady the page.
“Isn’t it? They’re just as good as the old stuff we had to read in school, Charlotte’s Egg.”
“Charlotte’s Web” Mrs. Behrman corrected.
“Yeah, that one! I could write you a story about a spider in 50 seconds flat. So why do you do it? Every time I see you, you are hunched over that paper.”
“I have a story to tell… inside of me.”
“Let the bot write it, you’d get it out a lot quicker. You could just relax and watch some television" suggested the nurse.
“It isn’t the same. That might be a story, made up of all the same parts, but at the end of the day it’s just a jumble of words. Where is the soul in that?”
“But it’s easy. Writing things down is hard.”
Mrs. Behrman’s hands ached, the gnarled swollen knuckles of her right hand burned.
“…won’t get the story out of me.” She mumbled beyond the pain and weariness of her 90 years. “I didn’t do it when I was younger, because I couldn’t afford to. I had to work in an office, so it has to come out now.” Tears were welling up in her pale blue eyes.
“I don’t mean to upset you…just curious...”said the nurse as she picked up the spare blanket at the foot of the bed.
Mrs. Behrman looked around the room for the first time in what seemed like hours. It was late, the windows in her room were dark.
“I’m not upset… just tired.”
“I imagine you are,” said the nurse folding the woolen blanket and draping it over the spare chair.
“I think that’s enough for tonight.” Mrs. Behrman put down pen, and fumbled with numb fingertips to get the paper off the smooth surface of the hospital table. The nurse watched silently.
“I’m so close.” She licked her thumb and forefinger tasting the blue ink marks that would never wash off. She tried again and this time success. She held out the yellow lined paper to the nurse. “I’m almost finished. Will you put this is the others?”
“Of course Mrs. Behrman.” The nurse said taking the yellowed paper and placing it on top of her iTab. She turned off the overhead lights and said “Goodnight.”
As she walked back to the nurse’s station she passed the vending machines. She crumpled the yellow paper and dropped it among the plastic snack food wrappers. “I’ll put it with the others.” She murmured, not to spite the old delusional woman, it was simply what they did with the random sheets of paper she passed them.
During the night the last author in the world died.
The future is now. People are using AI software to generate articles from keywords. Educate yourself and only upvote humans-created content. https://steemit.com/steem/@yogi.artist/the-importance-of-physical-appearance-in-society-featuring-new-ai-author-mstakings
image source: pixabay
Damn Well Done!
From at author, who at 72 is racing the clock. Everything I do now has a time factor. I need to swim several times a week, but that takes time away from writing. I need to promote my books, but that takes time from creating more of them. Family, necessary tasks, and the hard fact, that at the end of the day, my energy gives out before my desire, steals what I have only a diminishing supply of, productive time...
Yes this story touched me. But I refuse to go gently into the night.
Bless your heart! I'm glad it meant something to you! I cried as I wrote it because I'm sure that's going to be me (and a lot of us in that bed).
Your work is precious. You strive to express that eternal joy and struggle over every artist since the dawn of humanity. Computers and software will never be able to rob us of that, but I will work to see that your sacrifice (because it is a sacrifice to create) is not taken for granted!
Much love,
Renee
This made me a bit sad and disappointed for that old woman. To have such a heartless nurse throw away that woman's hard work and invested literature, it's a true testament of how the new generation built upon the connected technological advances can coldly "write off" (pun intended) the older generation and how things "used to be done." It always reminds me, the closer we are to transhumanism and AI exploited operations, the less the heart and soul of us real individuals can express ourselves and be heard, when the audience we reach out to is people who are without substance, but are built into the ever growing machinery that aims to "make our life easier" when it also assists in "making our death of human identity faster." See what your post did to me? Thank you for the inspiration, upvoted and followed. I will now go write something and pour it out from within. Look forward to your next post, can't wait to post my next as well now. This was just what I needed to read. Amazing short story
I didn't see the nurse as heartless, just not holding the same value in the work.
There are people who say "This technology is perfectly valid, if the content is valuable if it is enjoyable", but they miss the human element and the experience of the artist in creating their work and making a living off their work.
Distant future I hope :(
I, for one, welcome our new automated blog producing overlords...
J/K. A nice reality check, for sure. Some of these just seem so polished though. Surely there is reverse filtering for detection of such things, right?
That's what I want. Reverse engineer the heck out of it and make a spin-detection bot.
Oh man, what a turning point for Steemit. Also, I really liked this story! I, for one, will never use AI to write in my blog. Everything that goes in there is from pure time and energy from yours truly! =D
I threw this together for us to use to identify ourselves! Enjoy!
Wow! I like these badges! But what's stopping a bot from using it? Either the master of a dumb bot from misusing it, or a sentient bot from using it, thinking he is a human?
I made one for bots too! I'm all about transparency! Let the bot's write as much as they want! Just use the badges and let us know!
What if they have an identity crisis and think they're human? Or me? What if I'm a bot? Oh nozz...
Haha
I open to Artificial lifeforms starting their own blogs, but enslaving one for your personal profit is just wrong!
Agreed!