7 minute read
OFF THE PAGE with Raymond L. Atkins
OFF THE PAGE with Raymond L. Atkins
I have been feeling a bit out of touch with modern developments here lately. Well, here lately is not quite the case. This is a condition I have struggled with my entire adult life. For forty years I have been unsuccessfully trying to program my VCR, and if you happen to call me on my flip-phone while I am talking to someone else on that same devious device, I am guaranteed to lose both calls. Then, as both parties attempt to call me back, this pattern repeats. These are just two examples out of many (don’t even get me started on remote controls). Still, one continues to try to do what one can.
So, in the interest of self-improvement and definitely not because I am basically lazy, I decided that I would let an AI program write this month’s column. With the concept of making myself into a better, more rounded person in mind, I typed “AI writing program” into my search box and hit Enter. About a half-second later I had 4,200,000 results, which lets you know the state of the robot uprising these days. Apparently they never sleep. Anyway, I chose the one that all my freshman English students recommend because, let’s face it, they are the experts when it comes to getting out of writing assignments, and it is always best to seek advice when you need it from people in the know.
I went to the site, and after setting up an account under an assumed name in case Mandy was monitoring it, I told the artificial intelligence what I wanted it to do. Sadly, I had to go with my third choice of aliases, because Billy Bob Faulkner and Young John Steinbeck had already been taken. Still, I am not totally unhappy with Cash Money Hemingway, and you can’t always get what you want. While my new electronic friend was thinking over my request as indicated by the little hourglass spinning around and around, I stepped out onto the porch to feed my Republican cat, and during that mere five minutes without human supervision, my AI program staged a coup.
After I fed the cat and listened to him complain because the neighbor lady has been slipping him people-tuna again and now he has unrealistic expectations, I discovered that the door I had just exited through had locked itself. We have this electronic lock setup, and when I punched in the code, the lighted doorbell button, which is also “connected,” turned from blue to red, and then the damn thing spoke to me.
“Hello, Dave,” it said in a monotone.
“Let me in!” I replied.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave…”
Boy, was I upset. To begin with, my name is not Dave. I mean, it could have at least called me Cash Money. On top of that, I had to chunk a brick through a side window to get back into my house. Then I had to unplug my computer, which is the only computer trick I know, reset the network, and listen to the screams of a dying AI, and believe me when I tell you that he did not go out easy. The final straw was when my Republican cat also came in through the broken window and helped himself to the tuna salad I was planning to have for lunch.
By the way, if you “got” the whole Dave thing, you are my people, and you are awesome. If you didn’t, don’t worry. We haven’t known each other that long, and you’ll be on the inside track before you realize it. And it’s not entirely your fault you missed the reference anyway. There is a fine line between subtlety and obscurity, and sometimes I don’t watch where I put my feet.
What I wanted to talk about before my AI program experienced delusions of grandeur and had to be put down was my reading habits. Like my mother before me, I am a reader, and I will read just about anything. Well, anything except instructions, because ain’t nobody got no time for that. I throw them away just as soon as they come out of the box. Later, after the new ceiling fan won’t run or the new bookcase won’t stand straight, I tiptoe into the kitchen and fish the instructions out of the trash can, wipe the spaghetti sauce off them, which is kind of a mystery to me because in many cases we haven’t even had spaghetti, and then I try to figure out where I went wrong.
Anyway, one of my favorite genres to read is Science Fiction. I also like Southern Fiction, which is what they tell me I write, but most times if you see me reading, it will be something otherworldly. This preference came upon me early in life. When I was six or maybe seven, my cool uncle bought me for Christmas a copy of Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X. That same year my not-so-cool uncle bought me a collection of Bible stories, and while I had nothing against those, I’m afraid they eventually ended up in the trash can with spaghetti sauce on them while in my bedroom Tom Swift and I entered the realm of possibility as we explored the cosmos.
This was in the early Sixties, back when Science Fiction was a bit disreputable and just a little unsophisticated. Thus, it often featured ray guns, and tentacled monsters, and all of the human astronauts were men, and all of the female aliens were green but pretty, and usually they were mammalian as evidenced by the form-fitting spacesuits they wore. But even with these limitations, the genre was nothing short of amazing to a young boy eager to expand his limited vistas.
The first book I ever wrote was a Science Fiction epic. It was all about a galactic war between humans and a race of stacked green female aliens wearing form-fitting spacesuits, and it featured starships with atomic drives, and disruptor fields, and light sails, and gravity wells, and parsecs, and just about ever other concept I had lifted from the dozens of books I had read by the likes of Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Clifford Simak, Issac Asimov, Lester Del Ray, Robert Silverberg, Phillip Jose Farmer, and Arthur C. Clarke, to name but a few.
Incidentally, if you are still working through the Dave thing up there, the last author on that list is a major hint. I’ll give you a moment.
As I grew into maturity, so did Science Fiction. What began as silly stories about implausible situations evolved into a form of literature that in many ways has driven the engines of change. My flip phone and your hand-held, computers, atomic power, the internet, nanotechnology, rail guns, and yes, AI are just a few of the modern developments that began as concepts in Science Fiction stories. The writing itself has become more mature, as well, with authors such as Orson Scott Card, Martha Wells, Octavia Butler, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson producing stories that can stand proudly among the other works of contemporary literature.
You haven’t read my own Science Fiction book, but perhaps some day you might. It is buried deep in a drawer somewhere, and that is where it will remain until I begin my own journey among the stars. However, there is hope. Dawn Major, a former MFA student of mine, and an awesome published writer in her own right, and a good friend on top of that, has agreed to go through my papers when I’m gone, just like she did for William Gay, and to share with you all anything she finds worthy.
If the buxom green alien ladies don’t make the final cut, that’s on Dawn.
