Greetings from “The Bucket”: Pawtucket, Rhode Island where it has been humid and mostly cloudy.
Looking back at my reading habits from the past year, it looks like my attraction to short story anthologies and collections were more prevalent than novels. Horror and Weird Fiction have been my staple for at least five years. I sometimes wonder if I spend too much time dwelling on things that make me uncomfortable. It seems life is uncomfortable as it is. Why spend the time remaining to you thinking about unpleasantness? I’m trying to figure that out myself.
So, what kind of malarky did I get into today?
I follow the Lovecraft eZine Facebook community for fans of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, Weird Fiction, and Horror. The Lovecraft eZine has a podcast, a YouTube channel, and publishes weird fiction. Right now the group is doing a re-read of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The story that we’re talking about is “The Festival” (You can read it online for free here.) My feelings about it? … meh. This story is all about setting. There’s very little action and not much of a twist. The main character is a descended from a family of witches. He has been summoned to attend ‘the festival’, an ancient ritual that takes place beneath the fictitious town of Kingsport, MA. The events that unfold lead to his madness. It’s a relatively short story so you probably won’t bail on it.
I had this show up in my morning YouTube feed….
More of the story can be found here: https://www.thejournal.ie/ai-chruch-germany-6090108-Jun2023/
The social and theological implications that this introduces are dystopian and humorous. On the humorous side of things we have a situation where a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna ‘phones in’ his sermon / presentation at a Protestant convention. ChatGPT organized the whole service (Sermon, music, prayers, and blessings) with the help of Jonas Simmerlein. He says:
“I conceived this service — but actually I rather accompanied it, because I would say about 98% comes from the machine,” the 29-year-old scholar told The Associated Press…
“I told the artificial intelligence ‘We are at the church congress, you are a preacher … what would a church service look like?’” Simmerlein said.
He also asked for psalms to be included, as well as prayers and a blessing at the end.
“You end up with a pretty solid church service,” Simmerlein said.
The Journal – Hundreds attend AI church service in Germany (https://www.thejournal.ie/ai-chruch-germany-6090108-Jun2023/)
Are we witnessing the end of the clergy as an occupation? Can an AI “Clergybot” replace a human? Can a machine be spiritual? Is the essence of human existence just a super-complex algorithm with a dash of randomness thrown in?
There’s something sinister about the whole thing. Assuming that a congregation would be okay with an AI preaching to them, imagine how easy it would be to control the message given to the congregants. The clergybot could be programmed for any religion – all the end user needs to do is purchase the ‘bot that preaches their denomination’s spiritual beliefs. Load up the Koran into the device and input a sprinkling of Islamic faith writings and there you go! You’re very own Islamabot!
I’ve tried to find the transcript of the sermon but without luck. I would be interested in reading it if it is available.
Currently Reading
I’m about half way through Cassandra Khaw’s novella Hammers on Bone. It’s noire (horror) private eye story. I’m having a good time reading it. Khaw captures the hard boiled detective vibe and their dialog left me envisioning Humphry Bogart as the main character / narrator. It would make an excellent graphic novel, if it hasn’t already been done.
This is my first exposure to Cassandra Khaw. I don’t know if this is representative of their work, but I’ll certainly read another story by them. Looks like Nothing But Blackened Teeth will be my next read by this author.
Here’s an interesting article about flutes made of bird bones from more than 12,000 years ago.
Scientists theorize that the flutes were used for hunting – like a duck call. Except in this case the sounds are similar to the kestrel and sparrowhawk. Check it out here: Researchers discover 12,000-year-old flutes made from bird bones.
Shlock Webzine shared a link to the latest Strange Shadows podcast. These are usually available only to subscribers, but this one appears to be free! I haven’t finished listening to it, but if you want to check it out:
That’s about it for today. If you gotten this far, thanks for your attention. I hope there was something that sparked your imagination and gave you something to talk about around the water cooler.
A Limited Engagement 