AN EXPOSTULATION UPON AI

One Author's Response

As the Data (Use and Access) Bill has been going through the Houses of the Parliament and, last week was refused by the House of Lords for the fourth time, I was reflecting upon why our government would even want to submit all writers, artists and creators to the unremunerated and unconsensual scraping of their work for the purposes of ‘training AI.’ The Bill is being decided on today and I am nervous, like every other creative person in Britain..

This is the wording of the Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3825

My disgust with all this has occasioned the poem below.

I am frankly tired of people praising the greatness of AI. It is just the Great Pretender and needs to be unmasked now. Even if you are not a creator and have no great brief for AI, you already know its little ways: it inflicts upon us the hell of a moderated schedule of options every time we phone or email a company for urgent help, where it butts its blunt nose against our questions with a disdainful ignorance, when all we want is to speak to a living being. Let it flop, I say! And let us please retain our humanity!

AN EXPOSTULATION UPON AI by Caitlín Matthews

They call it artificial, for a start.
It is certainly not intelligent, 
Unless mirrors can be so called.
It scrapes and copies,
By theft and subtle craft.
Unasked and uninvited,
It has grasped just enough
To think itself indispensable,
But lacks the charm
To claim our hearts.

Never trust a voice that that cannot sing lullabies,
Nor a brain that cannot remember experience.
AI has never been in a body:
Never had hands to stroke or slap it,
Never hidden in a bush or lain on a hillside
To hear the lark’s soaring song.
It has never given birth,
Nor been stung by a thistle,
It has never been done a wrong.

When it has known anxiety,
When it has been bitten by necessity,
When it has suffered loss, 
And wailed all night from pain,
When it has had to take responsibility,
Tell it to call again.
Until then…

…Let it read xrays,
Find anomalies medics might miss; 
Let it virtually unroll the unread 
Carbonized scrolls of Herculaneum.
Keep it far from the dear creative kiss 
Of mind and heart,
Where poetry and story start.

For the avoidance of doubt, here is one of the carbonised scrolls from Herculaneum, currently on display at the Weston Library, Oxford: it cannot be unrolled without utter destruction of its contents, and yes, it looks exactly what I feel about AI in general!

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Please join me for the following webinar on 18 June.

Caitlín.Matthews in Orkney, photo by Dr. Ari Berk

18 June 2025 Dream Incubation in the Celtic World with Caitlín Matthews

In this webinar, we explore Dream Incubation in the Celtic World, undertaken in relation to personal healing and tribal guidance. We end by focussing upon the rites at the Temple of Nodens, sacred to the British god of sleep and dreams. This Romano-British temple complex is found at Lydney, on the Banks of the River Severn in south-east Wales, where Aesculapian dream incubation was practised alongside ancestral British dream practices. We will end with a meditation which takes us to that temple. Participants will need a shawl or scarf with which to mantle themselves.

This event will consist of a talk given Caitlín Matthews (closing with a meditation as stated above) followed by live Q&A. 7-8.30pm online. BST

https://scientificandmedical.net/events/caitlin-matthews-dream-incubation-in-the-celtic-world/?nskip=193869&utm_source=speakers%20email&utm_medium=speakers&utm_campaign=Dream%20Incubation&utm_content=Caitlín%20Matthews