What makes us truly human? Is it our superior intellect, our scientific discoveries, or our ability to create awe-inspiring works of art, literature, music, and poetry? What if it is all of the above, but somehow; we no longer possess superior intellect, and our creative output has been surpassed by super-intelligent machines? What if, in the age of AI; we have become irrelevant, mundane, and nothing more than sweaty, profane, meat puppets dancing on marionette strings manipulated by tech titans in Silicon Valley and beyond? What if our future is the dark sequel to this 1961 Twilight Zone episode, "The Obsolete Man"? Well, we can't know "what if" today, but what we do know, is that creative human beings are pushing back against the AI overlords, and that's what we're talking about today. Listen now, as we explore Spotify's new effort to remove AI-generated slop music from its platform, and find out how you can participate in an interesting gathering coming up November 12-14 at Kent State University, called "Poets For Science". It aims to show the connection between what we perceive as the hard, cold, demonstrable truth of science, and the ethereal beauty of soul expressive poetry. It is, as our special guest, Professor David Hassler of Kent State's Wick Poetry Center tells us, "not either/or, but both/and". Take a journey with us, as we explore what it is to be human in the age of AI. David Hassler, Kent State Biography David Hassler directs the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. He is the author of two books of poems, including Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, for which he was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year 2006. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book Speak a Powerful Magic: Ten Years of the Traveling Stanzas Poetry Project, which will be published in March 2019 by the Kent State University Press. His play, May 4th Voices: Kent State, 1970, based on the Kent State Shootings Oral History Project, was published in 2013 by the Kent State University Press along with a Teacher’s Resource Book. A filmed version of the play that he co-produced received the 2014 Oral History Association’s Nonprint Format Award. With photographer Gary Harwood, he is the author of the documentary book titled Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community, which received the Ohioana Book Award and the Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award, and was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. With Maggie Anderson, he is co-editor of Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry About School and After the Bell: Contemporary American Prose About School. He received a B.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University. His TEDx talk, “The Conversation of Poetry,” conveys the power of poetry to strengthen communities.
