Shree: The Grid

 

Shree: The Grid

A regimental order of thought, feelings, built environment, systems can be represented as a “gird”  - where there is control, hierarchy, only inputs that are expected; only known language of communication; no debate or discussions; criterias are decided and one is evaluated based on the performance or engagement with the “grid”. There is a disturbing silence in public space, apathy and confirmation expected. There is no reflection, pondering or any meaningful pause.

The grid seems to have become a fact of our contemporary lives where all thoughts, feelings are moulded into a flattened palette of system which “expects and demands” a standard input and a standard output regardless of any context of space, time, people. It is easy to infinitely expand the grid, scale it up, make it anonymous, impersonal, anchorless or giving a decontextualized experiences. This is a mind numbing or perhaps a memory numbing perception. The danger of the grid is to expect “memory” to function only in a particular way.

Existence is meant to be organic and relative and personal, since that is what “anchors” an individual to a collective experience. The anchoring has a connection of individual to the collective and everywhere the idea of transitions, buffers, approaches (in personal to universal experiences) are required. Without the feel of transitions, buffers, approaches, all experiences may be straight jacketed into the same mould and loose meaning soon. There is a reason why I feel different than you and viceversa and that is the same reason with which we communicate, engage and connect. This language of communication or connection happens by the interplay of unique perceptional skills and the underlying presence of universal consciousness.

In what way do we hold people together - is the key inquiry here. What sort of an interface does the AI or the algorithm offer us? Is it mind numbing or mind enriching? Is it only production enhanced or meaning enhanced? And if it appears suffocating, how do people respond to such suffocation and “vent” out their voices? And if those vented voices are not recognized as a legible form of expression by the grid – are those to be rejected?!

As more and more AI appears, it seems to consume our mindscape and convert its behavour into a distorted, predictable and managed language of control and consumption. We seem to loose the meaning of contexts, time, scales, proportions and the personal touch we can give to each space. We do not discuss, do not debate, remain apathetic and only become consumers of life but not engaging with life at all. We do not pause, create meanings, loiter, become ambiguous or poetic or anything.

The tool of AI can definitely be made to resemble organic nature of mind and not regimentalize it.

Hari Om.