Bob Schwartz

May 16, 2025

The Race: AI is a problem as it gets smarter and we get “stupider”

We mistake the “AI race”. Usually we talk about how fast AI is being developed and how broadly it is being deployed and applied. Pretty fast and broadly—exponentially so.

At least half of our consideration should be on—I will be detailing the term that I avoid and must define—how much “stupider” we are allowing ourselves to get.

The race is between us and AI. It is conceivable that even if we freeze everything right now, we are behind with diminishing chance of catching up.

Now about “stupid”. It is rightly considered a harsh term. It may not reduce the harsh edge to say that what I mean is a lessened level of pertinent personal knowledge and a diminished ability to think things through completely.

By pertinent knowledge, I mean knowing what we need to know to lead lives comprehensively. To put it a different way, just knowing “stuff” and hearing about “stuff” and talking about “stuff” and thinking about “stuff” can be entertaining and time-occupying, and in balanced measure might be satisfying. But media and commercial culture insists that all kinds of “stuff” is important or essential to know. Which much of it isn’t.

By thinking things through completely, I mean what is often referred to as “critical thinking”, so often that is has become an ignorable cliché. It shouldn’t be ignored. There is more than one way to think about things. But all of those ways require thinking about things. Partial thinking, not thinking through completely, leads to not reaching goals and solving situations optimally or at all. Maybe we are lucky, or maybe someone assures us that that goals and solutions are possible—certain—if we just listen to and follow them. Relax and think about that other “stuff”.

Back to the race.

AI can know things for us, already does. AI can think things through more or less completely for us, already does (or claims to). When we give up on knowing what is essential and knowing those essentials ourselves, when we give up on thinking things through completely, we are behind AI and losing ground.

So we should get smarter and think harder. That may not put us ahead, but at least we will not get farther behind. For now.

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May 16, 2025

Mahmoud Darwish: The poetry of Palestine

I want to find a language that transforms language itself into steel for the spirit – a language to use against these sparkling silver insects, these jets. I want to sing. I want a language . . . that asks me to bear witness and that I can ask to bear witness, to what power there is in us to overcome this cosmic isolation.
—Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) was born in the village of al-Birwa, in the Galilee, Palestine. He became a refugee at age seven. He worked as a journalist and editor in Haifa and left to study in Moscow in 1970. His exilic journey took him to Cairo, Beirut, Tunis, Paris, Amman, and Ramallah, where he settled in 1995. He is one of the most celebrated and revered poets in the Arab world. He published more than thirty books, and his poetry has been translated into thirty-five languages.

Even if you are a lover of poetry, you may not have heard of Mahmoud Darwish, despite his work—poetry and prose—being celebrated and translated into thirty-five languages. Translation into English was late in coming. And there is so much culture to taste and consume that it may be incidental ignorance of Arab poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular that has kept it out of sight.

Sample praise:

“Darwish’s poetry is an epic effort to transform the lyrics of loss into the indefinitely postponed drama of return.”
—Edward Said

“The most celebrated writer of verse in the Arab world.”
—Adam Shatz, The New York Times

“Did as much as anyone to forge a Palestinian national consciousness.”
—Peter Clark, The Guardian

“No poet in our time has confronted the violent tides of history with greater humanity or greater artistic range than Mahmoud Darwish.
―Michael Palmer, author of Company of Moths

“A world-class poet . . . Darwish has not only remade a national consciousness; he has reworked language and poetic tradition to do so.”
―Fiona Sampson, The Guardian

“Darwish, beloved as the beacon-voice of Palestinians scattered around the globe, had an uncanny ability to create unforgettable, richly descriptive poems, songs of homesick longing which resonate with displaced people everywhere.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

“No list on Palestinian literature is complete without the acclaimed poet Mahmoud Darwish.”
—Esquire

“Mahmoud Darwish is perhaps the foremost Palestinian poet of last century.”
—Tablet

There are too many books to feature just one. Please consider giving Mahmoud Darwish a try.

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