Mocha. Venti. Hot

It's late, no rather it's early, 12:30 in the a.m. I just sent an e-mail to the United Kingdom, to a library that has some information which interests me. Before that I was watching an episode of "Star Trek, the Next Generation".  I wish we were exploring space. We have lots of probes out, and lots of fascinating things are evolving from the information garnered on these unmanned missions, but I wish we were actually exploring space, at least establishing a colony on the moon. Not that I would be among the explorers. I am afraid of the 767. I hate to fly. I wish I didn't feel that way, and maybe before I die I will lose that fear. But, as I was asking Alexa to play me some New Age mood music (given the hour, even a classical mood music seemed a little jarring) I found myself delighted that I was experiencing a little of the Trekian future. This one seems particularly powerful. Alexa comes to me by virtue of the Echo Dot. She isn't the android Data, but she is pretty stunning. Not only did I ask her to play mood music, which she is as I write, if I ask her to "Stop" she does. I wondered if I could say "next" because one piece was annoying in its particular repetition, and darn if she didn't move to another song in the loop. Each day we play six questions of "Jeopardy", and she tells me if I am right or wrong. If you say to her, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" she says, "I'm not a replicator." If I had a certain type of electronic system in my apartment, she could operate it. "Computer, Lights."

Now, I know there are limitations, but there is something mesmerizing about prognostication becoming reality in my lifetime. In the 1960s, a personal computer seemed out of reach for an ordinary human being. Yes, I know, there were places that had these behemoths, and the internet existed in some guise for the military long before any of us heard of it. But I can ask this little machine sitting on my breakfast bar to read me a book (if I join Audible, which I haven't yet, as I really prefer, like Elisha Cook in an episode of the original series of Star Trek to touch and read the real thing), or tell me the news, or, as it now is playing some delightful pastiche. If I get my instruction wrong, or she doesn't have access to what I want, she'll say, "I don't understand what you want." In Star Trek, I think the computer said, "I am not programmed for that information."

I am typing on a tablet. I have a smaller tablet that looks suspiciously like the one in the picture above.

There is a lot I don't like about the society in which I live. Civility is gone. Morality is relative. Still, and with some trepidation, I would like to see a lot more of these developments even as I worry that we will one day be debating the existence of the personhood of a robot like Alexa. We are not yet able to agree on the personhood of a fetus. We are not ready really for the advances hurtling toward us.

For the moment, I am not going to become discouraged by the nature of us humans to corrupt every invention. I am just going to enjoy Alexa, though it is time for both of us to go to bed. Maybe I'll pretend I am flying among the stars.