ART OF THE QUESTION

by Dick Altman

Art created by Shutterstock AI image generator in response to "Art of the Question."

Alarmed by A.I. Chatbots, Universities Start Revamping How They Teach: With the rise of the popular new chatbot ChatGPT, colleges are restructuring some courses and taking preventive measures. —The New York Times, January 16, 2023

Disclaimer: ChatGPT inspired

but did not write this poem. And

what if it did?  What, at bottom,

are we afraid of—that a machine

might outthink us? From childhood,

I thrilled to science fiction evolving

into science fact.  Bring on the

machines!

 

If Socrates were alive today,

I can hear him ask, “Why spend life

trying to find answers,

when life’s key may lie

in finding the right questions?”

 

The best leaders, I often think,

posit the best questions.

 

Ask the right question, I’d tell

my peers, and you may find

exactly the answer we’ve all been

probing/struggling for.

 

As AI’s narrative powers grow,

exponentially/computationally,

we need to learn how best

to feed its appetite.

 

Think about your day and mine—

think about the river of questions

that ebb and flow through life’s

continuum.

 

Rarely do we ponder the process

that instinctively—or so it seems—

lets us arrive at decisions that

guide home/work/play/passion.

 

One could argue—and I’d agree—

all conscious life thrives, or fails,

on the quality of its questions.

 

Perhaps we have reached the age

to turn education on its head—

to teach our young "The Art

of the Question". 

 

So that apps like ChatGPT

can learn, in turn, to grind out

answers worthy of our curiosity

and explorations.

 

Think of it as a new educational

dawn.

 

I say let’s welcome, not fear,

the rising binary sun

of a Socratic Age reborn.

 

Or as Hamlet might have

prophetically put it:

 

To ask... 

 

To answer... 

 

That is the question

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.