Automation

A magical word indeed !

And its magic works so well, that it never runs short of a 'majority' , as its devotees!

In the name of security, cleanliness and orderliness, some temple has automated the cracking of cocoanuts (or was it 'breaking', of nuts ? )... and the 'make up' of that machine is of some deity...

Somebody sent me a 'forward' of a video clip via whatsApp... it showed a 240 year old robot which can write flawlessly, that 'manu-script' style... a sophisticated piece of machinery, and a 'miracle' when it is so-old!!!

Generally, repetitive jobs are sought to be automated... (that is what.... I thought)..

But a startling aspect dawned when I saw a very famous global company automating a 'letter' to those who declined its 'job-offers' :)

Such automation is 'safe' only as long as humans do automate their adoration too, for automation :) But, if somebody 'looks' at it, and 'observes' consciously, will it not 'show' that the number of 'job-offer-declines' are so high, that even that had to be automated?

My head started spinning...

Cocoanut 'offer' when automated, loses its intrinsic values, which is right now not-within-our range of perception... the 'deity' to which this is outsourced, can it be 'consecrated'?

Writing a book, was assigned to a deity, who was 'supposed' to be not just brilliant... but an expert at removing hurdles (if we look at those epic stories of (Lord) Ganesha taking a 'dictation' as a scribe, from a composer of that Mahabharata, the sage Vyasa... (Now what 'else' can a robot write?, just the garbage-in/garbage-out... in a computer language... )

How many of us are 'really' relishing that automated voice response, when we dial the phone number of some utility services? (In India, when that call gets transferred to a human operator, he does a better job at such 'automated' responses, which only aggravates the frustration of a complainant!)...

Now, that brings up yet another question in my mind... Have we ended up 'automating' the 'meanings' that we assigned to the words that we used?... Or do we take a 'flash-glance' at the concepts embedded in those words?

A flood of examples pours into me... those 'remixes' of songs... a devotional song is remixed into some joke, advertisement, etc... (when a kid, I overheard a casual remark, “Hey, the overdose of repetitive listening to that advertisement for 'Afghan-Snow' has rendered me so-useless, that I can no more appreciate the beauty of the snow-capped mountains, when I spend hundreds of rupees to visit them on a picnic, because.... I am 'only-reminded' of that stupid snow-bottle, and the product-name :-( Now, a kid at school says, opposite of the word 'original' is 'china' :-)) ... we are 'evolving'!....)

What would happen to those chants then?...
The precious word forms.... some of which were called Mantra? ( I got answers too soon, when most people couldn't 'see', why the famous Gayatri-chant ... when it was also designated as 'mother-of-chandass'... should not be degraded, by calling it a 'mere-mantra'... though basically, it is indeed a mantra!!!)...

The multiplication tables were 'chanted' by kids ... (that was decades ago)... today, it is outsourced to computing technology... (the 'unfortunate' few, who are destined to reach a research-level at computing... only they would 'discover' what they missed, when the deeper-concepts of mathematics sprouted from-within, only when the non-automated-chants were 'imposed' on a kid at the very “primary” stage, ... rightly named as 'primary-school'.... :-))

Automatically yours,

psn 29th March, 2016