The Bard Meets The Bot

The back lanes of Stratford-upon-Avon were quieter than usual as the translucent figure slowly drifted towards the Holy Trinity Church. The bright sunlight shone through him, making him feel more inconsequential than usual. The day’s haunting was done. It was time to seep back home. Once upon a time, he had only visited the church once a week. But ever since the time he had been buried there, it was home. Of course, now that his wife and daughter had been buried next to him, he did choose to meander away far more than necessary.

All that a man (and a poet at that!) often longed for, was peace and quiet. Especially when he was trying to put disjointed thoughts into words. But the voices occasionally got too shrill for his liking and he was forced to become a drifter. No man, not even Will Shakespeare, had been able to best his better half when it came to being loquacious. Of course, roaring “QUIET” had had absolutely zilch effect in the past half century, thanks to Anne discovering feminism and equal rights. She merely looked at him, laughed and told him to take his work elsewhere. She did not even have to add the “Or else!” He was terrified enough just by her bristling.

Sometimes he thought wistfully about the good old times, when women spent a good part of their lives arguing fruitlessly without becoming lawyers or judges. Even his beloved Portia from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ had had to transform into the male Balthazar before stepping into a court of law. And now, it seemed that more than half the profession and the judges were women! And thus, he skulked further and further afield, seeking out quiet nooks where he could gather his thoughts for his beloved books. Modernity, however had crept up his mossy banks and glades. Once awash with bluebells, daises, and serenity, they were now awash with bluebells, daises, and hordes of jabbering tourists. Who came armed with long selfie sticks and those infernal noise making machines which could also capture pictures. What were they called again? Ah yes, mobiles!

And could they move, forsooth! They never seemed to stop, whirring this way and that in search for the perfect picture or aiding modern men to talk to someone far away. As if they needed any more inconsequential words in the world. Also, he was hard-pressed to understand the language of the modern world. No one had the time for courtly speech. Indeed, no one had the time to be polite! It was ‘TY’ instead of ‘I thank thee,’ GN instead of ‘Good Night,’ Bye instead of ‘God be with you’ and a thousand other things besides.

It was quite ironic that the words he had written so long ago were now being dissected to decipher their ‘hidden meaning.’ Sometimes, he felt like popping out of the stone wall and saying ‘Boo’ just to make the scholars scatter for their lives, before going on to explain that he had not meant a single thing but put in the words either just to confuse people or because they simply felt right. He was tired of his works being under a microscope all the time. Zounds, people could not even speak the language anymore and they wanted to comment on it. And the less said about those ghastly Americans the better. What gave them the right to pick up a venerable language, mangle it beyond recognition with horrendous pronunciation, and atrocious spelling and then call it ‘user friendly’? The sheer insolence was galling!

As his thoughts darkened, he seemed to acquire more substance, turning quite a few shades darker from his normal pearly self. He did not like resembling bonfire smoke. But such was life. Leave home a pearl, and return all fatigued and smoky. Just as he was about to cross the bridge over the Avon, he was assaulted by a buzzing. Happy in the knowledge that no bee could sting him, he nevertheless peered about for the swarm, but none was in the offing. After bobbing about rather nervously for a bit, the source of the offending sound was finally traced to a small white object which had suddenly swung into sight, out of the undergrowth. It was what the wonderful modern people called a robot. As if there were not enough people running about already, they had to create a menace with machines. Machines which walked, talked, stalked, and mocked. Performed a hundred useful and a thousand useless tasks. He drifted quicker to get away from the infernal thing, but it kept up easily.

“Hi there, Willy! How’s you?” Death and damnation! Not only did the wretched thing speak, but it seemed to recognize him as well. A boorish, uncouth machine! Without any manners or morals. Just his favourite kind! Turning a rather alarming shade of purple, he turned towards it. “Were you addressing me, my good contraption? And where are your manners? It is William to you, though you should be addressing me as Good Sir! Willy, forsooth!” Anyone would have been sufficiently awed by the great wraith’s wrath and would have eaten humble pie, while scrambling to do his bidding. But little machine milled about merrily. It apparently had no such compunctions.

It made a merry clicking, ticking noise as if it were laughing. “Oh, Willy has such a nice ring to it! I prefer Willy, even if you do mind. We are similar under the skin now. Both of us have no souls!” Again, the clicking ticking noise. A contraption which laughed at its own jokes! Could things get worse? But apparently, they did because it addressed him again, “I can write just like you”. William was too shocked even to sputter in indignation.

Machines he knew were becoming more human than the humans who produced them. Artificial intelligence they called it. He heaved a sigh. At least the machines had some intelligence. Perhaps humans were busy doling out their brains in exchange for ease. “And what do you write, my good machine”? his curiosity was now piqued. There were many things to write on these days. Things which he wrote about in silvery words which only he could read. Liberal ideas, countries without borders, his favourite, the Rainbow parade, the new King. Things had become much more interesting since his times. And besides, he was no longer bound to the rhyme and the sonnet. How he loved free-form verse (where you could write any nonsense and get away with it) and Haiku, which no one understood any way. Yes, creative liberty had reached a pinnacle. Say anything, write anything and get away with anything. Better men had met with a far worse fate for minor transgressions when he was alive.

“I write on climate change,” replied the pipsqueak loftily. Ah, yes! Climate change. It was very real. Only last year he had had to haunt an ice factory, because the temperatures in summer had soared to forty degrees centigrade. Something he had not even dreamt of. “And what on climate change”? asked the Bard, tugging at his beard.  Perhaps the little thing was helping the not-so-little-thing, Greta Thunberg write her impassioned speeches more effectively. Smiling at the thought, he bent towards the machine, whose screen was now glowing green. How nice it would be for him to connect to some modern lingo!

But when the machine spoke, it was a sonnet which spewed forth. It could have been something which he had written. He wondered whether his genius had begun to manifest when he was asleep. When had he written this? Such expression! Such clarity of thought! And such language! Which he had not heard in the past two centuries! “How dare you steal my work, Stout Fellow?,” he roared, outrage finally getting the better of him. But the machine was not abashed in the least. It winked merrily at him. “Oh, but it is not yours. I am ChatGPT enabled, you see. Give me a prompt and I can write in any style. It is the magic of Artificial Intelligence. I am here to help write assignments, complete homework, even win a Nobel Prize or two!”

The future seemed dark and distant to the Bard. He had certainly met his match. And it was game, set and match to this little chip off the old block. Leaning in, he asked in a conspiratorial tone, “If I give you a prompt, will you write for me too?”

And thus ended the meeting of the Bard and the Bot……. fruitfully!