At dusk on Tuesday, as I waited to use the ATM, the lamppost above me turned on for a second, then off. I looked up. So did the person using the ATM.

Actually, it was less than that. It was even less than a second. Just a flicker of life.

As I waited, I remembered the first time I saw lampposts switch themselves on. I was twenty. I had seen lampposts before of course, in both their states. But never in between, never in motion.

I was standing on the street where my then-boyfriend lived, waiting for the bus to work. It was dusk then too, I suppose. Though perhaps not a Tuesday. The pavement had recently been resurfaced and saplings planted at intervals. I don’t remember what we’d done that day but I remember feeling happy and calm; and just then, the lampposts blinked awake. And because I was twenty and felt happy and calm, it wasn’t just a light sensor, it was magic.

So at dusk on Tuesday, as I waited, I thought for a while about lampposts and dusk and magic and light sensors and automated tellers and artificial intelligence and sentience and the singularity and the future. And I thought maybe I’ve been reading too much about AI recently. But then I thought about the flicker of a light in the dark, the flicker of something like life.

And I looked up at the lamppost. And I wondered.

*

A version of this post was sent by email on the 24th September 2017 as part of Internet Care Package.

ICP is a weekly email that includes memoir-ish snippets like the one above, links to great articles and dog memes. This blog is a select archive of those emails. Subscribe to get them right in your inbox.

Like this? Share to Facebook | Tweet | Email link

Want to help me make more things? Follow me on Instagram | Buy me a coffee | Buy my play

*