We Have the Technology. Do We Have the Wisdom?

Prometheus, twenty-four notes, and the things machines cannot replace

A recording can play Taps.

That is an obvious fact, but it is also the reason I have spent so much time thinking about why a real person should still stand at the graveside of a veteran with a trumpet or bugle in his hands.

Technologically, we solved this problem a long time ago. If no bugler is available, we can press a button. Twenty-four familiar notes sound across the cemetery. They can be played at the right tempo, at the right volume, every single time. The recording does not get nervous. It does not miss a note. It does not get sick. It does not have somewhere else it needs to be. Yet, when people talk about it they say it doesn’t sound real. One person said, “It is too perfect….”