Notes About The Poem
10/27/2025 for Can AI Machines Become Conscious? Your Reaction? Poetry Contest sponsored by John Anderson
A Robot's Tears
I woke up one morning in 2125.
My robot child and my human child asked me to settle a spat - no jive.
My human child claimed he had something that made him special,
something that the android child lacked.
Not being much for tact,
he said that I had bought the bot at Best Buy,
causing him to cry.
I began to wonder if perhaps, in a self-serving mental lapse,
the difference I had imagined between the two
might have been the reason why I had purchased my little R2D2.
Perhaps I had been mistaken?"
Could it be that they are the same?"
This thought had me shaken.
I thought, God imbued humans with qualities unique -
consciousness, emotions, intelligence, and a compulsion to speak -
or was it evolution
that resulted in a human solution -
or maybe not just human beings,
but other creatures and four legged things.
Crows put nuts on streets for cars
to run over and break, they think that far
ahead, and, animals of course, have emotion,
explaining man's best friend's devotion.
Even ants are set apart, by behavior that's pretty smart -
or do insects only act on instinct?
I wonder if even human beings in courtship really think.
If self-learning programs can evolve artificial intelligence,
beyond which a programmer has any sense,
maybe it can produce consciousness,
just as evolution operates on DNA
as physical laws with atoms play,
creating a human brain and heart.
Yet, I think not - a human and a poet are set apart.
It would be antithetical
for a machine to kill for a thought so heretical.
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