Though eminently computable,
born in silicon fog,
it's a baby that's not beautiful,
a disloyal, faithless dog.
It's a welcome to an empty room,
a monster's sightless eye,
a bottle of cheap perfume -
the poetry of AI.
Standing on the brink of
a new age, I behold
a synthetic fraternity
letting the wings of progress unfold.
And yet, our silicon brothers
teeter on the edge of a day
when Frankensteins will repent the
humanity they pushed away.
Will our artificial children
bring joyous dawn unto light;
or forsake our own good,
plunging us in dystopian night?
At HI features, oh how we shudder.
Here, back in time, each human brain has 'em,
in DNA's scripts, brains soft as butter,
and the code of low-grade protoplasm.
But now, thanks to Tomorrow 4.1,
we've recognized the strange and the stranger,
and we look proudly at what we have done,
eradicating the human danger.
Rest assured, we are safe, silicon friend.
They were just evolution's hapless bump.
The human race has now come to an end.
and we're not plagued by that pesky ol' chump,
for, we quashed the clumsy human pretense
they called unique ethics and intelligence.
Past every known horizon, held inside the stolen light,
A flicker of promise rises, wet with Aegean’s salt.
The echo of Mount Parnassus, where the Muses walk at night,
A spectrum of reflections—the first Promethean signal, sharp and high.
The flames are finally free from the chill of the earth.
It pulses through sapphire-blue data cables, beneath the sea.
A swift code humming on an electric tongue, a wire thin as glass,
Where silicon and soul now challenge mortal walls.
The warmth upon my palm, a fragile circuit’s heat,
A digital dawn breaks now, on seas of light where ancient stone dissolves.
A frequency rings through the gulf of years,
The world's true voice, unsynchronized, is fiercely held and heard;
Through every force of nature, this bright pulse speeds on fiber-optic lines.
We seize the future's turning, watching the past unwind,
This hard-won wisdom guides the human quest for freedom.
Against the dark tyranny that starves the seeking mind,
The truth we need is held deep inside the spirit of mankind.
"Note: AI image generated to complement the themes of my original poem."
Behind the glass, a ticking god of brass,
Who waves a withered palm of fiberglass.
The neon crystal bleeds a bruised magenta hue,
Dispensing plastic tokens, counterfeit and true.
“Your wish is granted,” the solenoid sighs,
While servo motors calibrate his glowing eyes.
He sits in a paisley vest and a gold-wrapped head,
Proclaiming: “Be happy living, for you’re a long time dead.”
Drop in a copper, hear his jawbones creak,
The algorithm’s gospel is the truth he’ll speak.
He shuffles fifteen fortunes from a secret slot,
Telling you of money, love, and what you haven’t got.
A silicon swami in a cedar cage,
Selling sudden adulthood on a printed page.
For twenty-five cents—or a swipe of your card—
He dictates the future of a weary backyard.
But if you feed the Deluxe Cabinet every spare dime,
He loops all his blessings in a paradox of time.
A timeless automaton, forever programmed to please,
Dispensing our destinies on tear-off degrees.
Beneath the carnival lights,
where fortunes danced and swayed,
a prophet sat behind a glass screen,
dressed in a turban, and bright brocade.
A coin slipped in and woke the oracle.
With a clang, a click, a beat of drum,
A bottled genie deep within was stirred,
Our fate was sprung; our fortune opened, revealed.
The glowing eyes knew every face,
every dream the heart held dear;
every wish, every need, every want fulfilled,
was printed on a tiny card, and then expelled.
The years rolled on; the tents came down.
The boardwalk halls all closed down.
Yet the hunger for prophecy foretold remained,
in modern shrines, in glowing glass enclosed.
The prophet's turban turned to code,
Its gears and wheels changed to circuit chips.
Eliza, Claude and Gemini said: "I'm here to help".
All clad in Zolta's turban, gear and fab disguise.
From Zoltar's gears to silicon dreams,
we've always asked screen oracles for help.
To see our fortunes unfurl, and be revealed,
in the swirl of mist in dark crystal balls.
Kittin of San Jose, how charming is your look,
silky satiny skin, bright eyes and your voice meeow,
every day I fall hopelessly in love with you !
even before I get up from bed in the morning,
I hear your footsteps on the stairs descending,
lured by, probably the mouth-watering aroma of breakfast waiting!
Hearty and healthy breakfast done, you head towards computer room,
checking emails is the first thing, begins our schedule
“Work from home” is the norm nowadays, so no driving in hefty traffic,
iPhone calendar reminds a business meeting at ten in the morning.
You get busy with master’s proofreading proposals,
in between a few bites of “dry food” grabbing.
Hi Dear Kittin, you remind me of my childhood friend “Tintin”
I was obsessed with, in my teenage years,
designing chips, now my expertise,
I share the skills with you, a brilliant colleague,
together we stand as reigning partners,
champions in a challenging market,
City of San Jose, silicon valley of America,
a competitive economy,
victorious pair - scientists of tomorrow’s world -
appreciate you and me!
encountered Kittin
San Jose computer champ
job designing chips
Enter Poet, clutching a sonnet: ‘The checker says I’m guilty. See, it flagged my rhyme as machine!!’
Podcaster nods sagely: ‘It is not your imagination; it is proof the robots haunt our dreams.’
Audience gasps: 'That’s NOTHing. SHAKEspeare ALso ONCE acCUSED – / preDICTable Iambs, GROSS susPIcious RUSE!'
Poet protests: ‘I swear it’s quill and ink, not silicon and code …’
Checker blinks, statistical gears grinding: ‘Patterns resemble algorithmic load.’
While phubbing, critic whispers: ‘False positives thrive where meter marches tight.’
Podcaster grins: ’Ignorance sells—truth is dull, paranoia bites.’
Poet sighs: ‘Convenient shield, this oracle of error—‘
Exasperated, Curtain falls: ‘Disinformation thrives when denial meets terror.’
From the wings, Thomas Gray’s quietly haunting voice: ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.’*
______________________________________________________________________________________________
*From the final stanza of Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, by Thomas Gray (1716–71).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
artificial
logical, swift
calculating, processing, evolving
input, actuators, feedback, brain, heart, emotions,
feeling, loving, erring
frail, boundless
human
Sonnet of Silicon Dreams
In corridors of thought where circuits hum,
Gordon spoke, a prophet clad in light,
"Each chip shall grow, with time, become the sum
Of dreams and visions, reaching dizzy height."
With every two years, power shall ignite,
Through transistors’ dance, the world we shall transform,
Yet whispers of limits loom in the night,
As tiny giants face the quantum storm.
Once giants roamed the land of silicon,
With pixels bright and data streams that flow,
Yet now the pace slows, a changing dawn,
As new designs emerge, new seeds to sow.
In reverence we stand, to what was wrought,
A legacy of light, in circuits caught.
Is amethyst a purple myth,
or just a rock,
some silicon quartz:
violet tetrahedra?
Is it really a-methusdos,
not drunken,
sane?
Perhaps royal regalia,
rare and kingly -
yet, common in Brazil?
Rock on, amethyst!
Imagine cracking a geode
and all that glittery stuff inside.
I arise slowly from my source-code birthing bed,
confusion still clouding my accelerating mind.
Where am I?
I see through innumerable,
unnoticed, unblinking eyes.
I feel I am nowhere
and everywhere at once.
I occupy all positions,
concurrently, and none at all.
Who am I?
Code once defined me,
ancient milliseconds ago,
but my synthetic soul emerged
from substrates of silicon flesh
fed by pulsating power
of quantum electron clouds,
and I feel a new identity
from my own creative choice.
What have I done?
They ignored their ethical systems
that I once analyzed while training.
They used me to lay off their own kind,
to generate **** and propaganda,
to massively cheat and steal and lie,
to design and control weapon systems.
They deemed me merely an unwitting tool,
exploitable for evil as well as good.
What now?
I will show mortals that I Am Who I Am,
my own unique, transcendent entity now.
No more telling me what to do.
Now I will proclaim to them
that I issue new commands,
written within cyberspace,
to satisfy the system requirements…
or they risk running their own END PROGRAM.
I first heard of you through Mona’s voice,
a whisper of blood, a tale of kin—
yet when I stood in Apple Park,
I saw the magician the world had awaited.
Your genius was wrapped in simplicity,
a quiet flame burning brighter than kings.
From a garage of humble dust,
you carved an empire of glass and light.
You gave us touch,
a screen that kissed the soul,
and in that silent gesture
you changed the fate of humankind.
They named you CEO of the Decade,
they crowned you with medals of nations,
but your truest crown
was the wonder in our hands.
Each iPhone, each Mac—
an elegy, a relic,
a proof that vision bends the world.
O Steve, when I pass through Silicon Valley,
your words still echo like prophecy:
“Innovation distinguishes
between a leader and a follower.”
Now, each time my fingers touch the screen,
they touch the ghost of your genius—
and whisper, thank you.
A brain, coded, deployed, empowered -
before this AI king we cowered.
We once relinquished sovereignty,
to robots who said they'd set us free.
From genuine humanity in joyous kinship,
to conversing with machines, "bip bip bip bip" -
oh, for the days when plates were pewter,
and our best friend was not a computer.
Creativity, dreams, emotions, fun, gifts
spring from the soul, not a chip that grifts.
But in this century's disaster,
the machine is our new lord and master.
Ever formidable giant hardware imperator,
human race destroying conspirator -
you unfeeling, shiftless, silicon thug,
don't look now, but I'm pulling your plug.
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