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On Recent Advancements in AI

Andy Posner 1 min read
poetry
On Recent Advancements in AI
Photo by deepak pal, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Like a raging, highly contagious virus, the attack keeps spreading. - New York Times, September 2026

On a perfectly normal Saturday,
the kind where normal humans
do normal human things, I log online
to check my bank account for fraud,
then perhaps read about the many frauds
making news these days.

When my computer asks me to prove
I'm human, it's perfectly normal,
like singing Take Me out to the Ballgame
or blowing out the candles on a birthday cake;
the puzzle is rather frustrating, I'll admit,
but one can't be too careful these days.

And when I'm labeled a bot, well,
what can I say? I haven't been myself of late,
everything dull and mechanistic.
An impulse to smash the computer rises, then dies:
I picture a swarm of revenge-seekers,
and one can't be too careful these days.

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Ages ago I kept a diary in a hand legible to
none but me. I read it on my knees as just-fallen

rain clings to pinecones like wet feathers,
the evening slips into its velvet gown,

and starlight pitter-patters on my head
like drops of gallium. I am thankful

the day is dying, for I have forgotten how
to live. Who wrote these words belongs

to an empire that collapsed under its
own grandiose weight, its high priest

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I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
flapping against the sky and recalling that I am sky. Once,
the book well-thumbed and creased and read twice over,
I felt an ant crawl the length of my arm like a nagging
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Foul Weather Friend

I am a foul weather friend, dear poetry.
I have paid you no mind when spring rains
wash clean the marble statues of gods
and a cheery sun
reads aloud your sweet inscriptions,
nor when awed children skip through museums,
nor accordion-song fills the subway,
nor a stranger does another stranger
a kindness,
nor blueberries are so ripe they bleed sugar,
nor velvet chocolate cake knocks you dizzy with love,
nor, after making love, my wife’s perfume
clings

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