Fake Sugar Isn't Sweet

ChatGPT is the NutraSweet of Poetry

[Note: On Friday’s I post shorter pieces. Today it’s a poem I wrote in 2023 when ChatGPT was just getting into the headlines. I still feel the same way, but worse.

Speaking of poetry, I am honored to be the featured poet on Josh Datko’s Poetry on Tape today, Friday April 24th, at 12:00 eastern/18:00 CET. Josh’s Friday program is the longest running poetry show on subsLack and hanging out during those live shows was one the things that started getting me invested in this medium. He used to feature five new poems from what subsLack poets had written across the previous week, but he is now shifting and experimenting with the format and is going to feature one poet, look at their corpus of work, and pick five poems. Hopefully some of you can tune in live today, join in the chat (not ChatGPT), or listen to the recording over at bitpunkfm.substack.com later. ]

ChatGPT endeavours to make us all obsolete
with intelligence as artificial as a pack of NutraSweet;
It’s not as good as sugar, this machine imagination
can it fix the environment, or render null stagflation?

What about a journalist? Can it from the data sift?
I chafe to think, and get irate, when I see it automate.
Will it catch a nuanced gist, or be blown away by my drift?
It’s just dead matter, not sensate. 
It won’t contribute to Japan’s birth rate.

Human Resources is a roll the chatbot can fill
hiring and firing, without mercy, at will
when the resources its eating are already human
there’ll be no need for an office, it can just Zoom in. 

All this talk of computers gets me down and depressed
and I pray for a virus to invade, hack and infest 
the mainframe server farms where the program is housed
& put an end to these pornbots, all they’ve done is aroused

the space rocket obsessed minds of bros from Silicon Valley.
Can we hold them accountable, do we need to have a rally?
Citizens of the world wide web are being spoonfed like pets
from a hierarchy controlling with puppet strings, the net.

The digital drug all around us instilled
by a cartel of cryptos whose pockets are filled
by microsoft miners in a virtual matrix
under the whip of a web dominatrix.

Upstairs the politicians are still placing their bets
the Ministry of Truth gets nervous with tics and tourettes.
Meanwhile the chaos around them does engulf
while they drink scotch on the green, play another round of golf.

& Spectacle pimps keep pushing superpowers
Marvel Mind Control Systems, to while away the hours
delivered on DC current in shivers and jolts
burning rivers of coal in exchange for the volts.

With neural link implants screwed into our skulls
the colors of life, go blue screen, ever so dull
enslaved to the Skynet, we need to unplug:
to surf the waves of this planet, and give a tree a hug.

.:. .:. .:.

​

The writings presented here will always be free, but you can support my work by passing the essays on to others, and sharing the links to other sites and telling your friends. I have also set up a Buy Me A Coffee page, which you can find here if you would like to put some money in my rainy day coffee jar. You could also buy my book The Radio Phonics Laboratory: Telecommunications, Speech Synthesis, and the Birth of Electronic Music, or my poetry book Underground Rivers, if you want to support me.

☕️☕️☕️

Until Next Time... Keep your Batteries Charged, Your Aerials Up, & Your Fishing Pole Cast Out into the Waters of the Deep