Category: Engineering, Maths, & Physics

Thank You For Your Submission

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Yet more AI slop to pollute the nettawebs…

I sent in my poems, my beautiful poems,
For the algorithm to read.
These weren’t my so-sos, my whatevs, or ho-hums,
But the ones where my spirit is freed.

The greatest I’ve mastered, the finest I’ve crafted –
But the AI just shrugs as I plead.
Rejected by binary, silicon-shafted –
With empty and split-second speed.

But I don’t know why I expected a hearing
From anyone human, indeed –
And so all my labours will not be appearing
My children just hung-out to bleed.

For this must be why I am never selected,
The victim of corporate greed.
It cannot be talent that sees me rejected,
For how can my stuff not succeed…?

What a Pointless Waste…

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What a Pointless Waste…

You advertised a vacancy,
And I, with hope, applied.
I sent you my complete CV,
And I never even lied.
I’ve oodles of experience,
I’ve done the thing you do –
But the algorithm closed the fence
Without an interview.

I guess a hundred thousand others
All could do your job
So how am I to rise above,
The ever-hungry mob ?
I guess I’m lacking bullshit,
And my buzzwords are too few –
So the algorithm doesn’t hit
My name for interview.

I send out applications
For the slightest likelihoods –
But they only yield frustrations –
Cos I’m clearly damaged goods.
I guess by now I should have learned
My usefulness is through
As the algorithm once more spurned
My chance of interview.

You advertise a vacancy,
And I, with gloom, apply –
Though it’s only a formality
That makes me even try.
For the algorithm, it appears,
Just loves to turn the screw,
And will never in a thousand years
Bestow an interview.

Training Neurons

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Inevitably, this image is AI when I gave Chat GPT the poem and asked it for a picture.

Training Neurons

My dreams are like AI –
They’re making-sense in bursts,
But then forgetting what they’ve said.
Over-confident and high –
These yes-men feed my thirsts,
Just to keep me longer in my bed.

All their written words are bees
That simply won’t stay still –
They’re almost right, until they’re read.
They scrape my memories
With a questionable skill,
And they never pay to use my head.

My dreams are like AI –
With their textures not quite right,
And their eyes a little dead.
But still, a riot worth the try,
A playground for a crazy night
Where logic fears to tread.

He that hath the Key of David

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Photo by Henry Acevedo on Pexels.com

He that hath the Key of David

Peter, Peter, holding the keys to Heaven –
Without them, he’s quite undressed !
And looking so very med’eval in expression,
Upon the Papal crest.

And always two, when crossed or in the hand,
As their fated moment waits  –
Presumably to seal up the hinterland
Behind the Pearly Gates.

Duplicates ?  Or are there two locks ?
Though Roman keys were crude in their click –
I guess the security has taken some knocks,
And been upgraded to the latest trick –
But by flashing the teeth, you’ll hardly outfox
The burglars, who won’t find them hard to pick.

Peter, Peter, jailer or janitor ?
Jingling through the Heavenly crowds.
And locking the safe like a manager,
Or winding-up the clockwork clouds ?

Million-Dollar Flippers

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Pinball by Craig Musselman

Million-Dollar Flippers

Why is the minimum score in pinball
For hitting a light or ringing a bell
Always ten ?  And why not one ?
You think I’ll play some more of your pinball
If the mounting-numbers always swell
By tens, or even a ton ?
Cheap psychology, insulting intelligence –
And it works the other way on me,
Annoying my latent OCD.
And video games make as little sense,
Continuing to cheapen the score
By piling on ever more and more.
It all comes back to the spinning reels of pinball,
Bullshitting me with spam,
Expecting me to be impressed.
They think their hyper-inflation appeals in pinball,
Like I should give a damn
Like I’m on some kind of epic quest.
The logics of these sleazy joints,
Is overpricing ev’rything-
With ev’ry time the buzzers ring.
They’re cheap participation points.
The zeroes flash forever more –
Forget the game, just watch the score !

Less Polymath, More Monomath

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Photo by Tomas Anunziata on Pexels.com

Less Polymath, More Monomath

Leo, Leo, heavenly man,
A mathematician who became a priest –
You knew about sin, and cos, and tan,
And the factors of the Number of the Beast.
But you favoured Logos over logic,
Never counting the chromosomes of the Son –
So now you teach a numeric bodge
By claiming one plus one plus one is one.

Silicon Britons

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You really have to hand it to AI, it sure does love flawless skin and a good polish.

Silicon Britons

(A Tale from the Fifties)

We’ll see them, on the bus,
Or cheering-on the football,
Or traipsing-round the National Trust,
Or belting out the Proms.
They’ll read The Times and join our clubs,
While adding to our footfall,
As they jostle in our lunchtime pubs,
And polishing their ROMs.

Maybe robots, maybe androids,
Meeting humans, kissing, breeding –
Raising mixed-race cyborgs
In the family Morris Minor.
They proudly learn to get-to-grips
With walking dogs and Sunday weeding –
British to their very microchips,
(Though made in China).

Twist & Flex

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Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Pexels.com

Twist & Flex

We should not ask
How the fairy lights
Have grown so tangled
In their box.
We should not reach
For blaming fairies,
Inbetween
Their stealing socks.
It is not magic,
Cosmic karma,
Nor some plot
Or hand of Fate –
It’s just mundane
And simple physics,
Where small movements
Escalate.
Someone, someday,
Someone else,
Will write a thesis
On the thing –
And we shall chuckle
As we calmly
Counterwind
The errant string.
Watch some telly,
Play the wireless,
Call our fam’lies,
While it’s done –
But do not worry
Why the job exists,
That’s just how
Quantums spun.

Bernoulli’s Principal

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Bernoulli’s Principal

The wing, as I was always taught,
Is always asymmetric –
Flat beneath, but curved above,
To make the wind go quick.

You see, it has a longer route to travel
Over the top.
And thus it has to hurry-up,
And make the pressure drop.

And thus, the wing is sucked straight upwards,
Sucked into the air.
But what they never told me was,
Just why the wind should care ?

Do they all think we think that the wind is alive
When charging ahead ?
Suddenly rushing to rejoin its friend
That blew beneath instead ?

Oh, and when pressure is low, it still doesn’t suck –
It shoves, as before.
What keeps us up is simply the fact
That high pressure presses more.

In short, there is no welcoming wind
To lure us into the sky.
But clearly something’s working here,
For aeroplanes do fly.

The Gloves Are Off

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The Gloves Are Off

Since art has lost the manual touch,
We’re losing grip of anatomy –
Our illustrations are in the clutch
Of the polydactyl travesty.
Digital digits and silicon glands
Make too many fingers, too few thumbs –
That lead to such unhandsome hands
From thought-machines that can’t do sums.
A sure way to uncover the witch
Whose fingers point to a lack of soul,
It only takes the flick of a switch
To over-endow a lack of control.
But they’ll slowly grasp to make a fist,
So we’d best stop smirking behind our fans –
They might not have a pulse in their wrist,
But our future’s held in their second-hand hands.