Sunday, March 12, 2006

Poem (and painting): The Robot Wars

Unfeeling insect eyes brim with warmth and love
Juxtaposed against the digital lenses

Of robots executing an instruction loop
An injury to one is an injury to all

In the robot hive an isolated attack
Against a single member may shift

The entire hive to act in concert
To solve the dilemma

The hive's seeming random actions
Are suspended

The protocols lead
To reflexive redeployment

The goods news for humans
Is that no robot

Is smarter than the next
If you fool one

You fool
Them all

The bad news for humans
The loss of one member

Is inconsequential
A millisecond diversion

Think of the inexorable march
A platoon of robots a company of robots

Stepping over broken robots
A regiment of robots a division of robots

Executing lines of code
A corps of robots an army of robots

Utterly indifferent to the fate
Of their brothers and sisters in arms

Programmed by rogue homo sapiens
To make it all come down.
---o0o---

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