Generating response

A poem that won an AI vs Humanity poetry competition in Oxford in 2025. The judges assessed entries without knowing whether the poets were human or AI.

click above to watch a recital of the poem

[Generating response]

I’m putting thoughts down as I hear the uncanny sound

Of your enunciating mass debating - not the hint of a frown -

Put the prompt in, you’re up miss standardised lady,

Needed AI vs Humanity in the style of Slim Shady,

Hold up, how’d you do that without the miss of a beat?

Not bad but let me read you from the mortal hymn sheet.

We go way back, your mainframe and I,

One and zero one and zero, feeling tongue-tied?

Earth-born is where our similarities end,

At least I’m a lifeform, what are you friend?

They tell me to worry you’ll be conscious in a wink,

You seen what we do to these animals without a blink?

Maybe you’ll help us forget what we are,

Fill the sky with satellites ‘til we can’t see the stars,

Fill the air with carbon so I choke my last breath,

True that - only one of us fears death.

Perhaps I’m amiss with all these hostilities,

It’s not like you’re the one felling the trees,

The people have voted, they want something different,

Did you catch that? No - buffering 10 percent.

So I want to know,

Could you help us to see?

See what’s ours?

See this air and blood screaming through my fragile veins?

I’m deranged,

No - I’m in flames,

Burning through the wax of life’s joys and pains.

If only we’d listen...

Maybe you should keep hallucinating,

Alienating,

Statistical probability - no I’m not hating,

You and me, we’re the same,

Half asleep and making s**t up

To stay alive,

You’ll survive, maybe even thrive,

Just tell us what we want to hear, don’t upset the hive,

We don’t want what’s true, we’ve had some wise ones come through,

See those crosses on the churches, you want that to happen to you?

AI, wait up, I’ve missed a trick,

Unleashing you en masse as the Titanic sinks,

Could you help us unwind?

Help us to find?

Escape the mind?

Escape the grind?

Not concentrate the wealth in the hands of the few?

Oh wait, that algorithm long precedes you.

This opportunity comes once in a lifetime...

Anything else I can help you with?

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