Rae Armantrout
Pose
So the problem we pose
is how to create an intelligent
agent
and then prevent it
from destroying this world?
*
“Content monitoring
that required the AI’s
intentional states
to be transparent
might not be feasible
for all architectures.”
*
A long green straw
stuck in the ground
with two ears (leaves)
protruding
on either side
at intervals
*
What we meant
by “listening stations”
and when we began
to mean this.
*
Perhaps its goal would be
to have “thoughts”
pass through its “head”
so it could record them.
*
“Preparedness is critical.”
“Kiss all hope goodbye.”
“A friend wants you to like it.”
Like
Small white lights
twined around white
dead sticks
under a glass dome
flash –
like getting an idea
was the idea.
*
Like thinking
I want to fall asleep,
each night coming so soon
after the last,
and hosting a string
of tedious dreams
like trying to get back
to my office
*
I head
back in
to clear it
out,
my head
My Bad Self
“Superior,” as in
I feel superior
to the hunched,
hobbling woman
with the fixed smile
walking in front of me.
With the beatific,
mysterious smile —
intended to deflect pity?
It’s not working!
And, what’s worse,
it’s not necessary.
My gaze hovers
then rebounds,
spiteful as Tinkerbell
always.
Those
“It is extremely difficult to explain,”
says the astronomer,
“why the sky is not more
mottled,”
why the far sides
of the universe
are mirror images
of one another
(while we who’re packed
meme to meme
are so often
out of sync)
*
All those I reconstruct
so faithfully
in dreams
in order
to defend myself
to somebody
*
Some claim space
grew exponentially
between them
without disturbing them
in the least
Rae Armantrout’s most recent books include Itself (2015), Just Saying (2013), Money Shot (2011), Versed, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Award. In 2016, Wesleyan University Press also released Partly: New and Selected Poems (2001-2015).