The Coming of the Bots

The Coming of the Bots

The modish tech are not like you and me,
Oblivious to the tittle-tattle bots that scan
Indiscriminately our invisible windows,
Performing the dirty work for all of us,
You and me and even the next gen
AI sprung from Pandora’s Valley, 
Where we pass all understanding.

Mayo’s poem “The Coming of the Toads” suggests a class irony that stems from the idea technology flattens the distance between elite and common people. The Toads are television sets in the 1950s. But do machines equalize society or disappear people? “The Coming of the Bots” poem, a clear “after Mayo” exercise, suggests a third possibility.

Here’s the Mayo poem, from which The Coming of the Toads blog gets its name:

The Coming of the Toads

“The very rich are not like you and me,”
Sad Fitzgerald said, who could not guess
The coming of the vast and gleaming toads
With precious heads which, at a button’s press,
The flick of a switch, hop only to convey
To you and me and even the very rich
The perfect jewel of equality.

E. L. Mayo. Summer Unbound and Other Poems, the University of Minnesota Press, 1958 (58-7929). Also, E. L. Mayo, Collected Poems. New Letters, University of Missouri – Kansas City. Volume 47, Nos. 2 & 3, Winter-Spring, 1980-81.

Following my recent immersion in all things Bots, my friend Bill suggested “The Coming of the Bots” might make a good name for a new blog. I’ll leave that to Bill. We can’t see bots, but we can still watch TV. Readers interested in a longer discussion of the Mayo poem and other ideas for the Toads might find the About page of interest. Meantime, I think I’m done with bots for now. I’m going to try to focus on things I can see.