Dear Poet,
Who’s written hundreds of poems
Who is TikTok famous
Who is good-looking as only the young can be
Who wants us to turn our poems into songs
Who wants us to just download this app…
Dear Poet,
Did you consider talking to musicians?
Did you wonder about collaboration?
The push and pull,
ebb and flow,
of the collaborative creative process
Dear Poet,
I don’t discourage you from trying to monetize what you do
But I object to you replacing musicians with machines
I object to you selling fellow poets into bondage
(It’s not even the good kind)
A serf in technofeudalism
Is still a serf
Dear Poet,
Did you even read the terms and conditions before you sold your soul?
“By using the Service or otherwise transmitting Submissions to us, you grant to evil corporate overlord and our affiliates, successors, assigns, and designees a worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, sublicensable (directly and indirectly through multiple tiers), assignable, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, store, modify, distribute, create derivative works based on, perform, display, communicate, transmit and otherwise make available any and all Content (in whole or in part) and any rights you may have in your Voice Model, in each case, in any media now known or hereafter developed, in connection with the provision, use, monetization, promotion, marketing, and improvement of our products and services, including the Service and the artificial intelligence and machine learning models related to the Service. This license to your Content and Voice Model includes a license to your likeness, voice rights and other indicia of your persona that may be embodied in your Content or Voice Model. For the avoidance of doubt, this license authorizes us to make your Content (including Output that incorporates your Voice Model, but, for clarity, not your Voice Model itself) available to and sublicense such Content to other users of the Service as necessary to provide the Service, and you further grant to evil corporate overlord the worldwide, fully paid-up, sublicensable, assignable, perpetual and irrevocable right to identify to the public (both on and off the Service) that Output (or any of it) was generated via the Service.”
Dear Poet,
I think you are real
but I had to double check
And at first glance I was ready to dismiss you
Because that is the world we live in
That you are helping to create
One where art is easy yet mundane
And all it cost us was all our power, water, and artists
Dear Poet,
Who peddles AI slop
Is that where the poems come from?
At the rate of one a day
Because why should I trust you?
Or anything you say
Dear Poet,
You are weak and a fool.
Image “The Enraged Musician” (1741) by William Hogarth
Word Outlet 