Tony Pupello
Essay #34 July/Aug/Sept 2026
“Resistance is futile”.
- Locutus of Borg, 1990
It has been twenty-six years since the publication of Bill Joy’s brilliant, prescient essay “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” — a chilling, dispassionate exposition on the dangers of “self-replicating technologies” — “GNRs” — genetics, nanotechnologies and robotics — the precursors, if you will, to “AI”.
As Joy attests: “… Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies — robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology — pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once — but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.”
– Bill Joy
“Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”
Wired Magazine, Issue 8.04 – April, 2000 (Courtesy of Georgia Tech)
For those who may be unaware, Bill Joy is the furthest you could come from a Luddite. Computer scientist, technologist, visionary — he was a founder of Sun Microsystems and for a time held the esteemed title “Chief Scientist” at Sun Microsystems. All this to say he embraced technology and is arguably one of the pillars 21st century technology.
Yet in 2000 he published “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”
Writing twenty-five years later, Andrew Hessel, geneticist, futurist and commentator, states:
“His [Joy’s] central argument wasn’t that AI would rise in rebellion, or that nanobots would devour the Earth in a grey goo apocalypse. Instead, it was more subtle and insidious: that these technologies would become so effective, so accessible, and so self-perpetuating that society might “drift” into complete dependence without noticing. The risks would not stem from conscious malice, but rather from complexity, scale, and a loss of control.”
“Joy’s deeper insight was not into any one technology, but into the nature of exponential change. He worried about self-replication, about the inability to put ideas back in the bottle once released, and about the seductive pace of innovation overwhelming our capacity for reflection.”
– Andrew Hessel ”Revisiting Bill Joy’s ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’ in 2025″
Medium, Sept. 5, 2025
Finally, just last month, in May of 2026, a one hundred and thirty-five year old honor tradition at Princeton University was upended — as of July 1st, 2026, all in-person exams at Princeton will be proctored. Per a bit of background from Rose Horowitch:
“In 1876, an editorial in Princeton’s newly founded campus newspaper, The Princetonian, argued against the use of proctors to monitor exams. Proctoring was ‘a means of bad moral education,’ the author wrote. Treat students as presumptively dishonest, and some would become so; treat them as honorable, and they would learn to behave honorably. And so the editorial board suggested a different approach: ‘Let every man write at the end of his paper a pledge that he has neither given nor received help, and let professors and tutors address themselves to some better business than watching for fraud.’
That proposal was eventually embodied in Princeton’s famous Honor Code, adopted in 1893 and modified only lightly in the ensuing 133 years. When students take their final exams, professors leave the room. Students write down a pledge not to cheat. They are expected to report anyone who does. Any student accused of impropriety comes before a jury of their peers.”
– Rose Horowitch ”How AI Killed a 133-Year-Old Princeton Tradition”
The Atlantic, May 12, 2026
Those of you who have borne with me thus far may rightly ask “what the heck does any of this have to do with an essay in a haiku journal – or any poetry journal for that matter – that is NOT attempting to deal with the ethics or the moral ambiguities arising from the use of AI?” I think we would agree that would be a totally justified topic. But, to be clear, I am not attempting such a discussion; certainly not in any overt manner.
I have long been interested in the relationship between technology and haiku. It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that without technology, including the internet, software applications, email, etc., etc., this “online journal” would not be possible. Technology is, for better or worse, part of the very fabric of our 21st century existence. The purpose of this essay is to briefly explore how technology has been woven into that fabric, how it is presented in haiku and senryū. As regards AI specifically, for those readers of a certain age who may be removed from the workforce or academia, I encourage you to speak to your younger colleagues and survey just how prevalent the use of AI is. Some of you may be truly shocked at the responses.
A good place to start viewing the intersection of haiku and technology is with one of the quintessential “symbols” of haiku, the cherry blossom (old ponds, anyone?), as presented in the following poem by Amy Losak.
computer screen
the closest I will get
to cherry blossoms
As with any tool, technology can be a double-edged sword. Is work/technology taking up so much of the poet’s time that she cannot get to view cherry blossoms in real life? Although tech is supposed to have freed us up — given us more time for ourselves and our pursuits — as anyone working with or using tech knows, just the opposite is the norm. We are overwhelmed by the volume of work tech “has created” for us. Just check your in-boxes!
Or, is the on-screen representation of cherry blossoms the closest the poet can get to them? Is an infirmity or prohibition of some sort preventing the poet from a live view? If so, although bitter-sweet, the poet may therefore be grateful for the technology. Or, finally, is the poet making a statement here about just how much tech has supplanted her real life.
In the following three poems by Debbi Antebi, Michele L. Harvey and Dan Curtis, respectively, we witness a push-back on tech in favor of the natural world.
the call of spring dimming the light
closing all windows of my computer screen …
on my computer moonrise
moonlight through my window streaming live
In Antebi’s piece the poet responds to “the call of spring” by “closing all windows”. She is not, of course, closing her real windows. In a nice misdirection she is closing the windows on her computer — in effect shutting it down in order to better hear the sounds of nature in the springtime.
Harvey’s piece is very similar though her medium is light rather than sound. She is choosing the naturally luminescent light of the moon over light cast by a computer screen.
Curtis’ poem also utilizes the medium of light — again, of natural moonlight. There are two “plays” he makes here worth pointing out. He subtly references those ever-present software “windows” without mentioning them; he calls on, indeed directly rebukes, the notion of “streaming”. In this era of hyper-media, we are treated to a “live stream” but NOT a virtual one, ie: a tech stream occurring in real time. We are treated to a live “live stream”.
The following two poems by Neal Whitman and Lenard D. Moore, although referencing streaming and light from a computer screen, take us in some very different directions, not least of which may be political.
live streaming
nightfall
my first time
the computer screen lit
in a unisex restroom
in a trooper’s car
In Whitman’s poem there is again the play on “live” live streaming. In this instance, though, the poet is not talking about streaming moonlight. I do believe this a humorous attempt at capturing a moment of potential embarrassment, a moment of the recognition of being in a situation contrary to the way an individual was brought up — a 21st century circumstance — unisex bathroom — contrasted with the use of a 21st century idiom — live streaming. I would be remiss not to mention a much darker/we would hope not-meant-by-the-poet moment — capturing a video stream within a restroom (no pun intended). I think this not the case, but with members of the younger generation …
Nightfall. As we don’t have too many troopers in cities, one can only imagine a rural setting in Moore’s poem. The computer screen is lit, hence on. Is the computer screen in a law enforcement vehicle always on? Is it just that we can see the screen’s illumination more clearly because it is dark? And, more to the point, what of the troopers themselves? Are they in the car? Interestingly enough, Moore is focusing on the disembodied lit computer screen as representative, perhaps, of processes taking place in the background.
Tech has introduced a number of terms into our everyday parlance as well as morphed existing terms into new meanings, “windows” and “streaming” being two examples. As we will see from the poems below by Tanya McDonald and Bryan Rickert, “apps,” short for “applications”, is another of these terms whose meaning has shifted and, I believe, has come to far outstrip its name. The notion of an app has taken on a “life” of its own and their prevalence in our lives is astounding. Seemingly, there is an app for everything.
morning sun the bird app
the app says tells me it’s common
it’s a yellow warbler this yellow throat
Clearly there is an app that can help us identify species of birds — whether through sight or sound OR a combination of both. I imagine it varies from app to app and how much we are willing to spend for them. Worth noting: in both poems either “the app says” or the app “tells me”. To be clear, this is in no way a disparagement of either poet. Speaking/writing in normal conversational English this is how we all would describe the results from using the app.
In a humorous swipe at technology, McDonald lets us know that just be because the tech “says” doesn’t make it so. The app got it wrong. Rays of sunlight most probably through foliage have been mistaken for a yellow warbler. McDonald is thus highlighting the deeper implication that tech needs to be questioned, verified and not necessarily “taken at its word”.
In an initial reading I find the humor in how Rickert separates the bird’s name. Perhaps that’s all that is here. Possibly over-reading, I sense a different sort of swipe at technology here. In the poem “common” is no longer a part of the bird’s name, it becomes an adjective. And I sense a “how-dare-it” moment to be found here. How dare this piece of software “call” this wonderous creature “common”?
A term that is completely new, introduced into our vocabulary totally as a result of our technological age is “captcha” used in the poem below by Indra Neil Mekala. On the surface a simple and straightforward poem, I find the subtext to be unnerving.
online donation —
proving I’m a human
to the captcha
“Captcha” has become a term or a noun but it originated as an acronym: CAPTCHA, which stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” It is based on the work of Alan Turing, pioneering computer scientist and mathematician. In short, a captcha is a security measure, an attempt to discern that a human being (as opposed to a bot), is attempting to use a website.
We all use passwords and for good reason, although many of us lament the fact that we have to do so and we may have so many of them. Most of us never stop and think what the password is about. Is the password being evaluated by a human being? No, it is being evaluated by an automated system we take for granted. A captcha, we would argue is a good thing as well. However, there are two things I find deeply disturbing about Mekala’s poem. The first is that a captcha seems to me a further slide towards that dependence Joy and Hessel were alluding to. After all, the captcha system is not checking a string of characters against a database. It is actually evaluating, on a higher level, that input. Further — the darkness of the poem — in effect we are having to prove to an automated system we are human.
Speaking of passwords, I would be remiss in not including work speaking of passwords. Two fine examples are provided by Angela Terry and John Pappas below.
changing passwords early morning fog
after the hack all the wrong
all day rain passwords
Time was a “hack” referred to a mediocre artist, writer, performer who lacked genuine creativity — or at least eschewed creativity for speed and profit. And “hacking” referred to chopping something, most probably wood. But no longer. A hack, as we are all aware, now refers to a security breach, an intrusion into a private system. Changing passwords after a hack is the equivalent of having to cancel credit cards after a burglary or the loss of a bag/wallet. It is tedious, time-consuming and requires a good amount of stamina. Not only do we have to remember and access each individual account, we then have to structure strong, meaningful-to-us new passwords. Unless, of course, we rely on the computer to do so. Although stronger than our own creations, computer-generated passwords ofttimes are senseless to us, making remembering/storing them a task in itself. Depending on the number of accounts we have, it may take a good part of the day to change our passwords. In her poem I believe Terry captures all of the tedium.
Pappas’ poem speaks to the mental stumbling and subsequent frustration some of us go through when accessing our systems at the beginning of the work-day. Early morning, whether at a separate workplace or our in-home remote office, our routine, our professional existence, is predicated on us logging into our systems. On this particular day, the poet’s brain is “fogged”. Perhaps as a result of missing or messing up the first password, the trend has continued.
No doubt what is displayed on our computer screens can speak — or hide — volumes. And what is displayed or not can often produce some very light moments as evidenced by the following from Hifsa Ashraf and Vandana Parashar.
new intern multiple tabs
his computer’s display screen he opens solitaire
totally blank as mom enters
Ashraf’s piece is very light, totally understandable and would evoke a smile from most readers. The new intern’s screen is devoid of content, much like the new intern her or himself. Similarly, Parashar’s piece would evoke a smile but not for what is there, but for what is being hidden. What IS being hidden? Since the internet is literally a gateway to the universe of information it could be anything. That said, “mom” is probably entering her son’s room in “mom’s house,” thus “he” being of a certain age.
As tech evolves, modes of communication are shifting as well. Although email is still by far the overall choice for business/professional correspondence, more and more commerce is conducted over messaging and if you’ve spent any time recently in a hospital, you know text messaging between doctors and nurses is indeed the norm. Further, where Facebook is still prevalent (MySpace anyone?), Instagram and Tik Tok seem to be the mass-media, mass-communication platforms of choice, at least for the time being. Warren Decker presents us with a very interesting poem along these lines.
his ego death
on ayahuasca
on instagram
Ayahuasca is a very powerful hallucinogenic originating in the Amazon Basin aboriginally used for spiritual and medicinal purposes. The goal of an “ego death” is to remove the boundaries between the self and others, to remove the boundaries between the self and the universe, to join the self to the universe. Is Decker’s poem a celebration of this mass-communication/mass-joining event being achieved through Instagram? Or is it just the opposite? Is the very personal stripping away of one’s ego paraded on this medium of mass-communication an absurd travesty? I am not entirely sure which but I am compelled to try and find out.
As our dependence on tech increases, there seems to me to be an ever-increasing loss of our humanity. I believe these two fine pieces from the pens of Mark E. Brager and Marianne Paul highlight this phenomenon raising more questions than answers.
thunderhead losing myself in big data origin stories
the lies we tell
the machines
What exactly is this “big data” Braga is speaking of? Data collections? Collections of data collections? Systems of data collections? Systems of systems of data collections? Personal history data? Group history data? Which haiku groups and organizations he belongs to? Which haiku groups and organizations I belong to? I feel the very heavy weight of being enveloped, nay trapped, in Braga’s “big data” — precisely the point.
What exactly is Paul getting at in her engaging, thought-provoking poem? Is she simply referring to a made-up biography complete with outdated picture for a dating site? Is she referring to an inflated curriculum vitae or resume posted on a professional networking site? Or is she moving in a much deeper direction? Why does she cite “origin stories?” An origin story is a foundation — it is foundational. Our origin stories are the foundations of our self-truths. They explain who we are, what we’ve become viz where we came from — as individuals, as groups, as societies and civilizations. She — we — are telling whatever the lies may be (yet another very deep question), NOT to each other but to the machines. How? Why?
As the splitting of the atom holds both untold promise as well as untold threat, I believe AI offers much the same. It can be an incredible boon to humanity, think first and foremost medicine and research. It can also be, without a doubt, humanity’s undoing. Not one given to hyperbole, I am nonetheless a realist. Not only are jobs being lost, but professions are being wiped out as well. We are told new jobs and professions will result. I have yet to see this. I see, globally, a shrinking middle class without movement into the upper classes. Putting aside our direct “communication” with the likes of Alexa, and its “communication” with us — I know of at least two individuals who have on-going back-and-forth communication with bots far stronger than Alexa, and one of them professes to far enjoy his discourse with bots over that with human beings — we have arrived at the point of bots communicating directly with bots. Algorithms of ever-greater complexity, sophistication and strength are being rolled out almost on a daily basis.
I began this essay with a quote from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. To confess, I have always had an ambivalent, conflicted feeling about the show. Although a great sci-fi show with some great characters and plots, carrying on some of the best traditions of the original, I could never get over one of its main characters — the “Data” character. Data is the show’s equivalent of the “Spock” character in the original. Like Spock, Data is very, very different from us. Hence the show’s attempt to urge us to accept and embrace the differences. But Spock is an organism, alive. Is Data actually a sentient creature, actually alive?
For the first time in the essay we come to the explicit mention of “AI” — artificial intelligence. The following pieces are, respectively, by Carmela Marino, Srini and me. My brief comment is solely on Marino’s poem, which I find to be provocative and challenging — in a manner similar to the last two poems presented by Brager and Paul — offering many more questions than answers. Are we the “pumpkins” being “emptied”? If so, by who or what? If so, what exactly are we being emptied of? And to what end?
artificial intelligence
emptying the pumpkin
of seeds
a hAIku ≠ a haiku talk of AI
so grateful my pencil
doesn’t
