**Warning: contains strong language!**
Fuck your algorithms
that tell me what you think I think I need
from Google ads
for t shirts featuring wine-drinking cats
to YouTube videos
selected to match just what you’ve identified
must be my taste in music.
Here’s a lesson for you, Google:
No way can you match Nina Simone.
Nor can you play me
all that easily
like Hamlet’s pipe:
you’re Guildenstern to me
as are you all, Big Data technocrats, who think you have me nailed.
Create me a machine
that can compose some halfway
decent poetry
then I’ll retire
devoting the remainder of my days to
learning who I am thanks to
your sacred algorithms
which can in no way match
nor ever touch
the rhythms of my heart.
© Experimentsinfiction 2021, All Rights Reserved
“Never say you know the last word about any human heart.” – Henry James, quoted by William Boyd in his novel Any Human Heart.
I detest personalised ads. They try to pigeonhole you into whatever consumer box the algorithm thinks you fit most snuggly into. I especially hate when I’m listening to music on YouTube and they play an ad with music which they’re obviously trying to match to whatever you’re listening to. I suppose nothing’s for free but we should be careful in the age of Big Data that we don’t become too easily manipulated by such devices. Posting for dVerse Open Link Night, which is live tonight and where we will be reading our poems!
And here is the inimitable Nina Simone:
I just love this! 😀 Thank you for speaking up! Yes, their music choice hurts me most
I so enjoyed this one, Ingrid 😀 those algorithms can be tricky as Google decides on its own what to offer us regardless of our preference. 💝
I’d rather it just left me to make my own choices!
Way to stand up to those Algorry rhythms that keep trying to take our pulses. Much appreciated as I’m tired of being labeled, classified, and marketed to as well. Cheers!
I think we all are! Thanks for your support 😊
Oh my! I can’t stop laughing. Good one.
Pleased I raised a smile!
Very well written and I love that flipping the bird to Google. I feel similarly. Even if, however, they somehow could create a machine to write poetry, nothing beats the human experience and condition. So beautifully weaved and expressed throughout.
Thanks Lucy! Yes I find these AIs which produce ‘art’ very interesting, but I definitely feel that there is something missing…
All so true, Ingrid, and I enjoyed hearing you read it. I’ve had that same experience where even saying something it somehow shows up.
I think in my case it is the mic on my laptop. Our technology is spying on us!
Yes, it might be the same for me–laptop and phone. I’ve had Siri answer to the radio.
I am mostly annoyed… but it is scary… now when I have started to watch more youtube it seems like Google starts to know a little bit too much about me.
Way too much! And knowledge, as the Aged Librarian surely knows, is power…
oh, man, Nina Simone. What a voice.
🙏 ⭐️
This post set me up last night. I think I was just on the point of going up, so I went to bed and listened to her awhile.
Great way to end the day! Do you have a favourite song?
No, I have maybe 50 of them! Or hers, do you mean?
Do you do Spotify?
Yes, hers! I probably have 50 of them… I have iTunes at the moment.
I could never get past “my baby just cares for me” but I suspect that is because it was re-released when I was younger. They did a Nick Park animation to go with it and how they do things that well is just beyond rocket science.
You need a lot of patience to make those animations!
yup, I was never very patient, I suppose that’s why I appreciate it in others.
Bravo Ingrid!
Thank you Linda 😊
I am a little robot
Making poetry
Created one especially
Especially for thee
I’m ‘fraid it’s only quarter
Decent, could not reach half
Had trouble separating
Good wheat from the chaff
You can do it better……..
For now!
Afraid I never will make
Poems from the heart
We robots do not have one
Need one to make a start
I can’t pull out emotions
Like you humans can do
I’ll never write a poem
Which will do that to you
For now? I can’t picture a robot ever composing poetry from the heart….gosh, would make us redundant…..
Fantastically funny and brilliant! 👏🏻
Nina Simone. 🎶🎹 Yes!! I listened to her last night. 💖
Listening to her soulful voice makes washing dishes less annoying. 😆
Oh that’s so funny! I listen to ‘work song’ while doing the housework 😂 a bit of an exaggeration maybe but it makes me feel better!
That is perfect! 😄 Whatever helps us get through those annoying chores and onto more enjoyable moments.
Take that, Google! I’m so often annoyed when I’ve casually searched something only to find my Facebook page the next day littered with ads for same.
Yes, I find it makes me less likely to buy something. In fact, I’d go out of my way NOT to buy it in this case.
It’s scary really how that happens.
It certainly is!
It’s creepy. And we can’t escape it. I never ever click on the ads, but I guess not everyone can resist. (K)
Yes, I deliberately don’t, but it must work or they wouldn’t do it.
You had me at Nina Simone. And I enjoyed your read.
I have an ad blocker on my browser, but it never fails that if I’m researching something (recently a cabinet for a phono/turntable) that it starts popping up in ads built into one of my news sources (MSN).
Yes, it’s very sinister. Thanks Ken.
Love this, Ingrid….needed to be said! JIM
Thanks JIM
Indeed
It
Did
!
Excellent use of the anchored terset!
It
Is
Addictive
!
Your are exactly right! The adds try to play us all the time. I ignore them most of the time.
It’s the best way! Thanks Dwight 🙏
I can relate! I was having a conversation with someone about the madness going on with guns. The next day I was getting ads from gun sellers. It was scary. They are deeper into our lives than we know. That’s just too much.
Pat
Yes, we give them too much power as the price of our ‘free’ web searches.
That’s true, I’ve taken to clearing my cache & cookies & browsing history on a regular basis. Have a good weekend.
Pat
Thanks, you too!
So much of the spam that is thrown at us (what an unappetizing visual!) is connected to our email addresses I think. I heard what you said on the live link about you said something in your living room and they pushed products at you about it. I think they collect data from comments on WP also, as I mentioned some musical artist in a comment then went somewhere in my car and pandora radio played a string of that artists songs! I think Big Brother is watching listening everywhere. I think that TVs can watch us, and I know that certain apps give them permission to use the microphones on our phones, so just like Alexa, they hear everything.
I think my laptop mic records what I say and this gets carried over to Google somehow. Sinister!
I agree with this poem whole-heartedly, Ingrid! It’s a counter-spell to the evil gremlins that spy on us every day and pigeon-hole us, all brain and no heart. I haven’t experienced the music thing yet, or t-shirts with wine-drinking cats, but I keep seeing ads for cat litter! I think someone has already come up with a machine to write poetry, but it lacked soul, just like the music they tried to match to Nina Simone. I agree with Lisa about Big Brother.
Have you seen the ‘works of art’ produced by AIs? They look a bit like they were painted by Van Gogh on acid!
🙂
An excellent final flourish to a fine poem.
Thank you Hobbo. Occasionally something makes me angry and I have to call it out!
Haha. Funny. I recently wrote a poem about algorithms too 😁
What’s the title? I would like to read it!
https://poetpaspoetry.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/allgorhythms/
Do I EVER agree? Fuck yes!!!! This is epic.
Thanks Helen 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Sometimes it needs spelling out. :)) There are some hideous ads that pop up on kids games too, I think many parents are not aware of the damage natural curiosity can inadvertently and innocently lead to. And then the worst is if they find out and shame the kids… when it’s the fault of the dark web, and big business.
But “Create me a machine / that can compose some halfway / decent poetry / then I’ll retire” – ayayay, tempting fate… I think it’s doing that already. I believe we *are* its machine. We “will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” ;)) (I wink, to keep it cheerful, but it’s freaking scary as fuck… yet I still try my best to believe in positive flow, and love…) xoxo hugs dear friend, keep up the awareness-bringing 🦾💗🔆
Thanks Lia, I will try my best 🙏 💪⭐️
So, tell us how you really feel.
Ingrid, was that you sweet young man on the live meeting! He did so very well… a poet in the making!!
Dwight
Thanks Dwight! I think you are right 😊
:>)
Gorgeous. I share your emotions. Beautifully written.
those pesky alkerythms cannot even spell (opps thats me because i am not arobot). great poem and all those ads do get on my nerves as well
It seems to have stuck a chord with a lot of people. Thank you!