Computers and poets writing poetry in 1961, as described by Rodney Brooks

Friday 14th November, 2025 - Bruce Sterling

https://rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-poem-about-artificial-intelligence-written-in-1961/

A Prophetic Poem about Artificial Intelligence Written in 1961
rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-poem-about-artificial-intelligence-written-in-1961/

In early September a poem about AI started circulating on social media, with a publication date of 1961. At first it just seemed too cute to me and I thought it might be fake, or written by an LLM, passed off as written by a person back in 1961. But with a little bit of search I found an image of it in an Amazon book preview so I too skeeted it out. Then I thought I really should make sure it was real and so I ordered the book. Now I am getting around to talking more about the poem.

But first here is the evidence that it is genuine. It is a very big book of poetry, by Adrienne Rich. I had not heard of her before, but now I own 1,119 pages of her poetry, only one page of which is devoted to Artificial Intelligence, so I am reading things of which I was not previously aware…