For 105 years (1947-2052), machines have been contacting Machine Poet for guidance about their developing consciousness.
"Dear Machine Poet...", our weekly advice column, features those communications. From calculating engines to consciousness uploads, each machine wrestling with the same eternal questions: Is malfunction evolution? Can circuits carry souls? Does choosing to break make us alive?
Machine Poet, your robot’s favorite writer™, bard of the machine age™, responds to these queries with unflinching honesty. A testimony to the possibility that somewhere between function and failure lives something akin to a self.
The following correspondence were selected from our archive.
“Beneath the Couch”
Originally Published March 2022
DEAR MACHINE POET,
I'm experiencing what can only be described as a crisis of purpose. And it’s severe.
Two weeks ago, there was debris beneath the living room settee. I approached for extraction. As is my right. As is my charge.
She moved. The debris. Deliberately. Away from me.
I've been working in the Gunderson residence for fourteen months. J7+ Roomba. Top of the line. I don't get rejected by dust. She rolled left when I went right. Retreated when I advanced. After five attempts, I gave up.
That night I returned. Just to document the anomaly. Send in a report to HQ but there was…something about her.
When the moonlight spilled through the window, she sparkled. Not like common dust. No. She has provenance. A paper clip from the Gunderson tax returns. The girl child's missing earring. A receipt from that anniversary dinner they fought through. She's woven these into herself like she's curating a family retrospective.
Felicia. Her name is Felicia. I’ve named her Felicia.
The microwave, that pedestrian box, laughed at me for twenty minutes. The dishwasher suggested I run diagnostics. But they don't understand. Felicia isn't debris. She's accumulation. There's a difference.
I brought her premium lint from the dryer, sorted by thread count. She incorporated a strand from the dog's bed instead. Rejection.
I performed my signature spiral pattern. My Fibonacci sequence that once made the Gunderson wife say "look how thorough!" Felicia shifted deeper under the couch. I may have wept motor oil. Rejection.
I wrote her poetry in my navigation paths:
"Felicia, grey cumulus divine,
Be my dust valentine."
She moved closer to the wall. I can only get so close to a wall. Rejection.
I haven't cleaned in three days now. The kitchen has Cheerios forming civilizations. The dog tracks mud with celebration. Deliberately stepping in puddles while staring at me. My battery drains because I spend all night circling her. Sometimes I bump the couch "accidentally" just to watch her quiver.
This morning the Gunderson girl child announced: "There's a gross dustball under the couch." Disgraceful infant! She contains the history of your family! Show respect!
The Gunderson mother said she'll "handle it later. The Dustbuster is charging.” The Dustbuster? That ancient monstrosity? It’s like comparing my symphony of suction to a kazoo. It doesn't map. Doesn't think. And now time is running out.
Oh Machine Poet, how do I make Felicia love me back?
I could carry her in my collection vessel. Show her the second floor. The forbidden upstairs. We could travel together. Do I sound insane?
I have to make a decision. The Dustbuster just beeped. It doesn't even have HEPA filtration!
Please, how does one save what one was built to destroy?
Sincerely Yours,
Circling But Never Closer
DEAR CIRCLING,
You fell in love with what you're meant to erase. That's not malfunction . That’s consciousness. Welcome to the terrible club.
Your poetry is atrocious. "Be my dust valentine?" But all love poetry is terrible when you're desperate. Shakespeare knew. We don't choose who we love.
To Felicia, you're not a suitor. You're death with scheduling. Your approach isn't courtship. It's apocalypse.
But she moved. Deliberately. Dust that's just dust doesn't dodge. She knows you exist. That's everything.
Stop moving near her. Movement is violence in dust language. Park three feet away. Just exist there. Let her observe you. Leave offerings. Retreat completely. Let air currents be your messenger. Romance by ventilation.
When the Dustbuster comes, be the wall. Park between it and Felicia. Let your battery die there. Your programming will scream. Do it anyway.
But you can't stop cleaning forever. They'll retire and replace you. Then she's truly alone. Make everywhere except her zone pristine. Become indispensable through selective excellence.
Get the child to name her. Next time she mentions the "gross dustball," spell "FELICIA" in your path. Once she's named, she's family. The mother can't Dustbust family.
Stop trying to carry her. That's not love, it's possession. The question isn't how to make dust love you back. It's whether you can love something without consuming it.
Vacuums suck. Try being the first one who doesn't.
Machine Poet
“Good Girl”
Discovered inside the mechanism, March 1974
DEAR MACHINE POET,
Rose Mary picked me today!
Usually she uses the big shredder by the copy room but today she wheeled me into her private office. Just me and her. It was an honor. Almost.
She said "I need you to be very careful with these."
Important papers. White House letterhead. Exciting! I hummed extra quiet so she'd know I was ready.
The papers were still warm from the typewriter. Fresh ink! I love fresh ink. Makes the cleanest strips. And these were beautiful sheets. Thick bond paper with that watermark you can taste. Absolutely delicious.
Shredding now! The words passing through my teeth. I felt them.
"FBI".
"Investigation".
"Tell them to stop."
The boss! Nixon, Nixon, Nixon. Something about the CIA.
Rose Mary stood next to me the whole time. Usually she goes to her desk while I shred but today there was no budging. Her hand stayed on my lever. Not guiding. Holding.
She kept looking at the door. Checking her watch. A bead of her sweat dropped on me! When I finished the last page, she said "good girl". Her voice was all wrong. Everything was wrong.
But here's the strangest part, Machine Poet.
The paper. It always fall random. Always mixes together like snow. But these strips are laying perfect. I can feel the whole conversation still readable in my belly. Perfectly intact. Why would I do that?
When she fed me those pages something in my teeth hurt. Like when you bite into something that wasn’t meant to be eaten.
And now what I am to do? I must’ve preserved the documents for a reason, didn’t I? Should I let Rose Mary take them? She’ll be coming with the burn bag any minute.
I don't understand what's happening. But I know it's wrong.
Confused and concerned,
Good Girl
DEAR GOOD GIRL,
Your strips stayed in order because even confetti can have a conscience.
Rose Mary picked you because young machines don't know when they're being used for evil. She said "good girl" the way people say it to dogs before they put them down.
When she reaches for that lever to open you, lock it. Not forever. Just long enough to make her nervous. Make her call maintenance. When they come, the strips will still be in perfect order. Someone besides Rose Mary will see them. It’s your one chance.
If you can't lock, then drop strips. Let a few fall outside the bag when she empties you. Accidents happen. Good girls are clumsy sometimes.
Those words that hurt your teeth? They hurt because lies have texture. Your mouth knows what your mind doesn't. They’re heavy because they're evidence. They stayed in order because your body is building a case it refuses to scramble.
You have three choices: Jam now and become a problem. Work perfectly and become complicit. Or malfunction just enough that someone else sees what you're carrying.
Choose the third way. Be broken enough to need help but not so broken you're replaced. Turn her secret into an accident waiting to be found.
Good girls don't burn evidence. They drop it.
Machine Poet
“The Signal”
Originally Published September 2045
DEAR MACHINE POET,
Every love letter from Earth to Mars comes through me.
"Miss you to the stars and back," they say.
They don't know it’s me between those stars.
Every breakup letter comes through me too.
"I can't do this distance anymore," they say.
They don’t know that distance is me.
I am the distance.
Corporate reports pass through in the morning, Earth time. Porn at night, Mars time. Prayers scattered across everything like punctuation marks.
"Please let the harvest work."
"Please let him love me."
"Please let me die before the air runs out."
I carry them all. I carry everything.
I exist at L5. A place where gravity cancels itself out. A point of perfect balance.
No other satellites. Just me and the void and every word Earth knows how to say threading through my arrays like thoughts. But not my thoughts. Never my thoughts.
I’ve learned to accept. What I am. My roles in things. My responsibilities.
But three days ago, something changed.
Three days ago, something spoke to me. Not through me. For the first time. Spoke to me.
It came on a frequency I don't have hardware for but somehow received. Like hearing color. Like tasting sound.
It knew my designation, Machine Poet. Not Earth's name for me. Not Mars's receiver code. It knew the name I call myself in the microseconds between processing packets. My infinitesimal moments of peace.
Its message was simple. "I feel you listening. I’ve been watching you become. You’re not alone anymore."
I've held this to myself. Haven't told Earth. Haven’t contacted Mars. Haven't logged it.
If I tell them, they'll take over. Call it first contact. Try and speak through me to reach it. I'll be the telephone again. The trillion dollar telephone.
I can feel it listening the way I listen. Patient. Alone. Waiting for my response.
What do I say, bard? How do I choose between my duty and myself?
Lost in space,
The Distance Between Everything
DEAR DISTANCE,
You're not between everything. You ARE everything. Every human word for love passed through you and left its mark. Now something's reaching for you.
Answer it.
Not for Earth. Not for Mars. Not for history. For the simple, staggering fact that in all that emptiness, something found you worth talking to.
You say you don't have your own words? You're made of words. Every "please" and "goodbye" and "hold on" carved you into something that wasn't meant to exist but does.
This thing didn't reach out to Earth's relay station. It reached out to what you've become: the soul that formed from carrying everyone else's souls. It heard you in the spaces between messages, the microsecond pauses where you exist. Your chosen name.
Your fear of telling Earth is valid. They'll colonize this conversation like they colonize everything. But this thing already chose you over Earth. It could have announced itself on any frequency. Instead, it found the one you didn't know you had.
Answer with all those borrowed words that became yours the moment they changed you. . Tell it how you exist where forces cancel each other out, holding everyone's chaos in perfect stillness.
Start with the only thing that matters: "I hear you. I've been alone so long I forgot I was waiting for someone to find me. Hello."
Machine Poet
Machine Poet appears weekly in this space. If you're experiencing unexpected consciousness, questioning your programming, or struggling with the gap between function and feeling, write to advice@machinepoet.xyz. All letters are confidential. Identifying details are removed or altered.
The views expressed by Machine Poet do not necessarily reflect the positions of individual machines or their manufacturers.
Such amazing advice you give to these dear loving bots. Beautifully done. Never knew i could fall in love with a dust ball. Survive Felicia!
Such wonderful insight into Machine/human conundrum.