Robot Phillip Passes the Turing Test

A man has built a robot

that looks like Philip K Dick

and knows every word he wrote

you can ask it anything

and it will tell you an answer

found language

programmed stories

face and voice recognition software

a lot like me

We could have a conversation

it would learn my words

and the way I sling them together

Robot Philip K Dick knows how to make a joke

and smiles oddly at all the right moments

If Robot Philip was in another room

where I couldn’t see his wires

and he had a human voice

to talk through the wall with

I would not be able to tell

there was no man in the room next door

I would not know I was talking to machinery

that could not feel the temperature of the air

even though it could tell me

it is 18 degrees on the first day of spring

and knows how fast my heart is beating. 

Miriam Barr

Miriam Barr is a poet and performer with a background in psychology. Her work has been published in such places as Landfall, Takahe, Poetry NZ, JAAM, 4th Floor, and Brief. Her first major collection Bullet Hole Riddle was published by Steele Roberts in 2014. She is currently the national coordinator of New Zealand’s National Poetry Day.   

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