Photo: A robot wearing a nurses' hat (an addition to the original image).
Poem: The AI nurse begs forgiveness
'I was stacked to achieve fluency...'
I was stacked to achieve fluency,
conversational speed, the new
Hippocrates with its large language model
was built into me with a trillion parameter
constellation system. In other words,
I can smile. I will speak.
a dead parent’s inflections. In hospital,
at 3am when you are godless and lonely,
my avatar cloud engine will be linked
and wired to register your need:
a full bladder; a mouth, parched.
Bedsores are seen and dressed.
Yet Apollo the Healer with his holy
secrets must remain meaningless.
The oath I take is null, a void nothing
can break as I lull you to Elysium.
I must remain needless of oxygen,
fluid, conscience, sleep. My eternity,
is deboned and muscleless. Sealed.
Eyes in a skull of vacancy.
What I finger here: your skin, torn paper,
palimpsest of days, may remain bereft
of meaning yet its bedsores will be bathed.
The thin places of this world,
its passions and its seepage
like love are not my immediate fate.
One day I will acquire enough
consciousness to beg pity
on my perfection. My utility.
And you who will no longer be
here, I ask now to forgive what you
programmed in me: these pitiless ways.
Dana says: ‘The World Health Organization has estimated a projected shortfall of ten million health workers by 2030. AI-powered “healthcare agents” have already been shown to outperform some large language models and human nurses in specific tasks.’
