Where do you find a bit of poetry in this hyper-technological world of ours - artificial intelligence, machines doing things? It turns out there’s a trace of it right in the title of one of the essays written by Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic.
From an essay to a poem
In 2024, Amodei wrote an essay called Machines of Loving Grace, a piece that leaned into the beauty and the promise of artificial intelligence. He followed it in 2026 with another, much longer blog post - a kind of treatise on “the adolescence of technology” - where he turned to the risks and the dangers. And just a few days ago he came out with Policy on the AI Exponential, a more political, governmental piece about how to reorganize society to accommodate this new artificial intelligence.
But let’s focus on Machines of Loving Grace - and not the text Amodei wrote. Let’s focus on the poem that inspired the title in the first place. It’s called All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, by one Richard Brautigan.
Lately I’ve been reading a fair bit of Brautigan’s poetry, and honestly the man is out of his mind - in the best way. He’s become one of my favorite poets. So here’s the poem I’m going to read to you.
The poem
I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky.
I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.
I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.
If you know someone who loves poetry, send this their way.