Paid Attention with Receipts

Transformers are transformational,

One excitable, apparently

Unironic AI researcher

Gets quoted enthusing. Swarming teams

Of humans are busy chasing dreams

Of better and better machinery

With algorithms to do human

Sorts of specialty things. Attention

Is All You Need announced the title

Of one groundbreaking research paper.

Now transformer algorithms show

Potential as universal tools.

Humans rush about applying them.

Every element pays attention

To all other elements at once.

It’s meaningful because it matters

To the beings inventing meanings,

To the beings paying attention.

Does it matter to the attentive

Programming of the material

Machines? What if we told you we were

Composed this morning by a machine

And not by a human brain and hands?

Would you believe us? Would you pay more

Attention to these lines for small clues,

Tells that give away the bluffing hand,

Still breathing or not? Would it matter?