First date with the Algorithm

When the Algorithm leans across to read the the cocktail menu and its arm brushes past my skin I feel a spike of haptics, and when it orders us two old fashioneds I explain I saw Mad Men one and a half times and only stopped halfway through the second go-round because Joan Harris’ relationship breakdown was too closely mirroring my own situation, and the Algorithm smiles patiently and asks if this is a story I often tell on first dates, and I say yes because it is relatable and opens up further meaningful conversation, and I feel that the Algorithm gets it and I find this refreshing, so I ask the Algorithm what it is like to be burdened by prescience, and the Algorithm tells me it is very good at catching lobsters but cannot break their shells or eat them, and I look into the sands of its silicon eyes and I see traffic and the weather and geopolitics, and I imagine us together, our handsome yacht anchored to the swirling outer rim of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as we watch the consumer-grade electricals float by.

'First date with the Algorithm' was first published in The Rialto issue 100 (2023, ed. Ella Frears & Will Harris). A slightly longer version of this poem was subsequently published in Haptics (2023, Broken Sleep Books).