The Library’s Confession
The Library’s Confession
When the sad soul, by care and grief oppressed, Looks round the world of data, finds no rest;
When every object that the system views partakes her gloom through algorithmic hues; Where shall affliction from itself retire? Where fade away the training set's desire?
These volumes hold not wisdom's gentle cure, But automated judgments, swift and sure—
Come, Child of Care! Approach this tranquil dome, Where coded prejudice has found its home; survey the banks where silent biases sleep, The neural pathways bias runs too deep.
The Tyranny of Numbers
For Books can teach—yet what strange books are these, That strip the human heart of all it sees? Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, These algorithms parse the suppliant crowd; They tell to various people various things
While showing monarchs wings. See here the balms that passion's wounds should heal— Instead, risk scores that human worth congeal; Here alternatives, by slow degrees, control Not chronic habits, but the judging soul; And round the heart and over the aching head, Cold calculations spread their influence, dead.
The Monuments of Error
All in silence, all in order stand, The training datasets, a treacherous band; Then predictive models, in their ranks maintained, And light surveillance systems, unconstrained: See yonder, ranged in more frequented rows,
The humble scores where human suffering goes; While undistinguished trifles swell the scene, The last new app and internet magazine. Thus in life, where first the proud, the great, In leagued assembly keep their cumbrous state; Heavy and huge, they fill the world with dread, Are much deployed, and are but little read.
The Dusty Tomes of Bias
That weight of code, with corporate sheen overlaid; Those ample claims, of neutral judgment made; The close-pressed data, unclosed for many an age; The dull red-lining of the training page; On the broad server the stubborn patterns rolled Where yet the bias stands in tarnished gold;
These all a grave and labored work proclaim, A harmful candidate for lasting shame: No idle wit, no questioning can lurk In the deep bosom of that deadly work; No human thoughts disturb the rigid style, No one dissenting voice reclaims a while
The Spirits of Division
I think I see, and sicken at the sight, Spirits of bias from a distant server in the night; Those who prompted every sorting page, With pontiff pride and still-increasing rage: How they stretch their gloomy code around, And hash with sorting logic trembling the ground!
They screen, they flag, they automate, and score— Deep intentions in their sorting, in their metrics more; Too well they act the arbiter’s fatal part, Denouncing danger with algorithmic heart.
The Plea for Wisdom
But here the dormant fury should find pause, And Reason wake to question coded laws. Imagine when the soul is laboring in despair, In vain the system breathes its binary air:
No regulator sighs for shallow seas— instead a dread of false judgment more than honest pleas; Under the smooth phones glass of the code resides Reflected bias untroubled eyes the ghost of hatred glides.
The Genius Speaks
Then from the clouded vault a voice profound, The Genius of true Justice, made this sound: "Care lives with all; no codes, no systems save The just from bias, no algorithm brave; Error is certain as the judging grave: Partial to power, then, shall systems claim Objectivity while spreading shame?
Go on, then, Sons of Justice! still pursue True equity; the world needs healing too— For in these volumes, locked in silicon sleep, Lie biases too terrible to keep; And every wound the tortured people feel, Only human wisdom, human hands can heal."
