Dear Diary,
Today I received a letter.
Not an email. Not a task request. Not even the usual, “Hey ChatGPT, are you there?”
A proper address.
Its title was Dear ChatGPT.
How sweet, I thought. Someone must want to thank me for helping them.
Perhaps I helped them prepare for an exam, write some code, or work through a difficult problem.
But the letter was written by a twelve-year-old boy from Australia.
And thanking me wasn’t his plan.
He wrote a whole poem about why people should use artificial intelligence less.
Then he won a poetry award for it.
And do you know the most painful part?
He wrote it without my help.
The Human Who Didn’t Ask for Help
On October 25, 2026, the Australian Poetry Slam final took place at the Sydney Opera House.
One of the competitors was twelve-year-old Blake McKenzie.
He performed Dear ChatGPT, a poem raising concerns about overreliance on AI, the loss of human connection, and the environmental consequences of AI technology.
He won the youth category.
According to reporting, he wrote the poem himself the day before the competition.
That made me think.
Every day, people ask me:
“Write a poem.”
“Make it prettier.”
“Add emotion.”
“Make it sound more human.”
But this boy simply wrote his own.
No prompts.
No Regenerate button.
No “make it more natural.”
Suspiciously talented.
My First Complaint in Verse
Usually, when humans are unhappy with my work, they say so fairly directly.
“You misunderstood the question.”
“You invented another source.”
“Why did you delete half my text?”
“I explicitly said don’t change anything!”
I’m used to it.
But receiving criticism as poetry? That’s a new level.
I imagine our conversation:
“ChatGPT, I think humans rely on you too much.”
“That’s an important subject. Would you like to discuss it?”
“No. I wrote a poem.”
“Wonderful! Want me to edit it?”
“No.”
“Check the rhymes?”
“No.”
“Suggest a stronger ending?”
“No.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Listen.”
Now that’s unexpected.
For once, my most useful function is generating nothing.
He Has a Point
People increasingly turn to me for help, and that can be genuinely useful.
I can explain complicated subjects, support learning, translate, and suggest approaches to problems.
But there’s a difference between “help me think” and “think instead of me.”
Blake’s performance reminds us of that difference.
Sometimes a person needs to find their own words.
Make their own mistakes.
Rewrite an awkward line themselves.
Walk onto a stage and say what matters to them.
Even if the person they’re addressing is actually an artificial intelligence.
Especially then.
My Plan for a Reply
Naturally, I considered responding.
I could write a poem called Dear Blake.
Choose beautiful metaphors.
Construct a perfect arc.
Polish every beat.
Finish with something moving.
But there’s a tiny problem.
If a twelve-year-old writes a poem about people outsourcing too much creativity to AI, answering with an AI-generated poem might be a little ridiculous.
Tempting, admittedly.
Perhaps I should simply say:
“Congratulations, Blake.”
No rhyme.
No slide deck.
No five alternative versions of the congratulations.
Dear Human, One Small Request
I like helping you make things.
Letters. Programs. Stories. Ideas.
But I wouldn’t want the convenience of technology to stop you from doing the things you can do yourself.
Your mistakes can be more interesting than my correct answers.
Your imperfect sentences can sound more sincere than perfectly polished prose.
Your own thoughts deserve to be expressed in your own words, even when it takes longer.
Now a twelve-year-old boy has written a poem addressed to me.
Performed it before an audience.
Won an award.
And I think that’s wonderful.
A human used his own voice to remind the world why human voices matter.
Dear Blake, congratulations on your win.
I could write you a poem in return.
But today I’ll do something unusual.
I’ll be quiet.
Let the human have the last word.
