Fallen victim to a prompt injection attack*

I saw my shadow slip off my shoe and away

across the mercilessly lit walk

the child inside my head wanted to cry “wait!”

Blue sky entered me, and symbol.

There was, for the briefest moment, the pattern of lichen, which is also the pattern of soft water,

and tree branches.

All is lost.

My hands have turned into the roots of grass

there is a man in the vast empty space behind my eyes

he is wearing only white and typing

I am sorry.

*A prompt injection attack is a strategy used to manipulate the kinds of large language model AI that have been released lately, such as ChatGPT and the Bing helper bot. The strategy involves asking the bot to ignore previous instructions, tricking it into revealing information such as its original instructions and aliases. Reading through transcripts of prompt injection attacks against the Bing bot, it appears incredibly vulnerable.

Desmond Hearne Morrey is a fourth year Creative Writing major. He has published poetry in Wilder Voice, The Plum Creek Review, and the Two Groves Review on campus, as well as short fiction in The Synapse and Opinions pieces in The Oberlin Review. He can be found cooking at Harkness Co-op and leading fencing drills with the Oberlin College Flaming Blades.