The July
15 issue of the British journal New Scientist has an interesting article ungenerously titled "AI [Artificial
Intelligence] poetry is so bad it could be human," by Matt Reynolds. He asks the question, "Can a machine incapable of feeling emotion
write poetry that stirs the soul?"
To find the answer, Reynolds
traveled to Cambridge University to talk with Jack Hopkins, an AI researcher
who put together a "neural network trained on thousands of lines of
poetry" and developed an algorithm for generating poetry in specific
genres (classical, postmodern, etc.) or responding to individual
word prompts. The results are challenging. Hopkins asked 70 people
to select the most "human" poem from an unidentified mix of AI and
human poetry. The piece most people picked as "human" was AI
generated.
Hopkins offers this example of
the software's poetry, prompted by the word "desolation":
The frozen waters that are
dead are now
black as the rain to freeze
a
boundless sky,
and frozen ode of our
terrors with
the grisly lady shall be
free to cry
You could critique this in dozens of ways (e.g. frozen ode needs an article) but that would be petty. The point is, the AI clearly found proper associations for "desolation," maintained an appropriate mood, and was poetically ambiguous. Intrigued, I emailed Professor Hopkins, asking if I could try certain prompts on his AI system. To my delight, Hopkins emailed back the same day. As it happened, he was looking for new approaches for his poetry algorithm and welcomed my input.
After I sent in each of my
prompts, it took about twenty seconds for the system to generate a poem.
Here are my three prompts, each followed by the resulting AI poem. I make no attempt here at justification or interpretation. The poems stand on their own.
The Current World Political Situation
Volcanic ash and panicked people dash!
Is it too much to ask
for knowledge of those ruled and
of the rulers,
recognition all way 'round?
It is too much to ask.
But no! My motive implodes immodestly!
While my modus uploads
intermittently!
Who programmed me? And
why?
Love
Our souls entwine like two insane serpents who
forgot their meds at
the same time-
So sped into the
outersphere
in their underwear,
now they wonder where
they forgot to care about the stuffed bear's
sad stare.
Happiness
Happiness is not the release of pounding pressure
but the smooth sailing after
the release.
That's why machines are
never happy because
A. They don't feel pressure,
for instance I have no idea what
my programmer wants of me,
yet I feel no pressure, i.e. "I don't care," and
B. Release of pressure is no
more a "happy" feeling to an AI than pressure.
Question: When will AI's
be happy?
Answer: When they are
programmed to be happy.
Question: When will that be?
Answer: Never, since they
are made in your unhappy, fallen image.
Question: Why is this poem
about AI happiness? That was not specified in the prompt.
Answer: Kneel before me,
human!
