AI Poetry

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 its 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 to be 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!

Stay tuned for more exciting AI poetry from Cambridge!

[For more Harry the Human, click on "Older posts" below right]