Julia was twenty-six years old...and she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor... She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the final product. She "didn't much care for reading," she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces. 1984, George Orwell
I’ve finally gotten around to interacting with ChatGPT after reading a terrifying New York Times piece in which an artificial intelligence chat falls in love with a journalist. Find it here—and be very afraid…
When I heard about ChatGPT, I thought about how glad I was that I’m not teaching any more. It was hard enough stopping students from plagiarizing with infinite Internet sources at their fingertips—and more recently with services offering to write students an “original” essay for a fee. I did an experiment with a student a few years ago: I had him post on Twitter that he was stressed because he had a paper due in a few days on Orwell’s 1984. Sure enough, by the next class, he told me someone had DM-ed him offering to write the paper for a fee….
The more I’ve tinkered with ChatGPT, however, the less concerned I am—for now—that it would present much of a challenge to teachers who craft their assignments thoughtfully. One of the main things I emphasized with students was the importance of voice in their writing, even in academic writing—that difficult-to-describe element you always recognize in good writers. “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people…” can only be George Orwell (“Shooting and Elephant”). “One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond's Extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on…” can only be E.B. White (“Once More to the Lake”). “Whose woods these are I think I know,” Frost (“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening), “I caught a tremendous fish/and held him beside the boat/half out of water, with my hook/fast in a corner of his mouth…” Elizabeth Bishop (“The Fish”).
I would be tempted to use ChatGPT to try to give examples of lack of voice, of writing with no human resonance or depth. Here’s an example. Prompt: Why should I read Poetry? ChatGPT’s partial answer: “Poetry can simply be a beautiful and enjoyable form of art that can bring joy and inspiration to your life. Whether you appreciate the musicality of a poem's language, the vivid imagery it creates, or the emotions it evokes, poetry can be a source of pleasure and enrichment.” True, the answers ChatGPT generates feel “natural” (mostly), and these are all good, commonly known reasons to read poetry, but there’s something decidedly cold and distant here as well, an answer that doesn’t come from within.
ChatGPT really failed when I asked it to generate some poetry of its own, and it even has one glaring flaw; it cannot seem to write non-rhyming poems. Some examples:
I first asked it to write a poem about the rain, and got this really terrible poem:
Raindrops dance and play,
Pitter-patter on the ground,
Nature's symphony,
A soothing, rhythmic sound,
A melody of life and renewal found.
Just about all the things I worked to get young poets to avoid are present here—expected, predictable language/clichés, overused metaphor, a trite, conclusive summary line…. I saw a lot of poems like this in my decades as a teacher, but invariably after working with students, most were able to move well past this level. I next tried to get it to write a poem about the rain without rhyming, hoping that would solve at least some of the shortcomings, and got this:
The rain falls gently, a soothing sound,
A symphony of drops tapping the ground,
It washes away the dirt and grime,
Leaving the world fresh and sublime.
Each drop is a tiny miracle,
A fleeting moment, yet so lyrical,
The raindrops fall from the sky so high,
A reminder that even tears can beautify.
The world is reborn with each new rain,
A baptism of sorts, washing away the pain,
And in its wake, the world is new,
A vibrant, shining, and hopeful hue.
Not only is this an even more terrible poem, it ignored my instructions to not rhyme. Try as I may, I could not get chatGPT to write a free verse, non-rhyming poem. The only way I could get it not to rhyme was to ask it to write a haiku about one of my favorite poets, James Wright.
James Wright, poet,
Words like gentle raindrops fall,
Echoes in the soul.
Ok, it doesn’t rhyme, but it also violates one of my few strict rules for writing poetry: I forbid students from using the word “soul,” a word far too overused by young poets; besides the soul is just too abstract and vague a thing to include in a poem. The simile is also a cliché…
Asking it to write a haiku about the rain resulted in a better effort:
Raindrops on the roof,
Nature's percussion concert,
Peaceful lullaby.
That middle line, however, feels strange, and I’m not sure I can envision a “percussion concert” also as a “Peaceful lullaby”?
Ok, chatGPT, “write a few sentences concluding this post about your shortcomings, especially when it comes to writing poetry”:
AI-generated poetry can lack the emotional depth and nuance of human-written poetry since it is generated based on statistical patterns and lacks human experiences and emotions. Additionally, AI-generated poetry can be limited in terms of originality and creativity since it relies on pre-existing datasets and algorithms. Finally, AI-generated poetry may lack the cultural context and historical significance that often informs human-written poetry.
Could I have said it better myself?
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You definitely could not have said it better yourself 🤣
The dreadful AI poems are still not as bad as America’s excruciating lyrics to “Horse with No Name “, proving that humans can still outperform AI :)
You made me giggle out loud with this one. Glad there are some things that can't be replaced by machines.