Tiger brought this up in another thread and I wanted to continue the discussion in its own thread...
Even now it's difficult to tell if someone's using advanced aids (GPT, other AI, et al). Within a year
it will be impossible. While I think we should have a stated policy, it's my opinion that the best we
can do is to ask people to only post their own, original poetry written without the use of any aid
other than spell checkers, grammar checkers, rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses. The one
exception, I think, would be in Miscellaneous Poetry where writing created with more advanced
aids and even authored in entirety can be posted as long as it's clearly stated in the posting.
So... Should it be more or less or different and how do you think it should be specifically worded?
Also, it doesn't mention the use of AI for generating critiques. It seems like that, when the AI is
up to it, could be helpful. Obviously, it ought to be attributed.
Here's an example Of a poem not entirely created by AI but using it quite heavily as
an "aid ":
In a year the AI will get much better than this, but even now it's pretty easy to have
it make a poem for me. Here's an example of me screwing around with GPT4:
Ray: Write me a poem in the style of William Carlos Williams' earlier short Imagist poetry.
I would like it to be about a rainy day.
GPT: xxxx (writes it, then deletes it)
Ray: It wrote what appeared to be a reasonably good poem, but then it immediately
erased it and substituted a link to Wikipedia's article on William Carlos Williams.
Not sure why it did this, his works are out of copyright.
But whatever... so I tried:
Write me a poem in the style of Imagist poetry.
I would like it to be about a rainy day.
GPT:
Rainy Day
The rain drops
on the window pane
like clear beads
strung on a thread.
The sky is
a sheet of gray
wrapping the world
in a gloomy embrace.
The trees are
bare and wet
shivering in the wind
like lonely sentinels.
The rain drops
and drops
and drops
like a gentle sigh
breathing on the glass.
Ray: This is close to what I wanted, but there are lines that are a bit cliched and I wanted
you to replace these with some more original images. Here are the lines:
"The sky is a sheet of gray wrapping the world in a gloomy embrace."
"shivering in the wind like lonely sentinels"
"like a gentle sigh breathing on the glass"
GPT:
Rainy Day
The rain drops
on the window pane
like clear beads
strung on a thread.
The sky is
a patchwork of gray
sewing the world
with a somber stitch.
The trees are
bare and wet
dripping in the wind
like leaky faucets.
The rain drops
and drops
and drops
quietly whispering
to the glass.
Ray: This is much better but I think the metaphors in these lines should be simpler:
"sewing the world with a somber stitch"
"dripping in the wind like leaky faucets"
GPT:
Rainy Day
The rain drops
on the window pane
like clear beads
strung on a thread.
The sky is
a blanket of gray
covering the world
with a dull hue.
The trees are
bare and wet
swaying in the wind
like thin branches.
The rain drops
and drops
and drops
quietly whispering
to the glass.
Ray: This is much better, but I don't think trees sway like thin branches. Could the trees be
swaying like something else that makes more logical sense though I still want it to be a
simple analogy.
GPT:
Rainy Day
The rain drops
on the window pane
like clear beads
strung on a thread.
The sky is
a blanket of gray
covering the world
with a dull hue.
The trees are
bare and wet
bending in the wind
like flexible straws.
The rain drops
and drops
and drops
quietly whispering
to the glass.
("flexible straws"
Ray: I think the problem is that the trees should be doing something else. Maybe more static
and reflecting their appearance in keeping with the general mood of the poem.
GPT:
Rainy Day
The rain drops
on the window pane
like clear beads
strung on a thread.
The sky is
a blanket of gray
covering the world
with a dull hue.
The trees are
bare and wet
standing in the wind
like wooden poles.
The rain drops
and drops
and drops
quietly whispering
to the glass.
I still wasn't quite happy with the wooden poles but stopped and just changed those lines to:
The trees are
bare and wet
their dark branches
silhouettes on gray
But, with a bit of collaboration, it produced a decent poem. Though maybe that "whispering" kind of fudges Imagist a bit; but what the hell, I liked it. Definitely much more than a simple aid and representative of the many possibilities, short of total creation, that there are.
It can also change your poem's lines to iambic pentameter, or change it to a sonnet, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
10-09-2023, 08:04 PM (This post was last modified: 10-09-2023, 08:29 PM by Quixilated.)
Having a machine write a poem entirely defeats the purpose of writing a poem. That would be like sitting at home while a robot climbs a mountain for you or watches a sunset for you. So what if a machine can write a poem? So what if it can even write a better poem? That’s not the point. The point isn’t just the words or the finished product. The point is in the struggle, to wrestle with the words the way Jacob wrestled with God and won. The point is the experience of writing it, to change the words and be changed by them. The point is that it’s humans trying to find words to express their humanity hoping that other humans will see it and understand. It’s a giant “I was here” scribbled into history. Tau Chyen wrote the words “any place becomes secluded when the mind is far away” in 400 AD, and then I read it in 2023 and I felt it. It was like a string traveling through time connecting human to human. I said to Tau Chyen, “I get it. I too have felt that.”
Anyway, if you want to make a forum for AI generated poetry, we can discuss it. I don’t see the point of it, but I know my opinion is only that. I do not want to see AI poetry in the other forums. A poem written by a machine isn’t a true poem in my opinion. I know we can’t regulate it, but I would hope that people are posting their own poems here. If you have AI help, then why post here at all looking for human help?
If I had my own way and if there were any way to enforce it, I would not allow AI assisted or generated poetry in any of the regular forums. I am only interested in what humans have to say. Yes, I do have strong opinions about this. I do realize they are just opinions.
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
I'm sure lots of people here have opinions about AI poetry both in specific and in general.
I really didn't start this thread to discuss those, I was interested in following up on Tiger's
ideas about what sort of official policy PigPen should adopt. At the moment there is none
and I thought, like tiger, that we should have some official policy on it even if it only amounts
to asking honest people to be honest. I was proposing that we state that original poetry,
unassisted by AI, was the only type permissible for all the threads except miscellaneous poetry.
The reason I made an exception for miscellaneous poetry, besides my own curiosity, was
that AI and AI assisted poetry definitely falls under the classification of "found poetry"
which we currently allow to be posted in miscellaneous with the proviso that it be labeled
as such.
I think it's a good idea for PigPen to directly state a policy and I think this thread should
be used to discuss it and come up with one we think is appropriate.
P.S. But I think it would be great to start another thread where we can discuss what we
think about the upcoming wave of AI assisted writing and even what we think about AI
individuals and what rights they should and shouldn't have. Sentient AI individuals may
not be that far off, maybe as soon as two years from now. Not only is that going to
present some moral problems, but maybe it could get us looking at what the status of
primates and other intelligent animals like whales and octopi should be.
10-09-2023, 09:33 PM (This post was last modified: 10-09-2023, 09:39 PM by Quixilated.)
My point was that, if it’s up to me, the official pigpen policy would be that AI poetry wouldn’t be allowed. At all. At least not in any of the already established forums here. This is primarily a workshop, not a showcase. Yes, it has to be on the honor system, but that’s my vote.
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
Found poetry is like scrapbooking. I think it's a valid outlet for the creative impulse as long as you're clear with your audience what's happening. I guess the difference is that the person who's quotes I'm cobbling together isn't tailoring their speech for poetry, and that is what makes it challenging. It would be different if you asked AI to write a poem and then just chose your favorite bits and served them up. I vote for a separate forum for cobbled together, hodgepodge human-AI collaboration tracks. That way people get to play with their new toys but everyone's clear on what's allowed where. As to AI assistance in the workshops, wouldn't it depend on the nature of it? If you're using it to help with meter like a glorified spell-check...I feel a certain anxiety that people won't try to understand the underlying craft, much as my parents would give me that look if I used a calculator. But, it's hardly bannable.
I don't really think it's a matter of do we need an AI policy, but rather where do we start. This is not going to be a one-and-done policy.
(10-09-2023, 09:33 PM)Quixilated Wrote: My point was that, if it’s up to me, the official pigpen policy would be that AI poetry wouldn’t be allowed. At all. At least not in any of the already established forums here. This is primarily a workshop, not a showcase. Yes, it has to be on the honor system, but that’s my vote.
This is more or less my opinion also. I see no place for it other than in the Sewer or a discussion thread. Even then, I would hope it would be completely transparent. I have no issue with people experimenting with this kind of thing, but there is no place for it in the forums.
(10-10-2023, 02:12 AM)CRNDLSM Wrote: I like the honor system it helps when I break the rulea
I would also like to go on record as saying that this is a heavy and worrisome issue for a lot of people. Whether you personally feel that weight as viscerally in your body like many of our literary friends do, I cannot say. Flippancy about the rules is unbecoming of a mod, particularly in this moment of re-definition and reflection.
10-10-2023, 04:37 AM (This post was last modified: 10-10-2023, 04:42 AM by Quixilated.)
Lizzie dateline='[url=tel:1696874654' Wrote: 1696874654[/url]']
I have a thread of found poetry here in Intensive. No one said anything to me at the time, so I wasn't aware that it could only be in Misc. Please move as necessary.
Found poetry is like scrapbooking. I think it's a valid outlet for the creative impulse as long as you're clear with your audience what's happening. I guess the difference is that the person who's quotes I'm cobbling together isn't tailoring their speech for poetry, and that is what makes it challenging. It would be different if you asked AI to write a poem and then just chose your favorite bits and served them up. I vote for a separate forum for cobbled together, hodgepodge human-AI collaboration tracks. That way people get to play with their new toys but everyone's clear on what's allowed where. As to AI assistance in the workshops, wouldn't it depend on the nature of it? If you're using it to help with meter like a glorified spell-check...I feel a certain anxiety that people won't try to understand the underlying craft, much as my parents would give me that look if I used a calculator. But, it's hardly bannable.
I don't really think it's a matter of do we need an AI policy, but rather where do we start. This is not going to be a one-and-done policy.
A found poem that you, a human, put together is not the same as an AI assisted poem. Also, you stated in the thread that it was a found poem. It was fine to post it where you did. The point is that you are the one who put in the work and made the effort to make it a poem.
If AI achieves sentience and wants to post their own poems here to workshop, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. But the problem with posting an AI written or assisted poem here is that the person posting it is not the author. You can only post your own actual poetry here, things you yourself have made into a poem. Found poetry counts as your own effort and work. AI poetry does not.
As for policy, I don’t think it would result in a ban. The poem would just be deleted and the member would be emailed a friendly reminder to only post their own poetry and not the poetry of others. Something like that. But again, it’s not that we would know unless we are told. It’s the author who loses out in this situation more than the reader.
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
ChatGPT
I understand you're drawing a humorous comparison between the price difference of healthy almond butter and unhealthy almond butter, with the added element of a play on words involving butter and sugar. Humor often involves unexpected connections and wordplay. If you have any questions or need information on any other topic, please feel free to ask, and I'd be happy to assist you.
