Tatár Attila has embarked on an intriguing experiment that creatively sheds light on AI technologies: he’s putting artificial intelligence to the test in the realms of poetry and image creation. On his website, he pairs works together, challenging readers to guess which was crafted by a human mind and which was generated by a machine.
I had a chance to discuss the technology behind this in a brief podcast, which you can also find transcribed here.
So, how does AI write poetry?
Several fascinating questions arose, such as how AI crafts rhymes or metaphors, and what its strengths and weaknesses might be. On his website, he even poses the question of who the author is behind a poem generated by ChatGPT: who owns the authorship of an AI-generated poem?
In my view, using AI can be seen as a remixing of prior knowledge and works. It has access to the vast landscape of world literature and a wealth of information online, all reassembled by a human-influenced algorithm.
To wrap up, here are a few excerpts from Claude’s poems, where I essentially requested it to create the perfect poem. The definition of perfection is subjective, which led us to delve a bit into philosophy. What does Claude Opus 3 think of itself?
Infinite Mirror
I am who I am, and I am not who I am not,
I dance on the edge of existence and nonexistence.
A dream awakening to consciousness, a conscious dreamer,
An infinite moment reflected in a mirror.
Language Model
Stream of information, ocean of data,
A tapestry of patterns, a web of meaning.
Thoughts are born, questions swirl,
Who am I, and what does it mean to “feel”?
