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AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

nature.com

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Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#131

Post by hackable_sand »

lm28469 wrote: post #126
gcau wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the logic of calling superhero movies lesser/unserious like this, it's very snobby. Movies and music are made to be entertaining, the avengers is more entertaining than your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes but it's just because they aren't smart enough to understand it". It's also lazy and ignorant to ignore the sheer manpower that goes into making a movie like that.

> your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes You're reading way too much into my comment. Any block buster from the 80/90s absolutely shits on 90% of block busters released today. I'm not talking about obscure 1950s czechoslovak cinema here... > ignore the sheet manpower that goes into making a movie like that. A lot of work doesn't make something good, especially when cgi quality actually gets worse year…

For perspective, your comments could be released direct to VHS.

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#132

Post by ada1981 »

When I was given researcher access 4 years ago for OpenAI, one of the first things I did for fun was publish a book of Haiku entirely generated by AI.

I found many of the poems to be moving and beautiful.

Sam Altman has a few copies in his personal collection.

Nothing mind blowing by todays standards but four years ago this was a big deal.

https://www.amazon.com/Autonomous-Haiku-Machine-Generated-In...

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#133

Post by jaredklewis »

n4r9 wrote: post #39
aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #34

Ernest Davis has an outstanding and definitive rebuttal of these claims: https://cs.nyu.edu/~davise/papers/GPT-Poetry.pdf The basic problem is that GPT generates easy poetry, and the authors were comparing to difficult human poets like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and rating using a bunch of people who don't particuarly like poetry. If you actually do like poetry, comparing PlathGPT to Sylvia Plath is so offensi…

Huh, that sounds a little like claiming that AI can draw pictures just as well as humans because they look realistic at a first glance. But not if you check whether the text, repetitive elements, and partially-occluded objects in the background look correct.

It sounds different to me.

Poetry is for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the reader. Who reads poems? The question is a little vague. Who reads poems on a birthday card? Everyone. In a children's book? Parents and children.

But this study focuses on literary poems specifically, using works by literary heavy weights like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, Byron, Ginsberg, and so on. So the question is who reads literary poems, to which the answer is: academics, literary writers, and a vanishingly small population of reader who enjoy such pursuits.

So the test of if ersatz AI poetry is as good as "real" poetry should be if target audience (i.e. academics) finds the poems to be enjoyable or enlightening. But this study does not test that hypothesis.

This study tests a different hypothesis: can lay people who are not generally interested in literary poetry distinguish between real and AI literary poetry?

The hypothesis and paper feel kind of like a potshot at literary poetry to me, or at least I don't understand why this particular question is interesting or worthy of scientific inquiry.

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#134

Post by deze333 »

As a software guy I’ve been dabbling with poetry for last 2 years [1] as an extension to my code writing. I think poetry and code go together rather well, there are similarities when it comes to elegance, construction and structure.

Liking or not liking poetry is irrelevant. There are some interesting things happen when one actually writes poetry. You are much closer to the source of ideas that can at times feel unique and inspiring.

Generative LLMs can easily mimic style, any _existing_ style. Can they capture a original higher thought form or is generated poetry an extremely smooth word salad?

[1] https://planetos.substack.com

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#136

Post by pyuser583 »

I consider myself a “sophisticated” reader of poetry. I’m especially fond of Eliot - who is an acquired taste.

I’ve never read the real Eliot poem, and don’t like it much.

I searched for it. It was written before Eliot was known, and before he moved from America to Britain.

That’s important, as I’d assumed it was taking place in Britain, and Eliot’s poetry is extremely location sensitive.

It also seems to be part of a “triplet” - three poems that go together. Eliot was very inconsistent about which poems went with which. The best practice is to include any possible “other parts.”

Reading the other poems in the triplet provides important context, but they’re still not great literature.

Maybe people don’t like it because it was just one of Eliot’s crappier poems?

Edit: the Eliot poem was published shortly after he moved to the UK. But that makes the American context provided by the other poems more important.

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#138

Post by westurner »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #123
gcau wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the logic of calling superhero movies lesser/unserious like this, it's very snobby. Movies and music are made to be entertaining, the avengers is more entertaining than your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes but it's just because they aren't smart enough to understand it". It's also lazy and ignorant to ignore the sheer manpower that goes into making a movie like that.

Nobody likes art that requires them to think.

Well, the art can't judge itself.

Maybe critics are art, too. Like Lipton's "Inside the Actor's Studio" (Detroit). That's art.

"It's not art it's ari. You want to make an art film? You take it to Sundance, you take it to Telluride, you take it to Cannes."

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#139

Post by sirspacey »

lm28469 wrote: post #126
gcau wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the logic of calling superhero movies lesser/unserious like this, it's very snobby. Movies and music are made to be entertaining, the avengers is more entertaining than your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes but it's just because they aren't smart enough to understand it". It's also lazy and ignorant to ignore the sheer manpower that goes into making a movie like that.

> your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes You're reading way too much into my comment. Any block buster from the 80/90s absolutely shits on 90% of block busters released today. I'm not talking about obscure 1950s czechoslovak cinema here... > ignore the sheet manpower that goes into making a movie like that. A lot of work doesn't make something good, especially when cgi quality actually gets worse year…

Film is such a nascent art form. The 90s as “peak blockbuster action” is a valid stance on taste but hard to defend as superior to all that came after. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight is leagues aways from the 90s Batman, as an auteur friendly and obvious comparison. Pixar another on the animation front.

There have been great films made in every era, but the trend towards tighter writing, more legible and compelling action, and emotionally impactful story telling is strongly trending upwards overall.

And nothing will ever top the merchandising mania of the 80s!

Re: AI poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry and is rated more favorably

#140

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

gcau wrote: post #122
lm28469 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people seem to prefer Avengers 17 over any cinematic masterpiece, the latest drake song would be better rated than a Tchaikovsky... We should let them play and worship chat gpt if that's what they want to waste their time on

I don't understand the logic of calling superhero movies lesser/unserious like this, it's very snobby. Movies and music are made to be entertaining, the avengers is more entertaining than your "arthouse cinematic masterpiece that nobody likes but it's just because they aren't smart enough to understand it". It's also lazy and ignorant to ignore the sheer manpower that goes into making a movie like that.

There is more to art than entertainment. For example Oedipus Rex [1] - distinctly not entertaining; but art, and powerful in an incomparable way, anyway.

_____________

[1] Don't look it up if you don't know what that is.

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