Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023)

#81

Post by karaterobot » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

oska wrote: post #77

karaterobot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he addresses your question immediately following the comma. He's not saying you must have been, e.g., persecuted or downtrodden to create art, he's talking about the struggle of creation itself. He's saying art is hard to make, that if you're not overreaching you aren't making art, and he may be saying that what makes ChatGPT's output not art is that it's created automatically, within the scope of its limitat…

I'm amazed at all this discussion upon a misinterpretation when, exactly as you say, he clarified what he meant by struggle in the same sentence and it is not life struggle, it is creative struggle (to create music, poetry, etc). (Of course, pretty much everyone experiences hardship in life and some artists have experienced very harsh hardships and drawn upon that in their later art but he is very clearly not saying…

To be fair, I think he wants to have it both ways. He seems to oscillate between the two ways of struggling, even in that one paragraph. I'm just trying to offer a very generous reading. Nick Cave is a great lyricist, but I've never really been impressed with his other writing; he becomes Romantic and fuzzy like this when it's convenient.

Re: Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023)

#82

Post by oska » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 6:31 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #81

oska wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed at all this discussion upon a misinterpretation when, exactly as you say, he clarified what he meant by struggle in the same sentence and it is not life struggle, it is creative struggle (to create music, poetry, etc). (Of course, pretty much everyone experiences hardship in life and some artists have experienced very harsh hardships and drawn upon that in their later art but he is very clearly not saying…

To be fair, I think he wants to have it both ways. He seems to oscillate between the two ways of struggling, even in that one paragraph. I'm just trying to offer a very generous reading. Nick Cave is a great lyricist, but I've never really been impressed with his other writing; he becomes Romantic and fuzzy like this when it's convenient.

Agree with you about him being a great lyricist (I find 'the loom of the land', to give one very brief example, a masterful configuration) but I also have mixed feelings about the man. I find him intellectually pretentious, politically distasteful (to put it mildly) and suspect him to be very lacking in his personal relationships. An exemplary case, for me, of liking the art while not necessarily liking the artist.

Re: Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023)

#83

Post by gwern » Sun, Mar 30, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #3

> Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer. Maybe I misunderstand this part, but it sounds like the author feels like it's required to suffer in order to produce something creative in the first place, and other artists that haven't suffered "enough" but produce things…

The narrow emphasis on autobiographical content we see today in art is really quite strange. You'll go on Reddit or Twitter and you'll see people insisting that poetry exists only to convey autobiographical content, and so good AI poetry is definitionally impossible. And yet, nothing could be more ahistorical: almost all of the most beloved art throughout history, especially fictional, and especially poetry, lyrics, and novels, is not eyewitness, nor did people find that a flaw or even worth remarking on. How many of Shakespeare's plays are autobiographical? (Is _Romeo and Juliet_ a bad play because Shakespeare did not in fact know anyone in a lover's suicide pact, and simply stole the plot wholesale from a poem? A translated one, at that!) Did Homer ever visit Troy? Did Murasaki Shikibu know a Prince Genji? Did Vince Gilligan have a sideline as a meth cook somewhere in New York during film school before going to Hollywood? (How many Christians are upset that it is, say, the 'Gospel according to Mark', instead of the 'Gospel by Mark'?)

It's amusing how people demand that their fiction be nonfiction. Here's an example I saw the other day, looking up that song which is everywhere, even at the end of random Japanese TV series, because it's so beloved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_(Earth,_Wind_%26_Fir...

> Although several theories about the significance of the date have been suggested, the songwriter Maurice White claimed he simply chose the 21st due to how it sounded when sung.[10] Allee Willis adding : "We went through all the dates: 'Do you remember the first, the second, the third, the fourth ... ' and the one that just felt the best was the 21st," Willis explains. "I constantly have people coming up to me and they get so excited to know what the significance was. And there is no significance beyond it just sang better than any of the other dates. So ... sorry!".[11]

Imagine that: writing a fictional song lyric because it... sounded good, rather than because something happened. (Apparently people can't imagine that, and imagine it had to have not been imagined.)

Re: Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023)

#84

Post by edanm » Mon, Mar 31, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

Fraterkes wrote: post #47

MiguelVieira wrote: post #7

"AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76900-1

Theres a couple million works of poetry sold every year. If you have real faith in this study, this seems like a trivial way to make some millions. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is?

> Theres a couple million works of poetry sold every year.

Really? This sounds like a huge exaggeration to me, but I know next to nothing about poetry. Just compared to how many books are sold this seems ridiculosly high.

Re: Nick Cave's thoughts on a ChatGPT poem (2023)

#85

Post by getlawgdon » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 12:59 PM UTC

jdmoreira wrote: post #66

getlawgdon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usage exemplified by the venerable "@nrmaggs" and "FoxMcChief", but also Craft Brewed Sports! Honored authorities that will stand the test of time!

aren't you just @getlawgdon on some nerd computer forum? Obviously your ego transcends space and time though. We are so sorry to bother you with our lowly internet speak. I'm sure your HN comments will be studied as great works of literature for generations to come

It's obvious sardonic humor srikes a deep, deep nerve in your very incurious, reactive being. I'm sorry it took me 8 days to reply to you, but I just noticed you now. It's going to be OK. Your memes and nerdlingo are safe.