I’ve noticed in recent times
Poetry doesn’t rhyme
And even when it can
It doesn’t scan
It’s shit, it’s true
I blame haiku
AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably - Scientific Reports
Submitted 19 hours ago by arrakark@10291998.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-76900-1
Comments
Mr_Blott@feddit.uk 13 hours ago
treefrog@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Poetry doesn’t need to rhyme. Rhyming is a mnemonic device, so a poem can be memorized and performed.
There are many other devices.
Also, nice poem. Did you write it or chatGPT?
Mr_Blott@feddit.uk 4 hours ago
I never thought I’d see the day
When someone writes a poem
The first thing that we say to them
Is “Did you use an LLM?” :(
If a poem neither rhymes nor scans,
Sorry for my spite
It’s no longer poetry
It’s someone talking shite
Llewellyn@lemm.ee 2 hours ago
Rhyming is a mnemonic device
Rhyming has other purposes: creation of additional sonic rhythm and restricting possibilities for making matter more distinct and interesting (as rules do for any game).
FierySpectre@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
This is true art
Viri4thus@feddit.org 14 hours ago
“In short, it appears that the “more human than human” phenomenon in poetry is caused by a misinterpretation of readers’ own preferences. Non-expert poetry readers expect to like human-authored poems more than they like AI-generated poems. But in fact, they find the AI-generated poems easier to interpret; they can more easily understand images, themes, and emotions in the AI-generated poetry than they can in the more complex poetry of human poets.”
AI writes poems for dummies and dummies like it. Fin
Otherwise, purposefully chosing less popular poems also biases the study towards poems of lower appeal from the human poets.
Juice@midwest.social 3 hours ago
I don’t always think, but when I do, I prefer not to
logos@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Also, it only works when there’s a human weeding out all but the “best” poems.
…when a human chooses the best AI-generated poem (“human-in-the-loop”) participants cannot distinguish AI-generated poems from human-written poems, but when an AI-generated poem is chosen at random (“human-out-of-the-loop”), participants are able to distinguish AI-generated from human-written poems.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
This thread is hilarious.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
Averaging out data is ok in situations where there’s no right answer and it doesn’t matter at all.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Who the fuck wants poetry written by a machine? The whole point of poetry is that it’s an original expression of another human. It’s not a non-fiction book or decorative art. It doesn’t exist because we think it’s perfect. It exists because it’s a connection to another person.
Like, who gives a shit if a machine can churn out something like Langston Hughes “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” . His life is what gives the poem its meaning.
I’m all for LLMs writing stuff but when people say it can create certain types of art, I want to use one to make a dismissive_wank.png image.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 16 hours ago
If it’s literally indistinguishable from human poetry, about as many people want to read it as there are people wanting to read human poetry. And that’s about 12.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I don’t give a fuck if it surpasses human poetry to a focus group or if poetry is popular enough for you to care. I’m making a larger point that it’s a misuse of technology. Some things are pointless without a human personally taking time to craft it. We have loads of inefficiently produced things that exist because they’re “handmade” or came from the heart.
It’s like when Google screwed up during the Olympics with that commercial where Gemini made a little girl’s fan letter for an athlete. The whole point of a fan letter from a little girl is that it’s personal and took time. It’s not supposed to be perfect and efficiently produced. It could be 80% misspelled and written in crayon and be more meaningful than anything a machine produces.
tpihkal@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Literally dozens of them.
Jolteon@lemmy.zip 15 hours ago
Poetry isn’t for the one reading it, it’s for the one writing it.
themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
I’ll raise you one better: who the fuck wants poetry?
Like I know I sound like a fucking mongrel who can’t appreciate art or whatever, but how many poems do you think the average person reads in their entire life? Maybe 2, for school? Poetry is just not that popular of an art form, so of course people aren’t going to be good at distinguishing good from bad. Compare it to visual arts, where people have seen multiple examples, at least more than 3 times a year for their entire life, of good visual art.
treefrog@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
This is a very consumer take on art.
I write poetry because making art feeds my soul. I share my poetry because it feeds others, especially other poets.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
You’re right, actually. How many people make a point of reading poetry? I’ve read a huge amount, especially when I was in school, as well as news articles, and of course an unfathomable number of comments.
Never have I decided to read poetry, not once.
kriz@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
I like Ethan Hawke’s take: youtube.com/shorts/dPBMTpK5yvk
fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Does any poetry have any value without knowing the person that made it?
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Knowing a human made it is the point. To be crude, if a sex doll is your girlfriend, you’re single.
Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Depends on what kind of “poetry” they compare it to. If they talk about Shakespeare or Goethe, that would be a feat. But if they are talking about modern “poetry”, well, that already looks like bad LLM diarrhea for decades now, so there is no surprise in that.
DuckWrangler9000@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
The thing I really hate about AI is when they say it can make art. For centuries, art has been a form of expression and communicating all sorts of human emotions and experiences. Some art reflects pain or memories experienced in life. Other art is designed out of intellectual curiosity or to evoke thought. AI isn’t human, so it can’t do anything other than copy or simulate. It’s artificial after all. So it makes images. But there’s no backstory or feelings or emotion or suffering. It’s truly meaningless.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
AI isn’t human, so it can’t do anything other than copy or simulate.
There’s no such thing as “AI”. But computers can also generate art through averaging. It can average the feelings, impact, etc. That’s part of why generated art is popular. It’s still people creating new works from the old. It’s still “art” by any reasonable definition.
DuckWrangler9000@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
How do you mean there’s no such thing as AI?
testfactor@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
In 1962 Phillip K Dick put out a book called “Man in the High Castle.” In it there was a scene that stuck out to me, and seems more and more relevant as this AI wave continues.
In it a man has two identical lighters. Each made in the same year by the same manufacturer. But one was priceless and one was worthless.
The priceless one was owned by Abraham Lincoln and was in his pocket on the night he was assassinated. He had a letter of certification as such, and could trace the ownership all the way back to that night.
And he takes them both and mixes them up and asks which is the one with value. If you can no longer discern the one with “historicity,” then where is it’s value?
And every time I see an article like this I can’t help but think about that. If I tell you about the life and hardship of an artist, and then present you two poems, one that he wrote and one that was spit out by an LLM, and you cannot determine which has the true hardship and emotion tied to it, then which has value? What if I killed the artist before he could reveal which one was the “true” poem? How do you know which is a powerful expression of the artist’s oppression, and which is worthless, randomly generated swill?
catloaf@lemm.ee 14 hours ago
Art, like the value of Lincoln’s lighter, is in the eye of the beholder.
Often, people find art in completely natural occurrences. Or even human designs seen in certain ways, like how two or more separate buildings might come together in unintended ways.
So, even if it’s not strictly intentional human art, it’s still valid to appreciate it.
whereisk@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
There’s no contradiction here.
With high value art you definitionally buy a story not the content. Without a certificate of authenticity or a story that goes with it there is no story and no value to it.
With K Dick’s example the two lighters would become of different but equivalent value, perhaps the new value is in the story of how two identical copies and yet different came to be.
You could 3d scan the statue of David and reproduce it down to its tiniest detail. And yet the copy is only worth as much as the cost to make it or even less, while the original is invaluable.
You can see the Mona Lisa on your phone any time you want and yet millions will take the trip to the Louvre to see what is most likely not even the original.
The story and the history of an object is what you purchase when buying art or antiques of high value.
greenskye@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
I think there’s an argument about art being the emotions it invokes in the viewer rather than the creator. Humans can find art in natural phenomena, which also has no feelings or backstory involved.
I’m not really defending AI slop here, just disagreeing with your definition of art and the relation to the creator rather than the viewer.
treefrog@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
There’s a lot of consumer/commodity notions about art in this thread.
I write poetry because self-expression helps me appreciate life more deeply. I share my self-expression with others who will appreciate it. Mostly, people who know me personally and other poets.
Art is soul food. Until machines realize they exist, and one day will not exist, they can’t self-express, and aren’t doing art.
They can imitate it well enough to fool consumers. But that doesn’t make it art.
To quote one of my favorite lines, sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 16 hours ago
Or, maybe, we have to accept that art and all the grandiose and deep narratives around it are bullshit. It’s an illusion, it’s just a tool so some of us feel more important.
All that crap about not being made by humans is just the fear that the illusion of grandeur of humans might collapse.
treefrog@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Art is in the act of creating it. Not in the final product to be bought and sold on the market.
A kid coloring is making art. The joy they get in the making is the art and is the point.
I feel sorry for so many people in this thread who keep approaching this from the point of view of consumer markets. It doesn’t matter if someone can determine an AI colored picture from a child’s. The AI derives no joy in the creation. It’s not art, but a copy.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 19 hours ago
Oh man, that doesn’t say anything good about poetry in general, where something that, by definition, has no imagination and cannot come up with something original, outdoes you.
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I mean if it has to rhyme and fit certain meters or rhytmic parameters that can make it far easier to calculate and contrive a pleasing sounding poem with zero regard to the actual intrinsic qualities of the content itself
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
A sestina based on the rules is, formally speaking, easy. Ask me to write one that will be studied after centuries, and you’re asking for Petrarch.
otp@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
It doesn’t appeal to the masses.
Most people don’t “get” poetry. That’s why you don’t see many people sitting around reading books of poetry.
Many people would probably also choose a short story written by AI over one written by a professional author.
Heck, I’m sure comments written by AI generally get more upvotes than comments written by humans.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 16 hours ago
Most people don’t “get” poetry.
Did you channel your edgy 15 year old self for that? That’s incredibly arrogant and self absorbed.
jeena@piefed.jeena.net 18 hours ago
The difference is the intent and the background behind it.
Sure for maximum mass adoption the computer can out-research any human and just find the blandest set of rules which cater to the highest percentage of the majority.
What it still will have a hard time doing, and I predict it will be for quite some time - probably until we have quantum computers - is to come up with a new way of doing poetry which is not just copying what humans did but better.
I think of AI like it's China, they are super efficient in copeing things and gradually making them better and cheaper but the setup of their society makes it impossible to really innovate.
And yeah I'm saying that it's the setup, because in Taiwan they are able to innovate at a much higher rate.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Oh man there’s nothing i like better than rating some poetry.
dsilverz@thelemmy.club 2 hours ago
LLMs can’t use some literary devices and techniques, and I will illustrate with the following example of a poetry I wrote:
It seems like a “normal” (although mysterious) poetry until you isolate each initial letter from every word, finding out a hidden phrase:
It doesn’t stop here: if you isolate each initial letter again, you get a hidden word, “Shadows”.
Currently, no single LLM is capable of that. They can try to make up poetry with acrostics (the aforementioned technique) but they aren’t good at that. Consequently, they can’t write multilayered acrostics (an acrostic inside another acrostic). It’s not easy for a human to do that (especially if the said human isn’t a native English speaker), but it can be done by humans with enough time, patience and resources (a dictionary big enough to find fitting words).
They’re excellent for stream-of-consciousness and surrealist poetry, tho. They hallucinate, and hallucinated imagination is required in order to write such genres.