What Poets Know That ChatGPT Doesn’t
One of the least discussed aspects of the AI language generator ChatGPT might be its ability to produce pretty awful poetry. Given how difficult it is to teach a computer how to recognize a syllable, I’m not disparaging the technical prowess of the chatbot’s creators and testers. But very few of the AI-produced poems I’ve read actually follow the prompt that’s been provided. “Write a poem in the style of Seamus Heaney”? This is not that poem:
In a garden green and fair,
A flower blooms, a sight so rare.
But is it meant for me, I fear?
Will I, like it, bloom this year?
Odds are good that this poem, titled “Is It for Me?,” will not win the National Poetry Series. The final phrase,” which gives the last line an unintended comic air, because Eliot is referring to a corpse.
