Intelligence
A flickering screen with words typed from
knowledge in a chip.
My mind’s ability seems obsolete
compared to its hip,
quick clicks, and artificial information
made of binary
synthesis, but machines will never learn
to write poetry.
I wrote this poem many years ago in college (2010 I think). AI was already in use, but it was not nearly as prominent as it is today. AI can do a lot of things, including mimicking poetry and other art forms. But is it really writing poetry?
There are many discussions on whether or not the use of AI is ethical. It takes jobs from human creatives. However, even apart from the ethical concerns, AI simply cannot create poetry or any other form of art.
What is Poetry?
“Poetry”, according to romantic poet William Wordsworth, is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” (Lyrical Ballads, Preface) Poetic devices such as rhyme, alliteration, and meter patterns have fallen in and out of fashion over the years but, at its core, poetry is human expression. The poet is expressing a piece of themselves to the reader or listener and the reader or listener finds something meaningful in sharing that experience with the poet.
Art is not merely an image or words strung together in a certain way. Art, from the Latin artem, is a skill or a craft. Skill and craft are both words referring to the process not the end result.
This is why nineteenth-century French philosopher, Victor Cousin coined the phrase “L’art pour l’art” or “art for art’s sake”. True art has never been about the end result. It has always been about the process.
There are many ways to define art, but intention and expression are always an integral element. The act of creation cannot be separated from the creation itself and the act of creation cannot be separated from human emotion.
According to D’arcy Hayman, “Art is the essence of that which is human; it is the embodiment of the human experience and goal.” (The Arts and Man, A World View of the Role and Functions of the Arts in Society). Ultimately, Art reaches beyond the body and physical needs of the human race in search of a deeper existence. It is the scream of humanity. Pieces of ourselves reaching out to be heard.
To put it in simpler terms “We read to know we are not alone.” (Shadowlands, 1994) We experience art in order to experience one another.
Can AI Create Poetry?
How then can a poem written by an unfeeling computer mean anything at all? There is no connection to another human being (or lifeform or even consciousness), no emotion pouring out from one soul to another. It might have all the same pieces as a poem, but it is essentially meaningless. A computer cannot feel or express. It can produce a product, but it cannot create art
That isn’t to say a poem assimilated by AI cannot invoke emotion. On the contrary, many do. A reader might not be able to even tell it apart from a poem by a living (or once living) poet. And if it is indistinguishable from art is it not art?
In a way, everyone who experiences a piece of art is part artist because we each experience it in our own way and thus participate in its creation. We bring our own experiences to the art and interpret it accordingly. In that sense, art is a catalyst for feelings and the reader, the viewer, or the listener, is the true artist. Cannot art -poetry- by a computer be used in this way? A bridge that connects people without needing to be created by anyone at all? It still invokes feelings. It still shows us that we are not alone. Could AI be the scream of humanity? An imitation of ourselves that we now strive to imitate?
Not every poem assimilated by a poetry program, however, can invoke emotions. The poems assimilated must be sorted through and gleaned for meaning. In that sense, they could perhaps be called pieces of found art. Something a human found meaning in and chose to showcase. It can still connect us, and it can still enrich our lives, but the computer is never the artist. It is only a tool like a paintbrush or a blender.
A computer can be programmed to imitate art but it will never be the artist. It could be argued that the programmer is the artist but the programmer only assimilated the tool. The program itself requires the works of hundreds and thousands of past writers. Anything created by AI was created by every single artist whose work was used to create the program. All it can do is mimic what has come before. It cannot create anything new.
Creative Innovation and Imagination
Art will suffocate if nothing new is added to the mix. According to Phillip Sydney and many other philosophers, Art is a teacher. We create from imagination in order to envision what could be. This is both why art is so important to society and a big reason why it cannot be created by a computer. A computer can only copy patterns. It can only mimic what is. It cannot innovate. It cannot dream of things that have never been.
Art is an important tool to escape conformity and improve society ( Hayman) It is the genetic variation in the evolution of society. True art is born of chaos. How then can an orderly program be expected to create it? Without innovation, it will only ever be a pantomime of art.
AI might be used to help create poetry, but it cannot replace the poet. It has no investment in or comprehension of what it is assimilating. If the computer never feels or understands the words it is stringing together it cannot be true expression or creation. It cannot be poetry. It cannot be art.
AI does not necessarily need to be abolished in the creative world, but it is important that we use, and more importantly consume, it ethically. A computer does not need to be fed but an artist -a poet- does. An artist (or multiple artists) is still needed to create. There just isn’t a substitute for human emotion and imagination in creative work. A human (or feeling entity) will always be needed to create art.