Yes, you can have ChatGPT write a poem in the voice of whatever poet you want. It won't be good. It won't have any of the details right. Mimicry rarely does.
For example, I asked it to write a poem like Andrew Hudgins and it was garbage. I know where Mr. Hudgins likes to insert humor in his poems. I know what his poems are about. And whatever AI gave me was not an Andrew Hudgins poem. I don't know what the fuck it was, but it sure as shit wasn't Praying Drunk or even close to it.
Let's hypothesize AI could write a poem like Praying Drunk—let's just say on a technical level, we could get there. It's so good, it somehow got accepted into a big poetry journal. What then? What does it mean? Well, I'll tell you what: jack shit.
There was an article this week that made the rounds. "AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably". Which is all super interesting until you dig into the details of the report. There's a lot of "ifs", "ands" and "buts", which there has to be because we, as a species, will always come up short digitizing the human experience. I honestly believe that.
I've written about this before, but the discoveries made during the creation of art is more important than the art itself. Discovery is a very human experience. AI is a mimic. A very good mimic. But mimicking the Mona Lisa isn't important. The creation of it—was and still is important—because of all the human experience tied up within it. A piece of art created by AI? Even if you threw in a 3D printer, who gives a shit. Why should I care? The answer is I wouldn't—no humanity involved.
I know this phrase has a lot to unpack, but I'm starting to wonder if there's finite limit to anything we try to accomplish as a species. And trying to surpass that limit will always be a little sad. Capitalism can't grow forever. Infinite growth in a closed system is not possible. There are limits to space travel. Artificial General Intelligence sounds like a pipe dream to me. I could be wrong, of course. I honestly don't care.
Today's Poem
Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a choice about what I'm going to write about. It's often the case that I don't. And reader, sex poems are not my jam.
Sitting at the coffee shop, the beginnings of the poem plopped into my brain, and I remember thinking: Yeah, no thanks. And I almost skipped it. Dropped it to the floor. I wanted to. Ugh. What the fuck, no thanks.
But I didn't—because art is about discovery. You believe that or you don't. And you walk the path given if you truly believe it, which I do.
So this is a poem about Evangelical culture and masturbation and acknowledging a thing I clearly carry with me all the time. Poems tend to do that—force acknowledgment. I'm glad I wrote it, but I'll be very surprised if I ever send it out for publication. Probably just stick it in a folder to die.
