AI is taking over many aspects of our lives, including creating works of art. Can this be true? Let’s go and knock on Alan Turing’s door and ask him.
Alan Turing, developed a test to answer the question: Can machines think? The test, called the Imitation Game, replaces the question with a practical test of intelligent behaviour. It involves a human judge who communicates (usually via text) with another human and a machine behind a wall. The judge asks questions and receives answers, and shape must determine which is the machine and which is the human. Although Turing’s test was about intelligent behaviour the same approach can be taken to test creativity. So let’s set up an experiment where you the reader are the judge, and you have to decide which of the following poems were written by AI.
Let’s start. At the end of each poem ask yourself: could this have been written by AI or a human? Here is the first one:
Birds chirp daintily
sun beating down on their feathers.
New grass unfurls
soaking up rain-rich nutrients in the soil.
Butterflies socialize with dull moths
Flitting in the new spring air
bees swirl on the ground
buzzing from flower to flower
and me in the middle of it
standing there in the centre of the havoc
silent and still
watching new lives
unfold before me
The poem captures the effect of Spring on the poet. Now for the next one:
Soft rain stitches silver through the air,
And buds unlace their quiet, patient seams.
The earth exhales a greening everywhere,
Awakening the roots of buried dreams.
A robin tests the morning with a song,
While sunlight spills like honey on the ground.
The days grow tender, stretching warm and long,
And life returns in every sight and sound.
Petals drift where winter used to stay,
A fleeting bloom in pastel, bright disguise.
The breeze relearns the language of the day,
And paints new hope beneath awakening skies.
This poem describes how the changes in the flora and fauna send signs that Spring has started. Finally,
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
Before you read on - stop for a few minutes and make your decision.
Which one was generated by AI? The first poem was written by Tom B, Year 6, who is showing early signs of being a fine poet. I hope that he is still writing. The last poem was by E E Cummings. He uses both form and format to depict spring as a gentle, precise, and creative force that subtly transforms the world, much like a hand rearranging a window display. The second poem was generated by AI, and its comes down to you and what it means to you. But I feel that the second poem lacks any depth compared to the other two.
It is nearly impossible to define what turns a few words laid out in a certain way into a poem. But a good poem should invoke an emotional response. The AI-generated poem put together words that describe spring; we don’t experience a moment in Spring that the others produce.
You may have picked the AI-generated poem; maybe not. But I hope that you agree that AI has a long way to go before it is labelled ‘creative’. If you are a budding poet, then keep writing; you will be ahead of AI for many years.