Monday, April 11, 2016
Computers and Poetry
The last two weeks we have analyzed poems. This week, I want you to watch this TED Talk. It poses the question, can a computer write poetry? As you watch this, keep in mind what he is saying about what it means to be human and what he is saying about poetry. Once you have watched the video, pull three things he says that resonate with you and comment on them.
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I am not ashamed to admit that I spend a lot of (the limited) free time that I have watching TED Talks, and that I have watched this particular one more than once. I was surprised and sort of frightened when I first watched it, because I don’t really like the idea of computers being/becoming indistinguishable from humans, but after having revisited Oscar Schwartz’s talk a couple times, the ideas behind what he says have become clearer and have grown on me.
ReplyDelete1) “But the important thing to know about RKCP is that it doesn't know the meaning of the words it's using. The language is just raw material, it could be Chinese, it could be in Swedish, it could be the collected language from your Facebook feed for one day. It's just raw material. And nevertheless, it's able to create a poem that seems more human than Gertrude Stein's poem, and Gertrude Stein is a human.”
This quote makes me think about the uniqueness that surrounds poetry, and the definitive difference between computers and people. Schwartz emphasizes how his machine does not comprehend the meaning of the words and their function in the poetry it produces, and in this respect the machines falls short of the human poet. With all the analyses that we have done this year in AP Lit, I’ve learned that nothing is an accident and that every word, form of punctuation, and detail was chosen with a specific purpose. An integral aspect of art is the feeling that it creates-- regardless of whether that feeling is within the artist or the audience-- and without feeling, the purpose of poetry as an outlet for emotion is diminished. Although RKCP’s poem isn’t necessarily bad or incomprehensible and Gertrude Stein’s poem may seem clumsy, awkward, and perhaps mechanic to us, one is a product of math, and the other it is a product of careful word choice and raw human emotion as opposed to raw synthesized material. To be human is to feel emotions, and this is the bold line that separates man from machine.
2) “This has led me to understand that the human is not a cold, hard fact. Rather, it is something that's constructed with our opinions and something that changes over time...my final insight is that the computer, more or less, works like a mirror that reflects any idea of a human that we show it. We show it Emily Dickinson, it gives Emily Dickinson back to us. We show it William Blake, that's what it reflects back to us. We show it Gertrude Stein, what we get back is Gertrude Stein. More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it..”
It makes me sort of uncomfortable to think that a computer could seem more human than a human, or perhaps that a human could seem more machine than a machine, but I think that humans are similar to the computers that Schwartz discusses in the way that both are a reflection of the people and experiences that come into contact with them. We as humans are always changing in an attempt to define exactly who we are, but that “who we are” is never the same from one day to the next. Each day, our database of memory and knowledge grows, just as the ever-expanding amount of knowledge that a computer is able to spit out at us. By comparing us to the technology that is so easily influenced by what kind of information is entered into it, I think this serves as a “wake up call” or perhaps even a warning of sorts to be careful about who or what we allow ourselves to be controlled and influenced by. Humans are inherently as malleable as computers (some more than others), but unlike the synthesized machine, we have more control over what information we absorb and are affected by.
With regard to your first point, you say that the computer falls short of the human poet because it lacks the ability to reason and construct a poem whose every word and punctuation has a reason. But if you can't tell the difference between the human and computer generated poem, is there a difference?
DeleteEvery poem we analyze in class we do subjectively as readers. We could be given anything - even gibberish - and if we were asked to analyze its meaning, we would create our own justifications of the choice of language and punctuation. Therefore, we as readers are the ones who determine that these elements have a meaning to them - it doesn't matter whether the poem is created by a human or computer, because we could still analyze the poem and argue that its structure has meaning.
You seem to have a very narrow view of what computers are & are capable of
DeleteYou bring up a really good point, and I'm not doubting the capabilities of the computer, nor do I think that the computer's poem is all that bad. In my opinion, though, thinking of a poem as being the product of an algorithm instead of the product of human emotions seems to diminish the purpose of poetry as being an outlet for those feelings. I guess you may be right in stating that it doesn't matter what writes the poem as long as we as audience members like it, but it seems like a juxtaposition to me and that is what I really struggled coming to terms with while watching this talk.
DeleteBut when you remove info of who the author is and the reader can't tell whether it's a person or computer, then nothing is lost from the poem's meaning because you can't know if it was computer-generated and thus "diminished" in meaning
DeleteI guess I'm just thinking of this from more of the poet's rather than the audience's point of view...but these are just my opinions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
DeleteFact takes precedence over opinion
Delete3) “We should also be asking ourselves, ‘What idea of the human do we want to have reflected back to us?’ This is an essentially philosophical idea, and it's one that can't be answered with software alone, but I think requires a moment of species-wide, existential reflection.”
ReplyDeleteWhen Schwartz said this, it reminded me of Sartre’s idea of existence preceding essence. Sartre’s idea here is that when we are first created, we have no meaning to begin with and we define ourselves later in life. As humans, we control technology and therefore have the say in the way it is created and the purpose that it has in our lives. Just as the existentialists believe that we define the our own meaning, we also define the purpose of computer and how it can reflect our species. I think that this statement is Schwartz’s way of urging us to be individuals and to create in a way that we can capture our true essence as humans and as an innovative group of beings with the incredible ability to empathize and feel emotions.
P.S. Alan Turing and his Turing test are mentioned in this talk, and that is the same man whose story inspired the movie The Imitation Game. Great film, I highly recommend!!!
DeleteBeing human involves more than living out a life on a day by day process. It requires a sense of creativity; a need to seek an understanding of what is being interpreted and present it in a manner that offers new knowledge. Schwartz, in the beginning, asks, “Can a computer write poetry?”. He attempts to prove this fallacy through his next questions, “What is a computer? What is poetry? What is creativity?” He shows how much the computer limits human emotion and creativity to the simple point of writing a repeated algorithm.
ReplyDelete1) “Alan Turing believed that if a computer was able to have a text-based conversation with a human, with such proficiency, such that a human couldn’t tell whether or not it was talking to a computer or a human, then the computer was said to have intelligence.”
Computers and humans are similar in their thought process. They are easily taken by the complex, yet simple basis a computer speaks on. This idea of intelligence, expressed by a title, status or label, cannot prove that the computer is human, but offers a thought process that is capable of reproducing words from meaning.
2) “RCKP does not know the meaning of the words it is using. The language is just raw material. It could be Chinese, it be in Swedish, it could be the collected language from your Facebook feed in one day. It is just raw material. None the less, it’s able to create a poem that seems more human than Gertrude Stein’s poem, and Gertrude Stein is a human.”
Technology offers insight, or rather the lack of it. In the case of the computer, poetry is only generated to fool people. It may think or have an assumed intelligence, but does it really? It is shocking to realize that from just one bit of information, no matter the source, the computer can write something that seems better than a human’s work. What it loses in meaning, it makes up for the proficiency of its quality.
3) “The computer, more or less, works like a mirror that reflects any idea of the human that we show it. We show it Emily Dickinson, it gives Emily Dickinson back to us. We show it William Blake, that what is reflected to back to us. We show it Gertrude Stein, what we get back is Gertrude Stein.”
Poetry, as Schwartz states, is a defining part of humanity. The computer can only work on the information it is supplied. It cannot define it, nor match the struggle of any upcoming writer. Since the human idea is a mixture of behaviors, actions and opinions, the computer tries to fill that in with a perceived thought of how a human works through their emotions, beliefs and capacities.
The first topic that resonated with me from the video was the idea of the Turing Test and the Reverse Turing Test. It initially made sense to me that the Turing Test (where if a computer can fool a human 30% of the time, the computer is a human) could measure humanness in a computer. However, I was particularly interested by the Reverse Turing Test, when Gertrude Stein was compared to a computer. These comparisons really blurred the lines between human and computer for me. Originally I never thought they could be considered the same thing, but after watching this video they are a lot closer than I imagined.
ReplyDeleteThe next point that resonated with me was viewing a computer as a mirror. It makes sense that a computer is a reflection of the human form. If we teach the computer Emily Dickinson, it will recreate through its algorithms poetry similar to Emily Dickinson. The same goes for William Blake and Gertrude Stein. Thus it is important in the future, when looking to use computers for higher level tasks, that we view the computer as a mirror. What do we want the computer to reflect back to us? The computer is only as good as what we teach it.
The final point that resonated with me was the idea of the changing human form. We associate poetry with humanness. However, what exactly does it mean to be human? This is something that is explained only through opinions, experiences, and is changing over time. After watching this video, I am truly puzzled as to what exactly does it mean to be human. This is a topic I will continue to ponder long into the future.
Computers – Blog
ReplyDelete1) “For some reason, we associate writing poetry with being human… So we have to ask what it means to be human, and who or what can be part of this category. This can’t be answered with a yes or no test.” I think this is disgustingly obvious, and although this video proves that computers can do something via algorithm, that’s old news. Of course computers aren’t human, nor are humans computers, yet the wiring of the human brain elicits similarities to a machine, and of course machines can be engineered to act and think like humans. Not in any way do I deny artificial intelligence, nor the human compatibility with it; instead, I simply believe that art cannot be born of a machine, and that poetry must come from the heart in order to be appreciated not only by its audience, but also by the author itself, an important part of literary composition.
2) “Turing said that if a computer could fool a human 30% of the time, then it can be said it has intelligence. We have fooled users 65% of the time. According to the logic of the Turing test, can a computer write poetry, well, yes, absolutely, it can.” The fact of the matter is that literature is a dialogue between the author and the reader, and there is a huge difference between an author that has lived a life full of anguish and joy, one who has participated in history and made history of their own, and one which is lacking all of this. As such, the dialogue is one-sided, and therefore lacking the connection between the creator and consumer of the art. If this is not present, although the latter might still divulge their own meaning from the work, what even is the purpose of the creation of the work in the first place? And is it really still art if its conception and creation is devoid of the emotional side effects of the human experience? I’m not certain.
3) “RKCP is an algorithm designed by Ray Kurzweil…a firm believer in artificial intelligence. RKCP…analyzes the source text… and emulated that first text. In poem 2, it was fed a bunch of poems by Emily Dickinson and…regenerated a model according to that same structure.” I, personally, think this entire system of evaluation is flawed. Taking a poet such as Gertrude Stein and comparing it to the style of a poet such as Emily Dickinson is going to reveal clear bias in the responses of the human volunteers who are given limited time to evaluate and discern which poems were authored by machines. The writing style of Emily Dickinson, while not simplistic by any means, is much more recognizable, straightforward, and easy for the layperson to understand than more abstract means of achieving poetic goals. The way in which they are evaluating this is inherently biased, and honestly, since the answers to each comparison will be different for each person, it is difficult to assume that either the 65% who answered incorrectly nor the other 45% of people who were not “fooled” by the computer were doing anything other than guessing blindly based on which appeared more familiar to them. (And, of course, some readers could have already been familiar with some poems!)
no such thing as poems coming "from the heart"
Deleteand 65% + 45% = 100%?
Nice try Raquellll
ReplyDeleteA fundamental difference exists between creation and generation. This is the first part of the video that caught my attention. Creation entails independent thought and moreover, the willingness to create. Generation is quite different due to the fact that a system of mathematical or scientific influence cannot attempt to construct a work of art, say a poem, from mirroring human behavior. Can a computer write a poem? Of course it can. For decades, the computer has had the ability to generate words. String enough of these words together and it's simple enough to call the result a poem. However, we are brought back to the difference between creation and generation. It is important to realize that no computer ever created has had the capability of independent thought. Therefore all the information it has been able to process and all the work it has been able to accomplish is simply an extension of the accomplishments of the human race. Creating an algorithm to concoct words together based on meaning, or rhyme is not human. The process is void of emotion and feeling and the product ceases to have any artistic quality because it is mechanical and mathematical. I think we would all agree that If someone says hello to a parrot and the parrot says hello back, the parrot does not know english. If we extend this logic to the question, can a computer write a poem, we can understand that a computer has the ability to parrot information back, but not create without human intervention.
This brings me to another point the video made which I found to be interesting, the differences in content and style of poets. One poem in particular was able to fool humans 65% of the time. As the video explains, Gertrude Stein is no more of a computer than William Blake, and William Blake is no more of a human the Gertrude Stein. Instead, influences such as region, time period and gender affect the content and style of poetry. For example, Gertrude Stein was born in Pennsylvania in 1874, while William Blake was born in 1757 in England; obviously Stein was a woman while Blake was a man. These differences account for the variety of poetry and reflect the ever changing scope of human creativity.
Lastly, the comparison of the computer as a mirror to humanity acted to me almost as a wake up call. Humanity is ever changing and nearly impossible (if not impossible), to define. But this raises a much larger question, as a society what do we want to reflect? Unlike the previous two points, this question is much more philosophical and does not have a clear picture. The question itself reminded me to be mindful of myself as an individual.
“If a computer was able to have a text-based conversation with a human, with such proficiency such that the human couldn’t tell whether they were talking to a computer or a human, then the computer can be said to have intelligence.”
ReplyDeleteTo me, intelligence is the ability to apply one’s knowledge, or to think and solve problems. Typically, this intelligence is associated with living creatures; so for it to be said that computers have intelligence seemed strange to me. Humans created technology such as computers as a tool in order to allow our species to progress; yet, this technology is beginning to form a mind of its own. Technology is being created that can take orders from humans (Siri), control car movements, and apparently even write poetry. I accept these abilities of technology, but I am still baffled by technology’s ability to think and problem solve despite its lack of life.
“For some reason, we associate poetry with being human. So, that when we ask, ‘can a computer right poetry?’, we’re also asking, ‘what does it mean to be human?’ and ‘how do we put boundaries around this category?’.”
I had always assumed that the boundaries on humanity was quite clear. Biologically, humans are evolutionary descendants from apes, their own unique species known for their large brains and ability to think. This is what I had always taken to be human, the species. Yet, it is suggested in this TED Talk that the category “human” can be more specific than just the basics of the species itself. Furthermore, can it be possible for other species and creations (living or nonliving) to be classified under the human category? And can some humans not fall into the category of their own species?
“The human is not a cold hard fact. Rather, it is something that is constructed with our opinions, and something that changes over time.”
Going off of the previous quote, I had always thought of the human to be a relatively stable “category”; this is because I have had the tendency to look at the human in a biological sense. Yet, the human is more than its biological build, as humanity as a whole is made up of a collection of ideas and beliefs, which set us apart from other species. While the biological construction of the human does not change over time, the ideas, beliefs, and opinions of the mind are constantly changing and evolving with the world around us.
1. “...you give RKCP a source text, it analyzes the source text in order to find out how it uses language...But the important thing to know about RKCP is that it doesn't know the meaning of the words it's using.”
ReplyDeleteI found this statement rather interesting – it raises the questions “What does it mean to KNOW the meaning of words?” When humans learn language, we learn the meanings of words through hearing and reading how the words are used and put together. We then put these same words together to express our own thoughts, but never in ways where the ‘meaning’ of the words are different than when we first observed them. This is exactly what the computer does; why can’t we say that the computer “knows” the words?
2. “So far we've had humans that write like humans, we have computers that write like computers, we have computers that write like humans, but we also have, perhaps most confusingly, humans that write like computers.”
It’s interesting to see the line between human and computer becoming increasingly blurred. It’s exciting to think that we may soon be able to create computers whose intelligence and ‘consciousness’ – so to speak – could be comparable to human; in other words, to virtually simulate human consciousness.
3. “...when we begin to grapple with the ideas of artificial intelligence in the future, we shouldn't only be asking ourselves, "Can we build it?" But we should also be asking ourselves, "What idea of the human do we want to have reflected back to us?”
It is clear that we have – or will soon have – the ability to create intelligent computers. As we proceed, it is important to keep in mind that artificial general intelligence can lead to unintended consequences such as the system developing self-awareness; this can lead to disastrous outcomes. Consider human history: colonization, war, et cetera. Now consider what could happen if computers had thought processes like that of humans. Obviously it is not unrealistic to think that there is a chance of human extinction if artificial intelligence is not kept in check. Therefore it is crucial that AI research is openly available for collaboration and that it aims for friendly artificial intelligence – which is the goal that OpenAI strives for.
1. “So what do we take from all of this? Do we take that William Blake is somehow more of a human than Gertrude Stein? Or that Gertrude Stein is more of a computer than William Blake?”
ReplyDeleteI believe Oscar Schwartz may have meant this line to be a clear joke to his audience, as it makes no sense to compare the humanity of one person versus another, because we as humans do not have a finite definition of what makes a person a person. (As Horton would say, “A person’s a person, no matter how small”). However, this comparison lays the foundation for Schwartz’s destruction of the line between human and computers, which is further built upon as he continues his talk. Society tends to assume that it is able to look at something and say “this is a computer” or “this is a human” and be correct, but Schwartz is using poetry to prove that this assumption is not true.
2. “What we are doing with the Turing test for poetry, rather, is collecting opinions about what constitutes humanness… It simply means that the category of the human is unstable. This has led me to understand that the human is not a cold, hard fact. Rather, it is something that's constructed with our opinions and something that changes over time.”
This directly relates to the assumption of society to be correct in defining experiences and feelings in finite words. Often times, poets are hailed as successful because they detail what others cannot express coherently. It is because of this cut and dry attitude that Schwartz believed that humanity was a “cold, hard fact”. After analyzing his computer models that construct poems with just as much meaning, without the desperate search for recognition of a feeling behind it, Schwartz sees that humanity is ever-changing and undefinable by such specific terms that society possesses.
3. “More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.”
Schwartz completes his strategy to blur the lines between technology and humanity when he suggests that technology is only a reflection of what we invest in it. Of course, as humans were the ones to build and code computers in the first place, it is only logical that computers are mirrors to their creators, but too many people refuse to associate with them because they represent the downfall of humanity. Older generations look down upon teenagers using Twitter or Snapchat because they lack personal skills, when smartphones exist to better connect the user with information and people. Some may think it scary that computers are more knowledgeable than humans nowadays, but that is irrational because the computer is able to store and maintain infinite more information than the human brain. It is computers and other technology that are allowing us to search for more planets and make more scientific discoveries than ever before. Schwartz argues that humanity can no longer disconnect itself from computers. Like dialogue in a novel, the way we interact with computers reveals more commentary about us than it does about the technology, hence the mirror metaphor.
The first thing that resonated with me was the idea of the game “bot or not”. My mother and I both sat down to watch this TED Talk, and immediately we disagreed over which poem was written by a computer and which was written by a human. According to the Turing test, which states that “If a computer can fool a human 30% of the time, it can be considered human.” These poems are both human poems, and the writers are both human. This, to me, seems porposterous, and raises many other questions. If a person is unable to write poetry, does that mean they are no longer human? Are animals with 30% or more DNA in common with humans then considered human? I know that this is not the point Turing was trying to make, but I don’t understand the basis for his conclusion. Something I noticed personally, however, was that by the third round of “bot or not” I started to read every poem as if it were written by a computer. I read them in monotone, and I didn’t attempt to find much meaning in the words, because I figured they had no meaning behind them, just being thrown together by a computer. I saw that computers could produce an output of decent poetry, but the words lacked meaning and emotion behind them, decreasing the value of the poem.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that resonated with me was some of the logical conclusions that were made during the video. For example, the majority of the audience finding Gertrude Stein’s poem to sound like a computer and then concluding “according to the reverse Truing test, Gertrude Stein is a computer.” This goes along with the question I posed earlier concerning people who cannot write poetry to be less than human. This conclusion is a point of humor in the video, perhaps leading to the conclusion that the Truing test is outdated.
The final thing that resonated with me was the conclusion that “the human is not a cold hard fact.” The title “human” is an idea that is constantly changing. One day, it is likely that machines such as computers can be fully considered human (although I do not believe today is that day). My dad has always believed that humans will one day be able to live forever through computers, by downloading our consciousness into a computer code, causing these machines to then be “human”. If the definition of human is constantly changing, it stands to reason that some are more human than others, though this line is blurred. Depending on the definition being used, sure, computers can be considered human, but that doesn’t mean they write good poetry.
1. "For some reason we associate poetry with being human." The human experience is something so irreplacable because of its naturality of analysis and connections that lower animals cannot do but computers also cannot do because what have they been through? Poetry is raw and I'll always love that so even though a computer may spit some impressive lines I will never be able to accept this as poetry knowing there is some weird equation it is being plugged into. Humans are amazing, natural little miracles. Che bello
ReplyDelete2. The Turing test of 1950; If a computer fools a person into mistaking it for a computer (over 30% of the time) it has intelligence and, by Turing's definition, human thought. Schwartz, effectively overturned the notion that some of his and his friend's more advanced software had human capability in the realm of poetry by playing devil's advocate and introducing a 'reverse Turing' test. The ludicrosity of the idea that Gertrude Stein is more of a computer than William Blake made me more comfortable because of its effective disproof of Turing. Perhaps I have a more subconscious understanding of my own religion that I just can't put my finger on, but I simply am not comfortable with the idea of a computer gradually becoming human like what yeah I'm having gut reactions I don't wanna be replaced
3. We can make a computer reflect whatever, or whoever, we want it to. Wouldn't it be something if we fed a computer some quotes from the most beautiful-minded people of all time? So if I were to have a crazy change of heart and want a life-like computer like ironman's J.A.R.V.I.S. I'd input Gandhi
“More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.”
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard this it made me start thinking about how the intelligence given to a computer directly links to the intelligence that the human creator wanted it to have. However that also got me thinking that, us as humans also act like this. The information that we are taught is what we show. If we are raised to think a certain way with certain beliefs then we tend to act upon those. Of course this does not always hold true, because some do reject what they are taught but then again they turn to another source of information and then reflect that. So it really started to make me think that the way that humans are ‘programmed’ to think may not be so different than how computers are. Yes we may have our own thoughts but in the end even those thoughts are influenced by things that we have learned over time, so I found that to be kind of interesting to think about.
“The human is not a cold hard fact. Rather, it is something that is constructed with our opinions, and something that changes over time.”
This really resonated with me because of the truth that it holds. Humans are ever changing creatures that views change from generation to generation. Even within a life time, a person’s opinions can change. Every time that we learn something new, some new way of thinking, we have to decide whether or not to accept it or not. We as humans will never have the exact same views as so one else. People have to create what they think is right and wrong and how they want to live their life, people are not automatically just think the same way as the people surrounding them. There are no facts about how the human brain believes, one person could believe in one thing when another person may believe the exact opposite. There is nothing there is almost nothing that the human race can agree that they believe in. There is not specific mold for how humans chose their morals; it is all up to their teachings and their life experiences.
“RKPC doesn’t know the meaning of the words it’s using. The language is just raw material…”
When this was stated, I started to think about poems, stories, songs, etc. and how when writing them we tend to think that the author put a lot of meaning into their words and that they were trying to release an emotion, and that they must really know what they are talking about. This may hold true for some people who have magnificent works and that truly did write from their soul. However I also began to think about how sometimes people just write to write, or for the money. They use language as nothing more than a material as stated it the Ted Talk. So when thinking about writers, I started to question on if the writers actually knew the meaning behind what they were writing, or are they being like the computer and taking previous knowledge and changing it into something that seems to have meaning but in reality the writer has no clue about what it is. Some may say that with those sorts of writers, you can tell because the work will not seem to be as strong as those of writers who ‘wrote from their souls’. However we have seen that a computer can do it, so a human could too. I don’t know why I am choosing to be cynical of the human race today, but I thought that it was interesting to think about how some of the amazing works that has been see and thought to have so much thought put into it, may just have been created with no emotions behind it.
1. Schwartz describes the Turing test and states that in order for the test to be passed, a computer must fool a human 30% of the time. In Schwartz's Bot or Not program, people were fooled by some computer generated poems 65% of the time. This goes to show that computers can trick people into believing they were human, but also goes to show that the thoughts and feelings put into poems by humans can be found in poems written by robots. Poems gain a lot of their power from the meaning and emotions behind them, so the fact that computers were able to convey these things show potential for intelligence.
ReplyDelete2. RKCP is an algorithm that analyzes a source text and regenerates language that emulates the original source. However, it doesn't know the meaning of the words it is using. While computers are currently computing poetry more than writing it, the potential for computers to process and understand what it is writing is there. The computers are doing what humans sometimes do; they read something and they model their answer after it. In a foreign language class, if the teacher gives an example students will always use the same order and wording as the example with enough changes to make it original. That is what the computers are doing and with further development I believe computers will one day be able to write their own texts, without needing an example.
3. Poetry is seen as a human thing, so can a computer write poetry with that definition? What does this mean for the definition of human? I think poetry is seen as a human thing because emotions are seen as something experienced most strongly by humans. to express these feelings, people write poetry and other literature. I think if a computer were able to write with emotion, it would qualify as poetry. I can write a poem about feelings I'm not experiencing at that time, but that makes it no less poetry and me no less human. Therefore, even if a computer is not experiencing the emotions it conveys through poetry, it makes what is written just as much poetry as something written by a human.
Poem 1 vs. Poem 2
ReplyDeleteWhen the speaker posed this question and put two poems on the screen, one written by a computer and one by a person, I honestly could not figure it out. They both seemed poetic to me in that they said some unique,unordinary things,and had some odd spelling of words. When the speaker proceeded to put two more poems on the screen, I thought I could figure out which poem was written by a computer or a human this time. I was right this time. I found it interesting to see the different styles between a computer’s poetry and a human’s poetry. Both spit out some words that I would enjoy reading.
2. Poem 1 vs. Poem 2 (the third time)
I thought I figured out which poem was written by a computer and which one was written by a human… It turns out I didn’t. I couldn’t believe it when that first poem was in fact written by Gertrude Stein. The speaker brought up the RKCP program which puts a poem into a computer, and then the computer studies the form and structure of the poem and then imitates it. This made a lot of sense to me because I think it’s something we do when writing poetry, or at least something I do. I’m definitely influenced by other styles of poetry if I ever write a poem. I generally don’t think of humans and computers as being very similar, but I thought this was a cool similarity between the two.
3. “For some reason we associate poetry with being human”
I thought it was interesting when the speaker brought up the question of boundaries within poetry, and who can be a part of poetry. Normally I would think of poetry as something with no boundaries, however I’ve never given much thought to this so firstly, this question was thought-provoking on that level. And then, when the speaker brought up the question of who can be a part of poetry, I never would have thought computers would even need to be considered. After seeing the poems of humans and computers put against each other, and then discovering how difficult it was to discern between them, I can see that those boundaries could be extended to computers. This also made me think that these programs such as RKCP could be a cool way to get people into poetry and to create more appreciation and excitement for poetry amongst the large masses of high school students who aren’t huge fans of poetry, so this would get more people into being a part of poetry.
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Delete“The category of the human is unstable... It’s something that changes over time” (9:15). The speaker, Oscar Schwartz, states that humans are unstable and always changing as time progresses, which opens up the question whether or not computers can write poetry. By saying this, Schwartz suggests that it is hard to answer if computers can write poetry (an art we associate with being human) because humans are constantly evolving into more complex and advanced creatures.
ReplyDelete“The computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it” (9:43).
This idea presented by Schwartz stuck out to me because he explains how computers are man-made. Although a computer may be able to sound like a human, a computer is only able to do this because of the intelligence of humans. Therefore, Schwartz concludes that computers would not exist without humans. This idea explains why a computer is able to “write” poetry.
The Turing test Schwartz mentions states a computer must fool a human 30% of the time for it to be considered to have intelligence. The Turing test is interesting because it shows how there is not a definite significance (at times) between human nature and technology. However, Schwartz states that the test is more important because it collects opinions about what humanness is rather than just trying to find similarities/differences. Therefore, the test creates philosophical questioning and aids in defining what makes a human, human.
In reference to RKCP and its analysis of Emily Dickinson, I found that if the algorithm was able to understand her form and reproduce it, this makes it human. This led to the thought that computers are reflections of humanity, but in a much more controlled way. Further into the video, Schwartz makes the point that computers reflect the parts of humanity that we bestow in them, which is true of architecture and engines as well. Car's innards are very reminiscent of the human's organs. Lastly, the idea that we associate poetry with humanity rests in the fact that each poem is created from a unique perspective, and therefore an algorithm cannot create poetry. Algorithms analyze and collect already written works and frame them differently, but a computer cannot write a poem about being a computer. It can do so in the style of William Carlos Williams and maybe use Frost's language, but it is still not reflective of the hundreds of individual decisions and choices that went into those original works that it is analyzing.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the results that he deems signify that the computer has human intelligence. The computer simply generates poems. It cannot do the constructive problem solving that humans can do. If something occurs out side the capacity of it's algorithm it becomes useless when a human can apply past knowledge and change the way they think to solve the problem. This autonomy in the human condition and the ability to adapt is what the computer lacks to be human. However, he does basically admit this with future states so I guess it's not a big deal. I would agree with his statement that being human is vastly complicated. That just simply makes sense to me based on the variety of personalities and approaches to problem demonstrated by my peers and within society. The thing I disagree with most in this Ted-Talk is its approach to saying something silly. The conclusion is simply "human beings are complex". This does not need to be said a ten minute lecture about computers and poetry. I don't think he adequately expresses why any of that matters. No where within this talk does he make me care.
ReplyDelete1) "For some reason we associate poetry with being human, so that when we ask 'can a computer write poetry?' we are also asking 'what does it mean to be human?' and 'how do we put boundaries around this category?' how do we say who or what can be part of this category?"
ReplyDelete2) "What we are doing with the Turing test for poetry, rather, is collecting opinions about what constitutes humanness [...] It simply means that the category of the human is unstable. This has led me to understand that the human is not a cold, hard fact. Rather, it is something that's constructed with our opinions and something that changes over time."
3) "But what we've seen just now is that the human is not a scientific fact, that it's an ever-shifting, concatenating idea and one that changes over time."
This Ted Talk was incredibly interesting to me. When I was presented with two poems, one written by a human and one written by a computer, to guess which one was written by the human I often looked for which one I saw the most emotion in. These ideas resonate with my initial instinct, because in my book being human means having emotion.
The TED talk concluded that being human is not a concrete idea, and that if mankind tried to recreate the human soul, it would never be perfect because of this abstract view on humanity. Everyone has a different outlook and different people to relate to and judge humanity off of, and the human spectrum becomes too wide and varied to be replicated by a man; it takes a god. I've seen human like qualities in animals, and I've seen it more precisely in computer programs like the poem algorithms. Still. there is a static repetitive feeling about these that give away there flaw of never filling in the expectations of a real person. The frontier of humanity is too far to be imitated in my lifetime, I believe.
ReplyDeleteI was able to tell which was the computer on all three guesses, and my reasoning behind it was what the man said at the end: the computer's poem had no meaning behind the words. I've read poetry where the message is either lost or never there in the first place, and the computer's diction was not adding up. Just because the algorithm combined nouns and verbs in the right place does not give it the right to become poetry. The soul and inspiration is lost as computers can mass produce this normally unique art.
This leads to the second point, where the people confused the human author as a computer. If poets lose their inspiration and are simply writing out of form, the poetry may as well be computer generated at that point. A rap song may have the artist rap bars at technically fast and impressive paces, but the delivery falls flat when the gimmick is revealed to have no substance in the actual meaning of the words. The computer is only alive through its work, and its life is merely as a tool for people to take advantage of. No humanity can be expected to be discovered in its output, and poets should stray away from this stagnant path.
1.The first part that really resonated with me was the quote, “For some reason we associate poetry with being human.” When I read the description of the Ted Talk, my initial reaction was to question how a robot could even remotely write poetry, when the human condition and the emotions that come with it are just that- extremely human. How can a computer encompass the same raw emotions that humans do? I think if it were known that a computer had written a piece it would lose all of it’s emotional value due to the fact that there was no actual, chemical emotion behind it.
ReplyDelete2.The second thing that stuck with me was the Turning Test of 1950, where if a computer can fool a human at least 30% of the time, it has enough intelligence to be considered to have “human thoughts.” This concept was a little bit far fetched for me. If a human is not capable of writing poetry, then are they no longer considered human by these standards? I know that the question I just posed was not part of the experiment, but the experiment itself still made me question the reverse psychology of it. By the end of the “bot or not” tests I was second guessing everything, reading every option as if it were written by a computer rather than I person. I stopped looking for meaning or deeper emotion and started looking for clues or tell tales signs of man or machine instead.
3.The last part I felt resonated with me was the idea of reflection and technology, in the sense that we can blur the lines between technology and humanity because technology is only a reflection of the investment we as humans put into it. Apparently the definition that goes along with being human is constantly changing and If computers are truly a reflection of us, then maybe one day we will both be on the same playing field.
1) In his Ted Talk, Oscar Schwartz poses the question, “Can a computer write poetry?”. When he displayed several well-written poems that had been generated by a computer, I wasn’t surprised. Poems are made up of patterns (patterns in the words, syllables, etc) and computers are pretty much made for creating and analyzing patterns, so the concept that a computer can write a poem isn’t that far of a stretch. However, Oscar Schwartz goes on to explain that the computer has no idea what it’s writing; it doesn’t know the meaning behind the words. Poetry, like all art, is used as a form of expression. It is the emotion behind that expression that makes poetry art in the first place. While it is possible for a computer to write a poem, it is impossible for that poem to ever be considered art due to the lack of emotional expression.
ReplyDelete2) Oscar Schwartz also explains how the computer algorithm writes poetry by analyzing the style of previous human poets (Emily Dickinson for example). This means that it is impossible for a computer to create an entirely original poem. People create their own writing styles through imagination and inspiration while a computer simply copies what’s already been done. The evolution of poetry is part of what makes it beautiful. It is always changing with the new and original styles that come in time. A computer will never have an original thought; it will never start a shift in the style of poetry. Machines can only recreate what has already been done, which is why it will never be capable of true poetry.
3) Oscar Schwartz then goes on to state that through the tests on what people perceive as poetry written by humans, he has come to the conclusion that the concept of being human is not something that is set in stone. He says that it is an idea constructed by opinion and constantly changes through time. While I agree with this philosophy, I don’t believe that it will ever be possible for a machine to be considered the same as a human being. As I discussed in my previous point, it is impossible for a machine to come up with something completely original. This not only makes it impossible for a computer to write real poetry, it also makes it impossible for it to be considered human. Originality is one of the key points of human nature. We all strive to be unique in our own ways; to make a mark on the world that no one has before. A machine will never have that same ambition, and therefore will never be human.
“If a computer can fool a human that it is a human, then it passes the test of intelligence” I find it interesting how a computer can fool a human that its human. It is obviously not alive to talk to, how can it fool us? We have allowed the computer to do so much, that it can act as if it were human. It can give human answers, ask human questions...it is crazy how developed the computer has become.
ReplyDelete“Poetry is seen as a human thing, so can a computer write poetry with that definition? What does this mean for the definition of human?” I agree in the sense that poetry is a human thing. Computers and other forms of technology can write and compute as much poetry as it wants, but it will not have the same meaning as true poetry does. I believe that every poem has a story behind it in some way shape or form, whether or not the author had an intention. Poetry is an escape to write about emotions and experiences, and a computer is unable to feel anything or experience anything because it is not wired the same way a human is.
“More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.” When he said this, it made me think how much power we give to a computer. We give it our location, it tells us the weather, the news, what is hot and what is not. We let it tell us our schedules and our messages and emails, and we let it hold out memories. It is crazy thinking that these smart phones and laptops carry our lives for us and we allow it to do that. Although devices are an inanimate object, it can basically be considered a human with all the capabilities we give it.
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ReplyDelete1. “Turing test makes Gertrude stein a computer.”
ReplyDelete2. ‘The category of the human is unstable.”
3. “The computer works more or less like a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we show it.”
The ambiguity of what is truly human is a question that has baffled the human race since its inception in the ages of antiquity. Its ever shifting as definitions change and technology progresses. In centuries past,with the world raving with bigotry, discrimination held the “truth’ as to what constitutes a human-being. Now we have laws, philosophy, and biology all pointing out that discrimination was a falsehood. No race or gender is superior than the other irrefutably by default, in terms of brain power or strength. Yet, now we have poetry, a human creation, being replicated by a mere machine. At times as with the example of Gertrude Stein a computer seems more human than a real person. Its simply staggering as to the ramifications of questioning what constitutes a human can go. The line between man and machine is blurred, and the fact that we as species aren’t precise in what constitutes our humanity serves only to elongate that discrepancy. Since machines are a creation of humanity along with poetry aren’t both in some way human? A computer, even with a simple algorithm based of one formulated over 60 years ago, can mirror the emotions wrought in the works of emily Dickinson. A person with a stern demeanor in their mathematical calculations could appear like a machine. In fact humans can be considered a biological machine unto themselves with our respiratory system or digestive tract. If we are truly an amalgamation of a biological system then why can’t we replicate it someday? Perhaps in retracing our own concept of humanity in our attempts to create artificial intelligence we could find an answer.
Always enticing is the path man walks in trying to understand him/herself.
“And what are the results? Well, Turing said that if a computer could fool a human 30 percent of the time that it was a human, then it passes the Turing test for intelligence. We have poems on the bot or not database that have fooled 65 percent of human readers into thinking it was written by a human. So, I think we have an answer to our question. According to the logic of the Turing test, can a computer write poetry? Well, yes, absolutely it can.”
ReplyDeleteWhen he started this part of his speech, I got really nervous that he was actually saying that computers could replace actual, real poetry. I do not think that a computer generated poem would mean as much to society as a human poet. Humans go through experiences together, the computer does not. To understand a poem, we look to who the author was, when it was written, what could have affected the writing of the poem in the first place?
“So far we've had humans that write like humans, we have computers that write like computers, we have computers that write like humans, but we also have, perhaps most confusingly, humans that write like computers.”
It feels strange that humans can model after computers. It makes sense for a human to write like a human or a computer to write like a computer, but intercrossing them seems close to impossible. Why would we want to replace poetry with a computerized version? A computer takes away the feeling and emotion of a poem. The computer does not (and never will have) feelings as felt by humans. That is one thing that we cannot teach technology to do.
“So my final insight is that the computer, more or less, works like a mirror that reflects any idea of a human that we show it. We show it Emily Dickinson, it gives Emily Dickinson back to us. We show it William Blake, that's what it reflects back to us. We show it Gertrude Stein, what we get back is Gertrude Stein. More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.”
This resonated with me because it reminded me that this type of intellectual thinking would not even be possible had it not been for the original poets. Without Emily Dickinson, William Blake, Gertrude Stein, and other trailblazers and famous poets, we would not even know what poetry is, and therefore, would not need a computer to do it for us. Poetry has to mean something. Words are not just written down on paper to take up space. Poetry is a work of art, not meaningless ink on paper.
While watching the ted video I came to the understanding that computer may be able to create a poem, but they do not justify a meaning as to why the poem was written. Computers lack human emotion and although they can construct a poem I do not agree that a computer can construct human emotion. I disagree that a computer is able to create a poem that will seem more human than a poem written by a human. A computer can not tell you what it means to be human without giving you an answer that it constructed from other human answers. Same with the poems. The computer did not create it's own poem, it took from other examples and looked at the word structure and stanzas to create something similar. Computers do not think as humans do simply because they can’t think like humans do. I disagree with his idea that the category of a human is unstable. Computers do not fall into the human category. A computers can not think on its own and it simply just reflects what it's given.
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