Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 302.
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    [1]    From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.301: AI, poetry and readers: Calvino's cybernetics (25)

    [2]    From: Gabriel Egan <mail@gabrielegan.com>
           Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.300: AI, poetry and readers (37)

    [3]    From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
           Subject: GPT in the Classroom, Part 2: Escape to America (11)


--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2025-01-04 14:20:54+00:00
        From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.301: AI, poetry and readers: Calvino's cybernetics

thanks for posting that quotation from Calvino, Willard. One thing I've said
throughout the course of this discussion is that I believed AI can produce
interpretable poems, but I also said I didn't think it could produce a great
poem.

Human beings are like that too. They may write a lot of poetry, but seldom if
ever write great poetry.

So here is the relevant quotation to me:

"To return to the storyteller of the tribe, he continues imperturbably to make
his permutations of jaguars and toucans until the moment comes when one of his
innocent little tales explodes into a terrible revelation: a myth, which must be
recited in secret, and in a secret place."

He's describing a storyteller who starts out reciting the usual sort of stuff -
permutations of jaguars and toucans - but then continues until he hits on
something great finally - myth and revelation.

So what AI does is produce a bunch of permutations just like a mediocre human
poet would. But I don't think it would ever produce anything great. It would
need that self reflective, embedded consciousness in a specific historical
context to go beyond the permutations that it is literally producing.

Jim R

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2025-01-04 11:49:13+00:00
        From: Gabriel Egan <mail@gabrielegan.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.300: AI, poetry and readers

Dear Humanists

James Rovira wrote that "the machine
[an AI] does not model the mental goings
on of any human being".

I am wondering how we might be able
to know that. Do we understand the
brain well enough to discount the
possibility that our AI machines
work like human brains?

Both use neural networks. Both
hold knowledge and are inscrutable
about how they do that. That is,
we can be sure that both know that
London is to England as Paris is to
France -- because both will complete
that four-term homology if given three
of the terms -- but we cannot see
where in their neural networks this
knowledge is held.

So why rule out the possibility that
in making our AIs we are unintentionally
modelling an aspect of the mental goings
on of human beings?

On the topic of what it means to understand
a computer system and a brain, I recommend
Jonas & Kording "Could a Neuroscientist
Understand a Microprocessor?"
(https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268)

Regards

Gabriel Egan

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Date: 2025-01-04 08:57:21+00:00
        From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
        Subject: GPT in the Classroom, Part 2: Escape to America

Here’s a recent blogpost that puts some “pressure” on thinking about computer-
generated poetry: https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2024/12/gpt-in-classroom-
part-2-escape-to.html. The words were generated by FredTheHeretic, a GPT based
on the poetry of Frederick Turner. The subject matter of the sonnet comes from
Miriam Yevick’s memoire, "A Testament for Ariela." I selected three separate
paragraphs from that book and directed FredTheHeretic to use each as the basis
for one quatrain in a sonnet. When the first draft had problems, I requested
that FredTheHeretic fix them. The way I see it, that sonnet, “Escape to
America,” is dripping with human intention.

Bill Benzon


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