Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 308.
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        Date: 2025-01-07 13:12:51+00:00
        From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.302: AI, poetry and readers: Calvino, neuroscience & intention

Tim --

When you write your response to my last post, please keep in mind I'm only
thinking about -external product only without regard for the production of
the text.-

Responses below:

On Sun, Jan 5, 2025 at 2:37 AM Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:

>
> 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?
>

Gabriel -- I concur with Tim's response to you here. But on a much simpler
level, human brains are organic and computers are not. That means human
brains are part of an entire organic body: the brain isn't isolated as a
processor is, and the brain isn't isolated from its external environment as
a processor is. Even if a processor has sound and light sensors, it can
ignore the data or shut them off. We can't do that with our sense
perceptions. Part of human consciousness includes constant interaction with
a physical environment through sense perception. That's not true of a
computer processor.

Beyond that, LLMs aren't working with words. It's all numbers and binary
underneath that. It just -renders- the numbers it's working with as words.
AI doesn't "understand" human language. It doesn't even "think" in it. This
is very rudimentary to me.

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
> <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
>

Bill -- a poem made up of another poet's lines from the other poet's poetry
is called a "cento." I believe that AI could generate centos. But in that
case, the lines come from another source, so any "intention" would be from
the human source of the original poetry, not the AI that assembled the
lines. Computers don't have intention. Even if it were thematically based
on another poet's poems, I would say the same thing.

Jim R


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