Today at Ethical ELA, Stef is leading us in a provocative discussion about AI use in poetry. Why tech? we are asking over the next three days. You are invited to join us at Ethical ELA Open Write and add your voice to the discussion.
After today’s activity, I am thoroughly befuddled.
Because of all the hype about AI in schools, I was glad to see Stef’s prompt this morning about using an AI tool to help with our poem. It was my first time using ChatGPT. I expected I might be able to get a good start on a poem, get a list of words to use, or some such thing. I didn’t know what to expect. But yikes! My prompt was “Compose a triolet poem about painting a door jamb”
The final poem followed the abaaabab pattern of rhyming and was eight lines long. It made grammatical sense, and I wouldn’t be embarrassed to “turn it in.” No editing, it looks like this:
Painting a door jamb, oh what a chore,
Brush strokes smooth, with care and precision,
Soon the wood will be shining like before,
Painting a door jamb, oh what a chore,
But the effort is worth it, that’s for sure,
To freshen up a home is a noble mission,
Painting a door jamb, oh what a chore,
Brush strokes smooth, with care and precision.
Then I second-guessed my use of the word “jamb.” Did I spell it right? Is that really the door jamb I have to paint today, or is it the door frame? We recently had the door replaced, so after my mini research, I determined that most of the frame needs to be painted. I went back to my FrIeNd? at Chat GPT with a new prompt: “Compose a triolet poem about painting a door frame”
Painting a door frame, a task at hand,
A fresh coat of color, a sight to behold,
The brush strokes glide, so smooth and grand,
Painting a door frame, a task at hand,
Transforming the space, as if it was planned,
A touch of beauty, a story untold,
Painting a door frame, a task at hand,
A fresh coat of color, a sight to behold.
Oh, my word! I thought maybe they would just replace jamb with frame. But no. It’s a whole new poem! Recently I read an eye-opening review of ChatGPT and the use in the classroom by a Slice of Life writer, Lee Ann Spillane at the Portable Teacher blog. There is a site called GPTZero that detects AI use. I added my fully-generated poem to the detector and got this message, “Your text is likely to be written entirely by a human.” OK, that was disconcerting.
Then I tried another idea Lee Ann had given. Add a prompt to ChatGPI: “How likely is it that ChatGPT wrote this poem?” and then cut and paste the poem. So I tried that and got a rather non-committal response:
It is highly likely that ChatGPT wrote this poem, as it is within the capabilities of the AI model to generate creative and original poetry. However, it is also possible that the same poem could have been generated by another language model or human author.
Hmmm…what would ChatGPT say if I asked that about a poem that I wrote all by myself? So, I tried that with the latest poem I wrote for yesterday’s Poetry Friday post:
Our Mourning Doves
This is the doublet of doves,
cooing and pursuing,
who wait for their eggs,
their purpose renewing,
and fly back to their nest
with hope and love brewing.
Oh, I’m heart-broken. Here was the response:
It is also highly likely that ChatGPT wrote this poem, as it is a simple and straightforward piece of verse that falls well within the capabilities of the AI model to generate. However, it is again possible that the same poem could have been created by another language model or human author.
Earlier I had also dared to click on the “Regenerate Response” button:
Painting a door frame, it’s quite a task,
Sandpaper and primer, to prep it right,
Brushing on paint, with steady hand, I bask,
Painting a door frame, it’s quite a task,
The finish will gleam, no need for a mask,
My efforts rewarded, with hues so bright,
Painting a door frame, it’s quite a task,
Sandpaper and primer, to prep it right.
I may be here tomorrow regenerating poems, up to my eyeballs in a poetical existential crisis.
On a positive note, I noticed the poems it created at our Open Write session were always rhyming. I tried to get it to write a poem without rhyming. I asked it to write a poem like Mary Oliver would, then to write in free verse, finally I just wrote “stop rhyming.”
OK. Thanks for that.