Poetry is for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the reader. Who reads poems? The question is a little vague. Who reads poems on a birthday card? Everyone. In a children's book? Parents and children.
But this study focuses on literary poems specifically, using works by literary heavy weights like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, Byron, Ginsberg, and so on. So the question is who reads literary poems, to which the answer is: academics, literary writers, and a vanishingly small population of reader who enjoy such pursuits.
So the test of if ersatz AI poetry is as good as "real" poetry should be if target audience (i.e. academics) finds the poems to be enjoyable or enlightening. But this study does not test that hypothesis.
This study tests a different hypothesis: can lay people who are not generally interested in literary poetry distinguish between real and AI literary poetry?
The hypothesis and paper feel kind of like a potshot at literary poetry to me, or at least I don't understand why this particular question is interesting or worthy of scientific inquiry.
> Poetry is for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the reader.
Is it?
If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
- Emily Dickinson
Clearly Dickinson believes it is far more than what’s at the surface. It is more than the rhyme and rhythm. They add to the effect, but they are not necessary conditions. It’s generally agreed upon that art is defined by making you feel.
Lay people are often uninterested in poetry because they didn’t study it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many are put off by elitists, garbage, and the difficulty to parse. But this is true for any subject matter, we see similarities in programming and in science. You see even many from there point to the surface and dismiss despite the importance being underneath. But it also doesn’t have to be for everyone. It’s not about being smart or dumb either, as most people happily get into the depths of the subjects they enjoy. Be it a child’s obsession with dinosaurs, a teen’s obsession in videogames, or an elite academic. We all have that capacity but there are always hurdles to entry and sometimes the point is to stumble. When it is, removing the hurdles harms the domain, even though it’s almost always done with the best of intentions. Eventually you gotta touch the stove top to learn it’s hot
Poetry is for the enjoyment and enlightenment of the reader. Who reads poems? The question is a little vague. Who reads poems on a birthday card? Everyone. In a children's book? Parents and children.
But this study focuses on literary poems specifically, using works by literary heavy weights like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Whitman, Byron, Ginsberg, and so on. So the question is who reads literary poems, to which the answer is: academics, literary writers, and a vanishingly small population of reader who enjoy such pursuits.
So the test of if ersatz AI poetry is as good as "real" poetry should be if target audience (i.e. academics) finds the poems to be enjoyable or enlightening. But this study does not test that hypothesis.
This study tests a different hypothesis: can lay people who are not generally interested in literary poetry distinguish between real and AI literary poetry?
The hypothesis and paper feel kind of like a potshot at literary poetry to me, or at least I don't understand why this particular question is interesting or worthy of scientific inquiry.