Saturday 13 June 2015

Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On

I think that after this post my blog moniker will acquire an extra word: Luddite. And the noun “Cuban” will become an adjective. It is not my fault, however, that I am laying once again into technology. The stories that I have been reading lately just sound too preposterous to let go of so easily.

Now is the turn of the Poetry for Robots project, a bonkers experiment if ever I’ve heard of one. The scheme provides a bank of 120 pictures for people to write poetry based on what they see. That is all right, I hear you say. After all, there is nothing wrong with being exposed to the image of a beautiful sunset or a leave falling off a tree in autumn. But, it does not end there. The project’s goal is to feed the resulting poems to robots to “see what happens”. Did you hear that door being slammed shut? That is my hope leaving the room. I bet Mr Robot will interpret that sentence literally.


What is it I shall compare thee to again?

Some experiments are best left in the planning stages. Without wanting to sound too controversial, this whole enterprise is a waste of time in my humble opinion. We do not need robots to understand or interpret poetry because we are still not done ensuring some of our fellow humans do the same thing. I’d much rather spend the money (if money is involved) in creating a programme to make poetry, both home-grown and foreign, available to every single child in the world.

Poetry is one of those artistic phenomena (literature is an art as far as I know and I treat it as such) that sits around us, quietly, reminding us of the beauty of the world. We might bring it in from the background or we might not. We might fall in love with it or we might just dip our big toe in it every now and then. But that it affects us all, there is no doubt. A robot lacks one of the most essential human characteristics in order to appreciate poetry: the ability to be amazed. Whether you feed your machine 120- or 240-picture-based poems, there is no way that it will wake up one morning (do robots sleep? That is a good question. Sometimes you need to have been asleep to appreciate poetry better), look out of its bedroom window and liken the sky outside to the tiles of the kitchen downstairs.

Without wanting to put poetry on a pedestal, this is a literary genre that provides an extra dimension to the human experience. A dimension that is unique in its creation and its interpretation. Factor technology in the equation and you get predictability. Predictable poetry is bad art in my view. Necessary, still, do not get me wrong; we still need  written-by-numbers works in the world, but bad art it is. A bank of 120 images spells limitation to me. Poetry, if anything, should be the opposite of limitation, even when the poet uses one of the well-known traditional forms (sonnet, haikus, etc.).

A better idea in my view would be to create a bank containing every single poem ever written in the history of humankind and store it somewhere for posterity. Imagine that! Regardless of language or antiquity these works would show our common human bond. They would also be an invaluable educational tool to demonstrate to future generations how every single human being on the planet has consciously or unconsciously accessed the world of poetry.

I honestly think that the people behind the Poetry for Robots project are passionate about the power and reach of poetry to help us understand machines better. I just do not think that they have really thought their scheme through. In the process of understanding, decoding and falling in love with poetry there are many elements involved which robots sadly lack and will always lack, such as: nuance, emotions, aesthetics, spirituality, history, culture, upbringing… the list goes on. On the other hand, a project like the one I mentioned before could marry different generations across the ages. The irony is that we would have to get technology involved in it at some point in order to store the data and make it easily accessible to everyone. Without a doubt, that would be the kind of project where I would like to “see what happens”.



© 2015

Next Post: “Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music… Ad Infinitum”, to be published on Wednesday 17th June at 6pm (GMT)

27 comments:

  1. Un robot no puede remplazar los sentimientos de la creación, prueba de ello el vídeo que nos dejas lleno de ritmo humano.
    Un feliz fin de semana.

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  2. Sigh. That is just so wrong. On so many levels.

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  3. Ritmo Humano is poetry!


    ALOHA from Honolulu,
    ComfortSpiral
    =^..^=

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  4. lol Skynet doesn't care about rhyme they just want to bring on the end of time

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  5. I have a pair of older, sort of retired, partially deprogrammed T-800 cyborgs who work for me, so I spoke with them about this possibility. One is writing his memoirs, and likes the idea of doing a book of poetry next. The other is content with making meals, cleaning house, mixing my drinks and cutting the grass, and has no artistic ambitions. I guess that means they are split 50-50 on the proposition.

    Frankly, it sounds like a silly idea to me, but harmless as long as there are no tax dollars "wasted" for funding the project.

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    Replies
    1. I look forward to reading the memoirs! :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  6. If this is just grown-ups playing with their own money, then - well, at least they're not playing with guns. But if they hope to involve children, who have yet to discover the possibilities of poetry that so far beyond the words on the page, then (and here I sound like a righ-wing dictator, for which I apologise in advance) the poetry police need to keep an eye on them. For children's minds are precious and ready for all sorts of wonderful experiences. They do not need the idea that poetry can be reduced to something robotic.

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  7. I'm one of those who can't/won't look too far ahead but the thought of robots learning poetry and possibly understanding it is something for the film-makers, I just wish they would leave humankind out of these crazy ideas. Did I say crazy? Hmmm isn't that the way of the world now let alone in the future?

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  8. I agree with you on this: Poetry, if anything, should be the opposite of limitation, even when the poet uses one of the well-known traditional forms~ It is a realm unique to our own experience, but interesting to see where robot poetry reading will end ~

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  9. What a waste of time and money. I definitely like your idea for a project much better...makes more sense & benefits the generations to come!

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  10. I guess we are either gonna get tepid poetry or poetry that's not possible to understand, the trick of finding that perfect image is never based on rules, but breaking the rules....

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  11. Any experiment, idea has its positive energy, so we never totally know how end up this robot project...and remember, all of it - just a part of our progress, which included the consequences both humankind and opposite....Thanks for sharing and commenting on my blog :)

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  12. Have you ever read a poem generated by a computer? There is actually a generator online for it.
    It is a bit disturbing to say the least. Ha.
    I do agree in that poetry adds another element to human existence.

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    1. No, but... no thanks! :-) I guess that even if computers are involved the human element will have to be part of it no matter what.

      Greetings from London,

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  13. Awesome post! Loved reading through it!

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  14. Okay, I make absolutely no claim to the following being good poetry. But, after reading your post I just couldn't help myself. Here's my comment in haiku meter.

    human poetry
    priming robot database
    what will they produce

    can robots create
    inspired poetry crushing
    human best efforts

    will robots transform
    our own musings and feelings
    into data bytes

    Since robots are taking over so many previously human tasks, will we no longer know what is human and what is not? Hmm.

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    Replies
    1. Loved it. And not a robotic line in sight! :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  15. Hey Cubano, I agree with you in that I really don't see the point of this. Maybe the robots can turn poetic combinations into other poetic combinations, but I think it would take a human to really recognize these. But programmers like to keep busy I guess! At any rate, thank you for your very kind words about my poems. Take care, k. (Manicddaily)

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  16. made me giggle. This is one of those things. It´s a challenge so we go for it. If we have nothing better to do.

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  17. i'm deeply convinced that poetry is one of the things that real people do best

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    Replies
    1. Completely agree. I have just Craig Raine's poem "Gatwick" and laughed my head off.

      Greetings from London.

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    2. read", I meant, "just read". Sorry! :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  18. You are a deep thinker--we live in a world with challenges all around.

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  19. poetry and robots = a contradiction in terms.

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  20. Enjoyed reading.....and your insight inspired me....

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  21. lol...perhaps the robots may yet surprise us!!

    For me, poetry is purely about expressing oneself and one's thoughts.
    It doesn't set out to deceive or impress...just to "tell it like it feels".
    Yes, your idea is a good one...the human condition, stored for future generations to read...a much wiser move!

    Have a Great Day :)

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