A New Development...

 Apparently, a senior at Princeton created a web tool to determine if a piece of writing was composed by a bot. This is an interesting development in the ChatGPT discussion for teachers of English. The Buzzfeed article is here. Here's another from The Daily Beast. And here's a link to his web service called GPTZero. 

The End of High School English...

With the prediction that ChatGPT is going to be the "end of high school English" I can only say I'm glad I decided to specialize in creative writing. There are still "things and stuff" that the human brain can do better than a computer, and write is one of them. It's clear to me that technology is diminishing our regard for human life, but it shouldn't be, really. For instance the human eye is still better than any camera out there. And just suppose for a moment that someone invented a camera that WAS better than the human eye... how could we appreciate the pictures with our inferior human eyes? Maybe I'm being dumb, but maybe I'm not. What gives writing life is the authentic human touch, whether it be humor, poetics, or the dazzling personal connections that create authenticity... and computers won't be able to write "better than humans" until they become fully human, because it's how the human responds and reacts to the world in a sensory and emotional way that informs good writing, and computers will only ever be able to offer us an approximation that is once removed from true human experience. If anything, AI is going to make me a tad more leery about writing, whether it be student writing or the new novel or book of poetry I'm cracking open in 2023, but shouldn't this be the case anyway? Shouldn't human authenticity be at the heart of great writing?  

I asked ChatGPT to write a poem about dreary weather. Here's what I got: 

The sky is gray and dreary The rain falls in a steady stream The wind howls through the trees It's the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up and dream

The world outside is bleak and bare No birds singing in the air The streets are empty, no one out It's the kind of weather that makes you want to hide and pout

But even on a day like this There's still beauty to be found A warm cup of tea and a good book Can make the dreary weather feel like solid ground

So don't let the weather get you down Embrace the chance to stay inside Find the joy in a quiet moment And let the dreary weather glide

I'm sorry, but this is generic garbage. Had I shared something like this in a poetry workshop I would have been offered some suggestions (not all poems have to rhyme... even though the rhyme schemes is sporadic... and choose some less basic focal points and some more unique verbs... and give it some goddamned SOUL for crying out loud!), and quite likely laughed at behind my back. Sure this would probably get an A or a B in an elementary or even middle school classroom, but when it comes to serious writing, this ain't it. 

I can't help but think of videos of those robotic dogs that skitter around and fall over. No one in their right mind would compare those monstrosities with the nuzzle of a German Shepherd's muzzle, or the adorable head tilt of same, so why are we decrying the doom of writing instruction? We simply have to do better and expect better. At all levels.    

The End.