Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Irises & ChatGPT@3QD

I’ve posted a new article at 3 Quarks Daily:

The Irises Are Blooming Early This Year

Yes, it IS about irises, and contains photos of irises, but it manages to work its way to ChatGPT, where I include another parody of Wallace Stevens’s famous “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Last month it became a poem about an A.I. Now it’s about irises.

Another Stevens imitation

Thirteen Ways

 

By Wallace Stevens

By ChatGPT

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,   

The only moving thing   

Was the eye of the blackbird.  

Among twenty blooming irises,

The only stirring thing

Was the flutter of a butterfly.

II

I was of three minds,   

Like a tree   

In which there are three blackbirds.

I was of three minds,

Like a garden

Where there are three irises.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   

It was a small part of the pantomime.  

The iris swayed in the spring breeze.

It was a small part of the dance.

IV

A man and a woman   

Are one.   

A man and a woman and a blackbird   

Are one. 

A gardener and a sunbeam

Are one.

A gardener and a sunbeam and an iris

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

I do not know which to admire more,

The elegance of petals

Or the subtlety of colors,

The iris blooming

Or just before.

VI

Icicles filled the long window   

With barbaric glass.   

The shadow of the blackbird   

Crossed it, to and fro.   

The mood   

Traced in the shadow   

An indecipherable cause. 

Raindrops adorned the petals

With delicate jewels.

The silhouette of the iris

Danced upon them, back and forth.

The feeling

Traced in the silhouette

A mystery beyond words.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,   

Why do you imagine golden birds?   

Do you not see how the blackbird   

Walks around the feet   

Of the women about you? 

O wise gardeners of old,

Why do you dream of other flowers?

Do you not see how the iris

Swirls around the stems

Of the flowers beside it?

VIII

I know noble accents   

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   

But I know, too,   

That the blackbird is involved   

In what I know.  

I know the language of flowers

And the undeniable pulse of nature;

But I know, too,

That the iris is entwined

In all that I comprehend.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,   

It marked the edge   

Of one of many circles. 

When the iris swayed out of view,

It marked the boundary

Of one of many moments.

X

At the sight of blackbirds   

Flying in a green light,   

Even the bawds of euphony   

Would cry out sharply.   

At the sight of irises

Dancing in the sunlight,

Even the cynics of beauty

Would pause in wonder.

XI

He rode over Connecticut   

In a glass coach.   

Once, a fear pierced him,   

In that he mistook   

The shadow of his equipage   

For blackbirds.   

She strolled through the garden,

Lost in thought.

Once, a joy overcame her,

As she mistook

The scent of the blooms

For irises.

XII

The river is moving.   

The blackbird must be flying. 

The breeze is stirring.

The iris must be swaying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.   

It was snowing   

And it was going to snow.   

The blackbird sat   

In the cedar-limbs.

It was morning all evening.

It was blossoming

And it was going to blossom.

The iris stood

In the garden's embrace.

Meta: A word about process

Some of the articles I write for 3 Quarks are like pulling teeth. I’ll make notes, sketch outlines, draft sections, perhaps as a post here at New Savanna, and then assemble the pieces into the final article on the Saturday and Sunday before the article shows up on Monday. This is one of those pieces: Western Metaphysics is Imploding. Will We Raise a Phoenix from The Ashes? [Catalytic AI]. I liked it a lot. But friends tell me it left them a bit mystified.

Other pieces that come easy. This one for example: Old School: Torpor and Stupor at Johns Hopkins. That was a while ago, so the writing process is not clear in my mind. But I pretty sure it’s one of those pieces where I thought about it a bit, did a little web surfing (in that case, I had to get the photo and a link or two) and then just sat down and drafted it. No doubt I stepped away from the computer every now and then, but it was basically one work session. I wrote a draft Sunday morning and early afternoon, checked it over, and then upload it.

Those two pieces are quite different in kind. The Western Metaphysics piece developed a complex argument whereas Torpor and Stupor was narrative in kind. Complex arguments require a complex web of connections between the various pieces. That’s hard to do and requires you to flit back and forth making things fit and relate. Narratives have a simpler structure. Torpor and Stupor didn’t tell a single continuous story. Rather, it was organized as a set of vignettes, each of them a little narrative. There was no argument to speak of. Just a an overall flow.

This irises piece was closer to the come-easy kind than the pulling-teeth kind. I had some points to make, but I made them more though analogy and metaphor than explicit argument. It had three sections. ChatGPT’s Stevens imitation went in the middle. I prepared that on Friday evening and made a few notes. More notes on Saturday. But I didn’t start writing until Sunday morning, and then I drafted it from beginning to end over course of, say, two to three hours.

The most interesting thing about the process was the decisions I made on Sunday morning to query ChatGPT about the nature of blossoms. I didn’t need to do that as I already more or less knew the story. But in so doing I was able to introduce ChatGPT into the exposition and thus prepare the way for the poem. That opened the way for the concluding discussion about DNA, strings, and complexity.

I wonder how LLMs manage different kinds of discourse? That’s what’s in the back of my mind.

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