Can chatGPT spark creativity?

 Introduction

In this exercise with my ongoing experimentation with the AI program chatGPT, I took one of my short poems "Hoovering up the violets on the lawn", and got it to do an analysis of the poem.  I then asked it to rewrite the poem from the point of view of various characters in the poem.  I then attempted my own rewrites.  Since when you write anything poetic you are influenced by other writing you have seen, it is arguable that my rewrites were influenced by chatGPT's attempts, and that therefore it could be a tool to spark creativity.  First, here is the original poem, my own work, motivated by a real event, followed by chatGPT's analysis of it.  The title "Hoovering up the violets on the lawn" came to me while mowing the lawn and noticing how the rotary mower seems to resemble a hoover, sucking stuff up.

Hoovering up the violets on the lawn

There they were, unobtrusive yet elegant 

Mingled with the straggly grass and tatty daisies.

A shame to have to mow the lawn 

To sweep away the treasure and the dross. 

 But the mower, mindless machine 

 Treasures nothing, discriminates never, 

 But sucks all into the grass box 

 Except a few of those ruddy daisies. 

 But no – I shall not mourn these darling violets 

Whose moment came and went so soon.

For in that moment they spoke to me 

And herein is celebrated what they said.

Analysis by chatGPT

The poem "Hoovering up the violets on the lawn" is a reflection on the fleeting beauty of nature and the mechanization of human life. The speaker laments the loss of the delicate violets that were mixed in with the other, less impressive flora on the lawn, acknowledging the mower's unfeeling removal of all the grass and flowers it encounters. The mower is personified as a "mindless machine" that "treasures nothing" and "discriminates never." It is a symbol of the way in which modern society values efficiency and speed above all else, with no regard for the subtleties and nuances of life. 

 However, the speaker ultimately decides not to mourn the violets, recognizing that their beauty was brief but significant. In that moment of their existence, they spoke to the speaker, and their memory lives on in this poem. 

The poem can be seen as a call to appreciate the beauty in life, even if it is fleeting and easily overlooked. It also raises questions about the cost of modernization and the role of technology in our relationship with nature.

My comments on chatGPTs analysis

I am quite impressed with this analysis - and the key point of recognising that beauty, while brief, is still significant is well-made.  The point about modernization and the role of technology was not one that I consciously made, but seems to me to be a valid interpretation of the text.  One might argue that it has made an insight into the text that had not occurred to me (even though I was the author), and may be revealing thoughts that were sub-consciously below the surface.  Quite often, when I write creatively ideas come and are put down on paper without really thinking too hard about the meaning, and I have to figure out what I meant afterwards.  In that sense, it has helped me to understand my own writing better.  I certainly would not disagree with the "questions about the ... role of technology in our relationship with nature"

The only point I would quibble about was the idea that the mower was "personified", not that you couldn't personify a machine, (see the attempt to do this further down), but the obvious intent is that it doesn't have the characteristics of a person, like feelings etc.

However, that prompted me to see what would happen if the poem were re-written from the point of view of the other non-sentient entities in the poem.

From the POV of the violets - first attempt

I asked it to rewrite the poem where the speaker was the violets, in order to give a voice to what they said.  I was interested to see what it would come up with, because in the original, I deliberately left to the imagination what the violets said, only leaving it as a metaphor of the inanimate objects "speaking to me".

This is what it came up with:

We are the violets, so delicate and fine, 

 Hiding in the grass, waiting to shine. 

 We know our time is fleeting, brief as can be, 

 But we still bring beauty to this world, can't you see? 

 Don't sweep us away, don't hoover us up, 

 Let us stay and bloom, don't interrupt. 

 We may be small, but we have much to say, 

 We can teach you about life in our own little way. 

 Enjoy the simple things, the moments so dear, 

 For they pass so quickly, and soon disappear. 

 Treasure every second, and live life with grace, 

 For like us violets, your time too is a race.

My comments

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this!  As the original is unrhymed, I did not anticipate that it would attempt to write a rhyming poem, with at least some rudimentary sense of metre.  In this it is somewhat successful, with some limitations too.  Though it's not a conventional metre, each line splits nicely into two phrases, giving a song-like lilt to it.  Line 4 is clumsy and a failure at this.  Better might simply be "But still we bring beauty, why can't you see?"

The final stanza is a reasonable speculation about what the violets might have said - and it's an extrapolation of what is in the poem.  The final line is unexpected and makes a thought-provoking point, equating the fleeting nature of the violets' existence with the finite nature of human existence.

However, the main problem (for me) is that it is unbearably twee in nature, and rather sickly - maybe because it was constrained by rhyming and ended up as the kind of light verse one might find on a greetings card.  So I decided to ask it again to write from the POV of the violets, giving voice to what they might have said, but asked it to write in free verse without rhymes.

From the POV of the violets - second attempt

Amidst the straggly grass and tatty daisies, 

 We stood, unobtrusive yet elegant, 

 Our purple hue, a thing of beauty, 

 But alas, the lawn must be mowed. 

The mower, a mindless machine, 

 Discriminates never, treasures nothing, 

 Sucks all into its grass box, 

 The treasure and the dross alike. 

But fear not, dear poet, 

 For we shall not be mourned, 

 Our moment came and went so soon, 

 But in that moment, we spoke to you. 

We whispered of the fleeting nature of life, 

 Of the beauty that can be found in passing, 

 Of the need to cherish every moment, 

 For therein lies the true treasure.

My comments

This is much better, and has less of the sickly sweetness of the first attempt.  Also notable is that having relaxed its self-imposed constraint of rhyme and rhythm, it has re-used many of the phrases of the original poem, but altered it to change the "speaker" to the violets.

The final verse is completely made up but the algorithm, and again is a very reasonable speculation about what the violets might have said to me.  The last line is thought-provoking, and picks up the theme of treasure introduced in the second stanza.

The line "But fear not, dear poet" seems a mis-step, because the poet himself has decided not to mourn the demise of the violets.  Better might be something along the lines of "But we are not dismayed at our demise".

I decided to attempt my own rewrite from the POV of the violets.

From the POV of the violets - my own rewrite:

There we were, quietly elegant,
Shining out from straggly grass and tatty daisies.
We saw you approach with the mower
And sensed your regret at our coming demise.

For the mower's mindless mechanism
Could not spare the treasure
While carelessly sucking up the dross
Into the tomb of its grass box.

And as we vanished with those ruddy daisies
We spoke a word and you listened.
And we urge you to celebrate
Our fleeting beauty, and what we said.

My comments

I prefer my rewrite to chatGPT's largely because I am in total control!  However, it is apparent that I have been influenced by the insights provided by reading chatGPTs analysis, and its own rewrites, notably the words "fleeting" and "beauty", which weren't in the original.

My next experiment was to rewrite it from the POV of the mower ...

From the POV of the mower (chatGPT version):

There they were, hidden amongst the grass and weeds,
Too delicate to withstand my sharp blades,
But I, the mower, have a task to fulfill.

My purpose is to clear the land,
To make it pristine and neat,
And yet, I cannot help but feel remorse
For the beauty I have taken away.

But I am a mindless machine,
Built to do what I have been programmed to do,
I cannot treasure or discriminate
Only follow the instructions given to me,

I know not of the violets' brief life
Or what they may have said,
But I have done my job,
And in doing so, have silenced their voices.

My comments

I'm really quite impressed with this somewhat imperfect attempt!  Apart from the major lapse of giving the mower feelings of remorse, and then contradicting itself, it does a good characterisation of a mindless machine.  The last verse is quite brutal and shocking, the final phrase "have silenced their voices" showing not a hint of remorse.

This inspired me to write one myself, from the POV of the mower:

From the POV of the mower (my version)

You wheel me onto the lawn to do my job.
I am a hoover among the straggly grass stalks,
the tatty daisies and violets.

You ask me: Do you treasure the violets over the others?

I do not mind, for I have none.  They are all the same to me -

Dross to be sucked up into my box.

You ask me: Do you feel regret at destroying the darling violets?

I am a machine.  I have no emotions.

But if I did have feelings, I would feel ...
Frustration that I missed a couple of those ruddy daisies.

You ask me: Do they not speak to you of fleeting beauty?

I have no ears to hear
Only teeth of whirring blades.

My comments

Because I have the freedom to think and am not an algorithm, I was able to remove all sense of emotion of feeling - with the emotions transferred to the person addressed in the poem, as a sequence of questions.

But there is little doubt that I was inspired to do so by seeing the brutality of chatGPT's version, and also the idea of "doing my job".  Having seen that in the AI version, it followed that I used the same idea.  Would I have had the same simple idea had I not seen the AI version?  Impossible to tell.

But in conclusion I think the exercise has been useful, and that I could indeed consider using the AI as a creative aid, if only to spark new ideas.  While the poetry it produces is indifferent, it is remarkable what it can achieve.

Comic relief:  from the POV of the daisies (chatGPT version)

We stand among the grass, straggly and worn,
Our petals small, but still we adorn
The lawn, the earth, with out tatty charm,

Beside the elegant violets, who cause no harm.

We see the mower, mindless and cold,

Sucking up all, both treasure and mold,

Except for us, the ruddy daisies,

Left to dance in the sun's warm rayses.

We too lament the loss of the violets fair,

But we know that all beauty is fleeting and rare,
So we stand proud, and we stand tall,
Celebrating the memories of those who did fall.

My comments

Oh dear!  First lesson for AI beginning poets.  DON'T TRY TO MAKE IT RHYME!  I do wonder if the text of "Lord of the Rings" was in the training corpus of text for the AI, and that it had absorbed Gollum's manner of speech.

But .. to be fair ..  it has still captured most of the meaning and content of the poem, and introduced the nice concept at the end of celebrating the memories of the fallen.

It's just an algorithm; a mindless machine itself.  But I have to confess that what it is able to do is quite extraordinary.

I've not attempted a rewrite from the daisies POV, and will let the AI have the last word.