Like everything before it, AI is not going away. I believe there are poets who will use AI to create significant poetry. I further believe that AI will be used by artists of every kind to create beautiful works of art. So what’s a poet to do?
My guess is that a thriving body of human art will grow alongside art created by artificial means. But I also believe that it is the responsibility of artists and publishers to certify that AI was not involved in the creation of the work, if that is the case.
So, I went over to my favorite AI chatbot to help me draft a disclaimer and found it helpful. That is, after all, the sort of thing that is appropriate for AI. Recently I’ve been using Claude.ai. Responding to my request for a non-AI disclaimer, Claude suggested something like this:
This work is an entirely human-generated creation. No artificial intelligence, machine learning systems, large language models, neural networks, or other automated writing technologies were utilized in any capacity for ideating, drafting, editing, or producing the contents contained herein. This work is solely the product of my own original thoughts, creativity, and manual writing efforts.
Not bad for a total composition time of less than a second. I had been using a much less sweeping disclaimer in my submissions. The tricky thing is that we are already using AI in the background whenever we do a Google search or have our grammar or word usage checked. If, like me, you create images using modern graphics software, AI is practically unavoidable. So the key thing I want the disclaimer to differentiate is that I do not use: machine learning systems, large language models, neural networks, or other automated writing technologies. It is exactly these verbal, “auto-complete” writing technologies of AI that fully human poets will renounce in submitting their work.
We are possibly heading into an artful time with two strands of art, one consciously using AI and the other resolutely committed to purely non-AI work. For me, I want to be transparently human.
The Artificial Policeman
Five years ago, when my poem, The Artificial Policeman, was first published in Poets Reading the News, Chat-GPT and its ilk were essentially research projects. Face recognition, however, was quickly coming of age and its potential use by state actors gave rise to this Orwellian poem. Here’s a very frenetic video poem I made of the work. The Artificial Policeman has been republished in my second collection, Binary Planet, which was recently released in it’s second edition.
I tried to capture the horror of a future state holding power using the tools of technology. It is a strange, psychedelic but fully human work.
Coming Up
April 26, 2024, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM at The Writer’s Center. Launch of Poet Amanda Shaw’s collection, It Will Have Been So Beautiful. Susan Okie, Sunu Chandy, and Rekha Mehra, will also read.
April 29, 2024, 7:00 PM Poetry Night Panel at Politics and Prose featuring Grace Cavalieri, Michael Blumenthal, Anne Harding Woodworth & Jean Nordhaus.
May 6, 2024 at 7:15 pm. Café Muse will feature poets Richard Foerster & Leah Umansky.
May 23, 2024, I’ll be reading along with Luther Jett at the Arts Club.
June 22, 2024, 10 am- 2pm, Chesapeake Children's Book Festival at Maryland's Talbot County Free Library.
Let me know about more events at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com.
As always, feel free to email me with questions or comments at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Stay creative!
If you’d like me to list an upcoming poetry event in Everyday Poet, please let me know by emailing me at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Use the subject: “Coming Up”.