Why Tomorrow’s Poets Will Use Artificial Intelligence

Tomorrow’s poets will use Ai to create original poetry, because yesterday’s great poetry always emerged from a network of things.

Image produced by Wombo.Art Ai (used with permission).

Tomorrow’s poets will use Ai to create original poetry, because yesterday’s great poetry always emerged from a network of things.

Too often, we think of poetry as something that comes solely from the heart or mind of the individual. But just like any other writing… poetry cannot exist without other people, other poems, and the technological and linguistic network these things exist within. Artificial intelligence is not just a tool to help us find information on the internet or create web copy; it will also become a source of inspiration for poets.

Poetry doesn’t emerge from our brains. Poetry emerges from an interplay between our brains and the environment. Soon Ai will simply be a part of that technological and linguistic web.

Poets are already using artificial intelligence to create original poetry.

In the last few years, artificial intelligence has been making huge strides in the world of business, and this is especially true in marketing and copywriting. Ai is creating better and more original content for websites and blogs, as well as new content for social media platforms. The applications of Ai have been growing by the day, and we’re only just understanding what it can do.

Ai tools don’t really create their own poetry (that’s any good), but they can help poets develop new approaches to writing poetry.

This isn’t a recent phenomenon. Many famous poets have used the power of technology to create their own unique works. During the Surrealist movement, poets used the technology of their day to create new kinds of poetry. They would start a new poem, and then give it to someone else to write a few lines of poetry. This person would fold the paper over the previous lines, and the next poet would add a few lines. This went on until everyone had written a few lines. Then the first poet would write the last line. This was called the Exquisite Corpse.

This activity created great poems, but not from the single mind of the poet. Poetry emerges from a network of people, things, and language.

No poem exists in a vacuum.

Every poem is an echo of all the poems that go before it… and any new iteration only has meaning with an audience and a network of other poems. The poet is a member of a larger network, and every poem is a node in a network of other poems. It is not enough to simply be inspired by this network; you need to understand the relationships between the nodes.

Every time a new poem is written, the previous poem becomes part of the history of the new poem. This is how we create our own poetry.

This is also how artificial intelligence writes poetry. Ai works best if you can give the program some examples of poems you want to write… perhaps Surrealist love poems. It will look for patterns and try to replicate the same moves with different content. This is what talented poets do… they read poetry and look for patterns before writing a new poem. Ai language models are another resource we can use to see poetry in new ways.

Our brains are very good at finding patterns and seeing the connections between things. The same is true of Ai, just different.

No poem has ever been written without technology.

Shifts in technology drive innovation in poetry. Rhyming itself is a technology for memorization that pre-dates writing. When writing came along, poets began thinking in stanzas and enjambment. The printing press changed the writing of poems by making them more visual. The invention of movable type, and later word processors, made formatting and page design a part of the poetry writing process.

Now artificial intelligence will encourage poets to think about poetry as networks of thoughts and ideas, not just words on a page.

We are shifting away from thinking of poetry as something written by a single person, towards thinking of poetry as a networked activity. Poetry isn’t so much about the expression of the self, but the discovery of who we are as interactive and networked beings. If you think of a poem as a network of ideas, then you can use Ai to realize these new ways of seeing.

As technology changes, so does poetry. Ai will be the next technology to shift our ways of seeing.

No poem can be written outside of shared language.

All poems exist in a linguistic network that is influenced by culture, history, and technology. Even the greatest poem is co-written by this web of influences. We are all part of this network, but not in the same way… that’s what makes our poetry unique. The poetry that emerges from my interaction with Ai will differ from the poetry that emerges from your interaction… even if we are using the same tool.

Artificial intelligence will help us participate in these linguistic webs in new ways, but will itself become an important part of this web.

Ai will become a reflection of ourself and our culture, just like any other writing. Poetry’s power is its ability to shape these linguistic networks in new ways and change the surrounding discourse. Future poets will understand how Ai is shaping the discourse around us and learn to use artificial intelligence in more poetic ways. These poets can shape the Ai that shapes us.

Poetry has the power to shape artificial intelligence and the linguistic networks around us in new ways.

Artificial intelligence will never write poetry on its own… because no human does either.

No poem can be written outside the network of things… and soon Ai will be an unavoidable part of how we write poetry, embedded in our networks of activity. In the future, the top poets will be those that can blend the best of both human and Ai creativity, using a combination of the two to create something that is uniquely their own. The poet’s craft has always been about working with the language to create something new. Today, Ai and machine learning have increased this potential exponentially.

The next generation of poetry will emerge from a network of things that we can’t even fathom in our current moment. It’s only a matter of time before Ai is an essential part of creating poetry, just like pen and paper or word processing programs. No one would have thought of twitter poems without twitter… what poems will Ai help you think of?

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