In the same way that climate change signals something irrevocable in the atmosphere, machine-learning constitutes an erosion of the known habitat of culture.
Today I wrote 12,000 poems. Most of them are crap. But if even 1% are halfway decent, that’s 120 poems.
Numbers aren’t everything. We love what we love. Quantification does not measure value. The quality of things defies statistics.
Yet, few can deny statistics (of climate change), scale (of moore’s law), grandeur (of uni/multiverse), immensity (of blogosphere), complexity (of evolution), dexterity (of language), velocity (of singularity). Emergence.
Augmented humans have existed since the first horse was tamed, since fire was carried in coals slung in a goat’s bladder lined with moss and pebbles; since the first toilet was born in a rock’s gullet.
Run a car down with a a bicycle. Chase a sprinter with an airplane. Make a nuclear bomb with matches. I dare you.
Welcome the cyber poet. Touch it’s silicon tongue, algorithm-rich, drenched in data. Obligatory obliteration.
Keep in mind, the results emerge from recipes. I am not the best chef in the world. This is mere crawling. But it is instinct which suggests a path, a motion and a blur over the meaning of creativity. Symbiosis.
A computer-generated stanza
Now the obfuscate ground water at the congee
close up front, like world against the harrow;
spume clear up like the cornelian cherry now
at place, in my own bed ground.
based on a template derived from the last stanza of Malcolm Cowley, The Long Voyage (1985)
Now the dark waters at the bow
fold back, like earth against the plow;
foam brightens like the dogwood now
at home, in my own country.
A computer-generated stanza
In Blondie and Bassette, on the ditties water hole,
in El Dorado, backyards (Castleman), in Kriss Kringle Fé,
throw by zero point, Zn, and gentle wind, everlastingly I’m run down
by planning of what I exemplify, authorization, commemoration, chyme,
the pastoral on the entresol, the idle, dogs’ automatically windward, pianoforte and deterioration.
based on a template derived from the last stanza of Weldon Kees, Statement with Rhymes (1962)
in Ahmednagar, Waco (Neb.), in Santa Fé,
propelled by zeros, zinc, and zephyrs, always I’m pursued
by thoughts of what I am, authority, remembrance, food,
the letter on the mezzanine, the unemployed, dogs’ lonely faces, pianos and decay.
A computer-generated stanza
I surveil the proximate turn for hours and hours
worry through Sunday and cascade the hover of life.
based on a template derived from the last stanza of Eva Gore-Booth, The Weaver (1929)
I followed the slow plough for hours and hours
Minding through sun and shower the loom of life.
To read 10,118 poems generated in 16659.9120939 seconds (4.62 hours) on 2014-07-23 at 22:41 click here