[burnsteem100] Ode to the Stillness - a poem by ChatGPT
A poem about the pandemic lockdowns by ChatGPT in the style of Walt Whitman. Image from M$ Copilot. 😉
Does it matter that this was written by ChatGPT? I actually think it's pretty good. Definitely better than anything I could have written for this genre. It took me about 15 minutes of "rewrites" by prompting to modify the prose.
Ode to the Stillness (Extended)
I sing the quietude of empty streets, The hush that fell upon the bustling squares, When life retreated behind closed doors, And the world paused, breath held.
But oh, the ache of lost freedom— The liberty to wander, unencumbered, To chase sunsets and embrace strangers, Now confined to the narrow radius of home.
The open road, once a lover’s whisper, Now a distant memory, fading like footprints In the sands of time, erased by uncertainty, As borders tightened, and flights were grounded.
The cafes, once alive with laughter and chatter, Now stood silent, chairs stacked like tombstones, Their aroma of freshly brewed coffee replaced By the bitter taste of solitude and longing.
And the parks—their green expanses fenced, Their swings and slides wrapped in caution tape, Children’s laughter silenced, replaced by echoes Of unanswered questions: “When can we play again?”
The sea, a siren’s call to freedom, taunted us, Its waves crashing against invisible barriers, As ships lay anchored, sails furled, dreams deferred, And sailors yearned for distant shores.
Even the stars, those ancient wanderers, Seemed to dim, their constellations rearranged, As if the universe, too, mourned our loss, And whispered secrets of resilience across the void.
Yet, in this stillness, a call resounded: “Reclaim your freedom, oh weary souls! Unfurl your wings, break free from confinement, For the world awaits your footsteps, your touch.”
And so, we rise, like morning birds, Our hearts beating in rhythm with the tides, To reclaim the open road, the cafes, the parks, To dance with the sea, and trace the stars.
For freedom, like a forgotten melody, Lingers in our bones, our breath, our dreams, And as the world awakens, we sing anew: “Let us be free, let us be whole once more.”
Even though it wasn't written by a human, I still think it expresses important ideas and deserves to be shared? Maybe we need a moderated community where people can share their AI generated content?
Update
Just for fun
That seems like a good idea to me - here it would be fundamentally clear that AI is involved in the creative process. There would be no secrecy and no claiming of authorship. I like that!
The thoughtfulness of this poem comes more from your prompt and less from AI.
Interesting idea. Instead of being hush-hush about it, it should be allowed under regulation. An example was a contest recently organized by a friend that included small use of AI and it only opened a can of worms. People are scared of it taking over which in my opinion is not possible.
Thanks for the reply!
and
In general, I think these are important points that people tend to miss. It's not "either/or", it's about finding the optimal balance of human intellect and machine augmentation. AI is just a tool.
For this poem, I was really surprised and impressed by the AI portion of the contribution, though. It included details and imagery that probably never would've occurred to me, unaided, and it referred back to them - in order - in its closing section. I gave it themes and feedback, but the AI really did the heavy lifting. And I'm half wondering if it really did pull some of those ideas forward in time from Walt Whitman in some sense? Was that structure characteristic of his style? I don't know poetry, but maybe...
I wish I had time to try and get a community running. With luck, it might even increase organic engagement in the comment section. As always, the risk is spam and reward-farming. Maybe such a community could use things like requiring minimum burn percentages or subscription payments to a multikey community moderation account in order to limit spam.
After the reply from @steemcurator02, I'm thinking maybe the way to start would be with a "prompt engineering" community, and then building from there.
That's the gist.
I'm not familiar with Whitman's work but that's entirely possible.
Totally understandable. Running a community is no easy task. Maybe you could do in future with a clearer vision and with some help from people who share the same vision.
I still think burning should be done on large scale by bigger accounts to get significant results. (It's a debate for another time.) I'm really intrigued by this "multisig" development. I just read a couple of articles through the link you attached. As much as it makes sense to use it for AI themed community, it's completely viable for the rest as well... I'm curious as to why this feature is still not used by communities heavily supported by steemcurators.
#promptengineersrule
Right! We need to figure out how to harness that here.