In the stillness of the night
A silence so thin, so slight
It hangs in the air like a veil
Whispering secrets, telling tales
It’s a silence that’s hard to define
But it’s there, oh, so sublime
It’s a hush that’s almost palpable
A quiet so calm, so comfortable
It’s a silence that’s full of meaning
A pause in the chaos, intervening
It’s a moment to catch your breath
To contemplate life and its breadth
In the thin silence, we find peace
A moment that brings us release
Though it may be fleeting and brief
It brings us calmness, brings us relief.
Written for Misky’s Twiglet prompt using the words “thin silence.”
Note from Fandango: Lest you think I have suddenly turned into a decent poet, I have a confession to make. I did not write this poem. I was struggling with this prompt, “thin silence,” and was thinking about writing something having to do with the thin silence of tinnitus, but I was coming up empty. So just for giggles and grins, I opened up a ChatGPT AI app called Genie, typed, “Write a poem about thin silence,” and the above poem is what the app created. I was actually impressed with the poem and decided to use it in my response to Misky’s prompt. Then I went to Bing Image Creator and typed in, “Thin silence,” and the image it created is at the top of this post. I was also impressed with the image Bing created.
Just so you know, I will never publish a post generated by AI and claim it to be my work. And I will never post an image that is AI generated without saying so.
This, That, and the Other 
It was so surprising when I saw this poem. It’s very good I must say.
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Generating an AI poem is something I’ve not tried yet. I must give it a go. Maybe some hideously difficult form that usually makes me hyperventilate. I do like the idea of thin silence being associated with tinnitus. It’s a good connection.
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I had to make sure I was reading your post, Fandango. I agree with Sadje. This one is very good.
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Well, this is something new! Very nicely done, Fan!
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I just watched a CNN report on the ChatGPT AI app.
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What did you learn? Is humanity doomed?
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It is the number 17 most used website, but unlike the others the people that go there tend to stay for a longer time and it is used more by younger people.
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hehehe, one word: Terminator.
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I hope we can all agree to label AI content as such! But, good or not, now that I know AI “wrote” this, it has become meaningless. Poetry is the poet communicating with me, not a symmetrical pile of words. I’m not trying to denigrate this post, but to say it touches on something I’ve been working to define in the middle of all this AI hooplah–the question, does art have any meaning if it is not created by a human? Is all this just an elaborate, complex language version of a child’s Spirograph or a kaleidoscope?
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I’m just curious. Had I not “confessed” to the poem having been written by an AI generator, would you have still assessed the poem as “meaningless”? I was actually impressed with it, not that I’m a poetry aficionado, but I thought it was pretty good. I even ran it through two different ChatGPT detectors and one assured me it was 95% probability of having been created be a human. The other said 100% human.
But I do understand your concerns and you ask a valid question about how one defines art. I do worry that, as the state of the “art” in AI-generated text and art evolves, it will become harder and harder to distinguish between what is real and what is “machine”-generated.
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I, personally, didn’t like it… but wouldn’t have said so if you hadn’t admitted the origin. (I wouldn’t have said I liked it, though, which doesn’t mean I definitionally don’t like something upon which I don’t comment.)
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As for the image, it works on its own and could go with a story or poem well. On the topic of visual art, I wanted to share this because it’s usually inescapable that people don’t value artistic items they didn’t buy this year:
https://news.artnet.com/market/tiffany-glass-windows-discovery-philadelphia-2301796
With the instinct that he may have something valuable on his hands, Brown took the windows straight to Freeman’s auction house to be appraised. As it turned out, they had been commissioned from Tiffany Studios around 1905.
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A few weeks ago at a museum I heard read aloud a poem by Maya Angelou and it was beautiful and deeply moving.
I know John Henry couldn’t beat the machine at laying railroad track. Maybe I’m saying that the machine wouldn’t be able to plan a nice, scenic route.
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I won’t allow AI to talk or write about life or how I feel. Writing should come from the heart not machine generated words. As for ChatGPT PfffffffffT!
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Thank you for your honesty. I’ve never used AI for anything. Still do things the old fashioned way. It is scary how good this write is.
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I would like to ask you for a favour…..Could you write a poem with A1 in Shakespearean language and form….maybe a sonnet …eg Shall I compare thee to the fragrance of a pink cherry blossom and it must contain a splash of humour…..I am technically challenged so I wont be able to work out how to use A1..The reason I am asking you to do it is because I am curious to know if the poem will be above average…I don’t really care if it is produced by a human or not…I would like to know if A1 can produce something brilliant….I want to know I am correct in thinking that it is not possible.
Your A1 poem is tedious, and mediocre. It could have easily been written by a human ( a boring one !: )
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I asked Genie to write a Shakespearean sonnet in language and form that contains humor. Here’s what it came up with.
My dear, the sun has risen once again
And with it comes a task that’s quite a bore
For I must now put down my trusty pen
And venture out to do my daily chore
But fear not, my love, for I have a plan
To make this tedious task a bit more fun
I’ll dress up like a clown, with pots and pans
And dance around like a jester on the run
Perhaps my neighbors will be quite amused
To see me prance about in such attire
And if they’re not, well then I shall excuse
Myself and say I’m simply feeling dire
So let us go forth, my love, and make mirth
For life is but a jest, and we its mirth.
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I put in the same request to Google’s AI app and it created this:
The Bard’s Lament
I sit within my study, all alone,
My thoughts do wander to the days of yore,
When I could write of love and passion pure,
And all the world was filled with joy and lore.
But now, my muse has fled, and left me here,
A broken man, with nothing left to write,
My heart is filled with sadness and despair,
And all my days are filled with bitter night.
The world has changed, and I cannot keep up,
The times have moved on, and I am left behind,
I am a relic of a bygone age,
A fool who cannot keep up with the times.
So now I sit, and write this sonnet last,
A farewell to my muse, and to my past.
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Thank you Fan….well now I’m utterly depressed because the Bard’s Lament is good. How dangerous is this phenomenon! We’re going to be in big trouble if this gets out of hand. I wonder if it can compose a prelude and fugue….I think I would rather not find out. Thanks once again Fan for enlightening the poetry world.
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You ask a very timely question about AI and what happens if it gets out of hand. There are so many possibilities, and some are very bad.
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PS
it would be fun to run one’s own poetry through a detector to see the percentage result of the likelihood of it being written by a machine.
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If you send me a sample that you’d like me to run through the Ai-detector programs I have, you can either email it to me at fivedotoh@outlook.com, or include it with a comment. I’ll be happy to let you know if you’re a human.
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