The Ghost in the Machine
Could a computer ever write poetry?
Paint a picture? Compose a song?
Why is it that we can do these things
but they can't?
What's the difference between
a poet and a program?
THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Functions
A function is a relation between some input and some output.
The add-1 function returns the number that is one bigger than its input.
3 => add-1 => 4
7 => add-1 => 8
The GHOST in the machine
Functions apply to more than math
A poet can be described as a function.
experience => poet => poems
A poet converts experience into poetry.
THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
William Carlos Williams
149 characters. 28 words, 12 lines, 3 stanzas.
The poetry is in the selection.
The GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Machine Poets
Could a computer ever select such evocative words, lines and stanzas?
We'd need to collect every thought and feeling a poet uses to select their words in a program.
That's an immense task. Maybe an impossible one.
Let's start small. Can we generate rhyming couplets?