Having stumbled on some weird 1970s poetry generated by a computer I’ve written a piece about it for The Conversation. The poems were commissioned by the Novelist and short story writer J.G. Ballard. And that’s where things get even weirder. I tell the full story in the piece. This strange case seemed to me to tell us something about generative AI and automated creativity today. My piece contains some images of the poems too.
I found it to be an interesting story to write about and I really liked how this strange little case gave a different context on the current generative AI debates (and the response to things like ChatGPT etc).
The whole thing came out of one sentence in Ballard’s autobiography. In passing he mentions a scientists who produced these computer generated pieces. Ballard saw the possibilities and the provocations.
I really enjoyed the little bit of investigating I did that led to this piece, and writing it too. It’s a long-read piece in The Conversation‘s ‘Insights’ section.
I really hope you might read it and also share it with anyone you think might be interested.
You can read the article here.