What is poetry and can AI write it?

By Laura Mucha

Before becoming a poet, I was an intellectual property lawyer at an international law firm.

Most of my old colleagues have now become AI specialists and often tell me what their clients are concerned about. For example, music companies are worried about whether anyone actually cares if music is written by a human or not. Many of these concerns echo those relevant to children’s literature and education.

So, does anyone care if books or poems are written by AI or a human?

Last year, Hachette carried out a YouGov study, which found that 79% of readers wouldn’t consider reading a children’s book they knew was written by AI. 66% thought that AI-created books should be labelled as such. Heartening results. The difficulty is in verifying whether something was AI-generated or not. How can we actually know?

Well, we could rely on our gut instincts. Although they don’t seem to be great. It may be possible to train ourselves to tell the difference. But in one study, people could only distinguish between human and AI-generated text with 50-52% accuracy – basically the same as random chance. Another option is to use an AI-Detector, but some have been found to biased against non-native English writers.

That’s not the only issue. AI has been trained on thousands of books – including one of mine – without permission and without recognition or payment. Courts around the world are wrangling with whether this constitutes copyright infringement or not. But copyright considerations are only part of the question. Another concerns ethics, and the role of writers more widely.

I’d been keeping a keen eye on developments in AI, so when the Forward Arts Foundation asked me to create two films plus teaching resources exploring AI and poetry, I jumped at the chance.

I sat down to script the films, and thought – why not start by asking AI… I asked ChatGPT: What is poetry?

ChatGPT defined it with reference to human emotion – as have many poets, including WH Auden, William Wordsworth and Joy Harjo. But this raises an important question: Can AI have feelings? And if not, is it still poetry if AI is regurgitating the feelings originally articulated by a human?

When I read or listen to human poems, I often derive comfort, joy, solace or insight from the lived experience and reflection of the human that wrote it.

Whereas when I read AI ‘poems’, I’m infuriated by the lack of true emotion and nuance – not to mention the appalling metre, forced rhyme and archaic language. But Artificial Intelligence will only get better. And better. So critiquing its poetic technique is only partly the point (and a very satisfying exercise).

What is the point? What is the point of poetry? What is the point of poets?

I think part of the role of poets is to witness, reflect and articulate sometimes uncomfortable truths about what it is to be human and cultures they find themselves in. And in doing so, they can change both the human reading their work and the wider culture.

Can AI do this if relies on what has gone before?

I’d argue that one of the roles of poets and poetry is to challenge prejudice and established ideas, rather than rehash and reinforce them. But in relying on what has gone before, when that is so often sexist and racist, AI doesn’t make the cut. (Incidentally, I asked ChatGPT if it gave sexist or racist answers. Brilliantly, it admitted to both.)

But that’s not all. AI is also frequently inaccurate. Earlier this year, I was runner up for the Ruth Rendell Award. My brother-in-law asked ChatGPT what the award was for, and it explained in a very convincing way that it recognised excellent crime writing. But it doesn’t. (And I don’t write crime fiction.) It recognises services to literacy in the UK.

We all know in theory that AI gets things wrong. Yet I’ve listened to company CEOs treat AI as a reliable source. Not only does this overlook its inaccuracies, but also that the output depends on the input. When I asked ChatGPT if it gave racist answers, it gave varied responses depending on how my question was worded.

There’s no escaping AI. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are and will be massive benefits. It can free us from routine, predictable tasks – and in a few years, we could all have ‘constructive’ AI companions, allowing more time to be creative.

Given that AI is becoming an increasingly integral part of our lives, it’s vital that we start talking to young people now about the benefits, but also about the importance of always questioning its role and how it’s used.

Critical thinking and critical literacy were essential skills prior to the advent of artificial intelligence – the latter being weaker in those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. But now, with ready access to a repository of often prejudiced and inaccurate responses, critical thinking and literacy are more important than ever.

And so, I would argue, are human poets and poems.

Laura Mucha is an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet and Author-in-Residence in the Department of Public Health & Primary Care, University of Cambridge. Her books include Dear Ugly Sisters and Other Poems, and Being Me: Poems About Thoughts, Worries, Feelings with Liz Brownlee and Matt Goodfellow. She is a judge on the 2024 CLiPPA, CLPE Children’s Poetry Award.

Find Laura’s research and films on the National Poetry Day website.