As those of you who follow my blog will know, I have been experimenting with Google Bard. This morning I asked Bard whether AI poetry will replace human generated poetry and received a response which can be accessed here, https://g.co/bard/share/074f2caef001
The final few sentences of the AI generated essay sum up Bard’s response:
“Ultimately, the future of poetry will likely be a collaboration between humans and machines. Human poets will continue to bring their unique creativity and emotional insight to the craft, while AI will provide new tools and techniques to help them express their ideas. Together, humans and AI can create poetry that is even more beautiful and meaningful than anything that has been created before.”
Whilst I am sure that many humans will use AI tools with increasing frequency in their writing (including poetry), I am not convinced that this will lead to the composition of poetry even more beautiful than that hitherto created. As the AI response acknowledges, AI lacks human experience. Consequently, unless AI is able to fully comprehend human experience in the same manner as we humans do, it will never be able to surpass Shakespeare, Tennyson or any other of the poetic greats.
Furthermore, the appreciation of any art form is to some extent a matter of subjective judgement. To take a concrete example, I believe that Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is a wonderfully powerful poem, whilst a dear friend of mine (who is also a lover of poetry), is left cold by Thomas’s work. There will therefore no doubt be readers who will praise AI generated poetry and poems created in collaboration with AI tools, but others will be left cold by such creations.
The creation of mass produced pottery has not killed the craftsman who produces beautiful pots using his potter’s wheel. Nor, in my view will AI poetry destroy the poet who continues to write from the heart rather than utilising tools such as Google Bard or Open AI’s Chat GPT.
As always I would welcome your comments.
K Morris - Poet 
If poetry didn’t come from a human’s heart, there would be no point in writing it.
I am inclined to agree with you, Liz.
I’m way on team human
I am with you on that, Beth.
Oh, how I agree with you about Dylan Thomas, especially Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.
When we’d finished ‘O’ level (yes, I’m that old) we weren’t allowed to leave school as they are now, and the teachers had to find something to do with us. Our English teacher read Thomas to us and I was hooked. Then when doing my teacher training, I was delighted to find Under Milkwood was one of our set books.
AI as you say, hasn’t the emotional experience to write deep and meaningful poetry. Maybe it will get there if it learns to experience emotions. But then, is it still a machine, or something more?
I’m pleased you also appreciate “Do Not Go Gentle”, Vivienne. I have a 1 volume (in braile) Selected Poems, which includes “Do Not Go Gentle”. I also did a mixture of o-levels and GCSES, so you are in good company, Vivienne! You raise an interesting question regarding whether (if AI reaches the point where it can write human-like poetry, whether it will be something other than an AI. I guess it will depend on whether it understands/feels what it is doing in the same way as a human does. But how do we know that a human really understands or feels anything? That question is beyond my pay grade as I never studied philosophy. Nonetheless it is a fascinating subject for all that. Thanks again for commenting.
We could discuss that for years, Kevin, and still not find an answer.
Indeed we could, Vivienne.