Sonnets by ChatGPT

Following my dialogue with ChatGPT on whether it is conscious, I thought it would be interesting to look at its poetic creativity. I decided to give it a subject dear to my heart.

RD said: Can you write a sonnet extolling biological evolution?

ChatGPT said: Certainly! Here’s a sonnet celebrating the beauty and power of biological evolution:

Through eons carved by time’s relentless hand,

Life stirs and shifts upon this spinning sphere;

From simple forms on primeval sand,

To wondrous beings now both far and near.

Blind Nature crafts with patient, steady grace,

Adapting flesh to earth, to sea, to sky;

Each subtle change, a step in Nature’s race,

A dance with death, so none need ask why.

The finch’s beak, the moth’s disguising hue,

Bear witness to selection’s artful might;

Diversity, the bloom of trials true,

Survives the dark and reaches toward the light.

From ancient cells to minds that dream and prove,

Behold the tale of life: fierce, bright with love.

Not a bad effort considering it only took a second or two. Scansion is dodgy in lines 3, 8 and 12. Easily fixed by changing “on” to “upon”, “none” to “no-one”, and “toward” to “for”. And the final rhyming couplet is a bit weak. Nothing wrong with rhyming “prove” with “love” – it’s Shakespearian and I like it – but the word “love” itself is inappropriate here.

Impressed by the laconic rapidity with which it met my request, I wondered whether, given the same commission, it would come up with the same poem. Or would it display human-like impatience and say, “Oh, for goodness sake, I’ve just done that”? So I put my request in identical words, making no reference to the previous effort:

RD said: Can you write a sonnet extolling biological evolution?

ChatGPT said: Of course! Here's a sonnet celebrating the beauty and power of biological evolution:

Evolution Sonnet: I crafted a sonnet celebrating the beauty and resilience of evolution. Let me know if you’d like any adjustments or further poetic explorations!

Through endless ages, life began to weave

Its grand design upon the fertile earth;

From simple forms that clung to rock and reef,

A wondrous surge of beings came to birth.

The oceans stirred with creatures small and fleet,

Their fragile shapes adapting to the tide;

Each fin and scale, each wing and fleeting beat

A whispered tale of nature’s art and pride.

The forests woke with beasts of tooth and claw,

While feathered kin took flight in azure skies;

Each changing form, obeying nature’s law,

Revealed the dance where strength and beauty rise.

Through trial, chance, and time’s unyielding hand,

Life’s endless song still carves the shifting sand.

A completely different poem! Nothing wrong with the scansion this time, but some of the rhymes seem a little contrived (e.g. “weave” and “reef” is positively rap). And “song” in the last line feels wrong. Songs don’t carve. I put the same request a third time:

RD said: Can you write a sonnet extolling biological evolution?

ChatGPT said: The Grand Ascent: A Sonnet to Evolution

From primal depths where ancient waters stirred,

Life sparked, a fragile breath in dark embrace,

Through eons’ dance, by nature’s silent word,

A lineage unfurled with wondrous grace.

Blind sculptor, chance and need entwined as one,

Each form a whisper of survival’s song,

The fin became the limb beneath the sun,

And wings took flight where wind and skies belong.

Mutation’s brush on DNA’s design,

Selects the strong, refines the weak away,

Diversity’s great tree in grand align,

Roots deep in time, with branches toward the day.

No hand divine—yet beauty still is true,

Life’s tapestry, evolved in every hue.

Yet again, a completely different poem. I think the best so far, although tapestry is a bit of a cliché.

I decided that to ask for a fourth sonnet would be impolite. But I admit to curiosity as to how inexhaustible ChatGPT’s supply of poems might be, on the same subject and in the same rigidly defined verse form.

Each of the four poems has its virtues and its imperfections. How would it be to do some meiotic crossing over of quatrains from the three poems, followed by the best final couplet? Here’s what I came up with, including my amateurish but human attempt to improve upon “endless song” (also incorporating the above minor corrections of scansion):

From primal depths where ancient waters stirred,

Life sparked, a fragile breath in dark embrace,

Through eons’ dance, by nature’s silent word,

A lineage unfurled with wondrous grace.

Blind sculptor, chance and need entwined as one,

Each form a whisper of survival’s song,

The fin became the limb beneath the sun,

And wings took flight where wind and skies belong.

The finch’s beak, the moth’s disguising hue,

Bear witness to selection’s artful might;

Diversity, the bloom of trials true,

Survives the dark and reaches for the light.

Through trial, chance, and time’s unyielding hand,

Life’s ruthless plough still turns the shifting sand.

Further human intervention, in the form of changes to particular words, might eventually lead to quite a good poem.

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