[-empyre-] A poem is a small (or large) machine

[Margaret J Rhee]

I would love to continue this thread about the poem is a small (or 
large) machine and WCW, as we close the forum this month.

An article on a poetry Turing Test: "Can a computer write a sonnet 
that's indistinguishable from what a human can produce?"

It reminds me of when Turing writes in "Computer Machinery and 
Intelligence," "Q: Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth 
Bridge. A : Count me out on this one. I never could write poetry."

I am currently completing my book chapter on the film Ex-machina, and 
thinking about the Turing Test, would this mean for augmentations of the 
test for AI, what might this mean for questions around gender that was 
salient in Turing's work?

best,

---

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/27/480639265/human-or-machine-can-you-tell-who-wrote-these-poems



On 2017-05-07 02:55, William Bain wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hello Empyreans. I’m greatly enjoying the discussion, all its
> various themes. What struck me today in regard to the William Carlos
> Williams quote & comments was Davin’s opposition of unplanned versus
> ple-planned texts (not only poems). I find that and Murat’s comments
> on constraints in postmodernist versus those in modernist texts very
> interesting. Perhaps this is where the robotic and machinic become
> more involved in the idea of a poem’s persona(e). Whatever metaphor
> is used gives a certain slant to a text obviously. This brought to
> mind Burroughs’ title (and concept) The Soft Machine, where the
> body, the human body, both collective and particular, are the main
> metaphor. Alan Sondheim has mentioned the concept of splatter or
> scatter a number of times in previous posts, and I ofund myself
> thinking to the body as tool and toolmaker, not only in humans but in
> other animals as well, including insects, obviousy. So here we are
> mayabe in ideas about the rhapsodic and how much weight a poem puts on
> improvisation. Thanks so much for all the ideas! Best wishes, William
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-- 
Margaret Rhee, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
University of Oregon