10 ways to survive Invisible Poets

This week we reached 50,000 members. It would have been a lot more, but not everyone who has been in the group has stayed. Quite a few people have come to a sad end on Invisible Poets. Many of those who have been removed (or in Moderator parlance - 'walked the plank') for being rude and abusive, or for peddling porn, or for deceiving members with scams. These are the undesirable people we don't want in our group. They make the group unsafe, uncomfortable and cause a lot of grief. You can thank your vigilant moderator and Admin team for the lovely, creative and supportive place that Invisible Poets has become. 

There are also a lot of members who don't seem to be able to cope with the way Invisible Poets is run. Some leave the group because they think they are being ignored by other members, or they are being victimised or marginalised by moderators. This is a shame, because they are sadly mistaken, and tend to leave the good ship IP needlessly. 

Here are 10 key tips for you, on how to survive and thrive in the group:

1) Don't stand idly by and hope that people will come to your poem and laud it with showers of comments, love hearts and thumbs ups. It won't happen if you simply share your poem and sit back. Your poem won't show up on the timelines of members because Facebook has an algorithm that only makes you visible to others when you interact with them. So here's the first tip: Read other people's poetry and comment on it, or tap the Like button. That way you'll be more visible. 

2) Don't get angry and blame Admin or Moderators if your post or comment is refused. Post rejections usually happen automatically. The system is set up to reject certain key phrases that usually occur in spam and scam robot posts. Another reason your work may be automatically rejected is if you have no user picture.  Choose an image (either your own photograph, or some other image) that represents your account. That way your posts and comments will not be automatically rejected.

3) Watch the live shows whenever you can. Not only are they entertaining, they contain a lot of information and you also get treated to the very best poetry from the group, several times each week - and all for free!

4) Give more than you take. This is not just altruistic (see point 1 above) but it does mean that if you start to read other people's work you will learn more about your own art of writing poetry and will probably pick up a lot of new ideas about how to develop your writing skills. 

5) Regularly check the Features section at the top of the group page. Contained there are all the recordings of previous live shows where members' poetry is read out, poetry writing challenges, group news and other gems that might just give you some ideas for new poems.

6) Please don't post your own poems in the comments section of someone else's post.  Some people do this when they see a popular post because they think it will gain them a bigger audience. This is not welcomed in the group, because not only it is self seeking, it's very rude. 

7) If you wish to promote your own books or publications, please make sure you share poems from the books, otherwise you'll be disappointed when a moderator removes your post for breaking the group rules. 

8) Read the blog (yes, this one). There are many excellent posts on here about all things poetry, including explanations of terms, new ideas for poetry writing and a series on experimental poetry. It's there for you to learn from, so please use it whenever you wish.

9) Don't share poetry that you haven't written yourself. We do not permit people to plagiarise the work of others. It is illegal (it breaks copyright laws) and it is dishonest (theft). We also prohibit the use of Artificial Intelligence tools to create poetry. Anyone who does this is not welcome in the group.

10) Finally, please treat everyone in the group with the respect you feel you deserve yourself. Being kind to others doesn't cost anything. A supportive comment, a few kind words or a good piece of encouraging feedback goes a long way. You never know, you might meet people on this group that you'll be friends with for life.

Steve Wheeler

Founder of Invisible Poets

 

Why AI Can't be Creative

From time to time, we invite members to write guest blog posts on topical issues that impact upon poetry. Here is a fascinating article on AI and poetry/creative writing by our very own Iain Strachan, formerly a computer scientist and always a poet!

One of the keys to original creative work is that it should be.... well, original. It should contain phrases that haven't been seen before - that take us by surprise and delight us. However, a program like ChatGPT will struggle to produce anything like this, because it can only really produce output that is resembles the text and poems that have been used to train it. 

I asked ChatGPT to provide ten possible completions to this line, taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "God's Grandeur" 

    It will flame out like ... 

Here is what it came up with: 

a comet streaking through the night. 

a candle in the wind. 

a phoenix rising from the ashes. 

the last rays of a dying sun. 

fireworks bursting in the sky. 

a shooting star's brief flight. 

the embers of a forgotten fire. 

lightning splitting the heavens. 

a spark in the dark, then vanish. 

the final flare of a burning match. 

These phrases are all well-known, and not exactly unexpected; they are bland and literal. Compare that with the completion in Hopkins's poem. If you don't already know the poem this will be completely unexpected: It will flame out like shining from shook foil. 

Why is it that chatGPT can't produce stunningly original completions like that? The reason lies in statistics. In generating continuations, it uses probability, and a random number generator that is tuned (like loaded dice) to be heavily biased towards more likely (and hence less surprising) continuations. Also, if it chose an unlikely continuation, it probably won't make sense at all. There are vastly more nonsensical unexpected continuations than ones that make sense. 

What can we learn from this and apply to our own poems? A lot of our writing can be automatic, sometimes creative, but sometimes commonplace. So next time you write a poem, go through the first draft and examine each word or phrase and see if you can make a better one, instead of the expected word, make it unexpected. Make it a metaphor, rather than literal. 

Here's an example from one of my poems, describing the grid system of roads in Washington DC:

Geometric city. Anonymous streets 

Labelled with letters and numbers 

????? the shops into blocks. 

Here are chatGPT's 10 boring suggestions: 

Neatly dividing 

Methodically carving 

Carefully segmenting 

Precisely arranging 

Artfully separating 

Rigorously partitioning 

Strategically placing 

Systematically organizing 

Elegantly splitting 

Thoughtfully grouping 

Here's mine: Cheese-wire. 

I'll bet you didn't see that coming! It was based not on poems I'd seen before but lived experience; how as a kid I was fascinated to see cheese cut up with a cheese-wire.

Iain Strachan

Image from Wikimedia Commons

AI: Threat or opportunity?

AI is nothing new. I first started experimenting with machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) way back in the early 1980s. The phrase 'Artificial Intelligence' had been coined way back in 1955 by John McCarthy, but many years before this, others had been speculating on, and experimenting with the idea that machines could 'think' or at least mimic human patterns of thought. The entire history of AI can be read at this link. 

In 1966 computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum developed a program that mimicked a psychotherapist. He called it Eliza, and it was probably the first artificial dialogue program (or chatbot) ever created. 

I sit at the nexus between psychology and computer science. As a former associate professor in education I have a professional and personal interest. In 1982 I developed a chatbot based on Eliza's source code which I named Dr Fraud. Essentially, the program analysed whatever you inputted and then spat back an insult or some form of abuse at you. This rapidly became a very popular program with my student nurses (especially the psychiatric nurses), and they queued up to use it. Often you would hear gales of laughter as the student nurses read the rude, but inventive lines the 'psychiatric insultant' chatbot known as Dr Fraud would hurl at them. It was all good fun, and it introduced my students to the idea that not only could they learn from using computers, but that it could be fun, because of the dialogic and interactive elements.

Today of course, AI has developed rapidly from the early forays to the point that it is now a constant news and media item, and everyone seems to be talking about it. Generative AI (G-AI) is built into so many applications we use, from banking and shopping to home use of devices such as Siri, Alexa and smartphones. The popularity of free AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E and Synthesia is transforming the way we create, analyse and disseminate knowledge and content. 

Where poetry is concerned, we can perceive AI as either a threat or an opportunity. Most online poetry groups have banned the sharing of AI generated poetry because in essence it is plagiarism. The AI tool will spider the web for existing poetry texts, steal from them and construct a 'poem' for the user. It takes away from the creativity of poetry and makes a mockery of the process of writing a poem. Why claim to be a poet when all you are doing is pressing a computer key? There are similar arguments from the art, entertainment, literary and music industries who sense the same threat.

What is the alternative perspective? It is this - that in all of the above fields, AI can be used as a starting point, an inspiration or a series of steps toward creating something new and unique. The view is that creativity can be supported and even enhanced through the use of G-AI tools, if used sensibly, ethically and appropriately. 

So for example, could AI be used to prompt an idea for a poetry topic, or to offer a template for a villanelle or a pantoum? Could it be used to suggest s good end rhyme, or as a check for grammatical or syntactic accuracy. How about using it to translate your poem into another language... or as a co-author of your work. Which of these is ok and which is going to far?

The jury is still out. What are your views on the use of G-AI in poetry?

Steve Wheeler

Image from Wikimedia Commons

How to write mindless poetry

Do you want to write mindless poetry? Easy. Get a machine to do it. You won't need to think about it at all. You simply press the key and the computer will write your poem for you. Sadly, this is becoming a popular trend on Facebook poetry groups. 

Several people have asked me why we ban the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated poetry on Invisible Poets group. It's quite simple.

Firstly, it's very lazy. Anyone can click on ChatGPT for example, and ask it to generate a poem on any subject (many other free AI tools are available). This requires absolutely no talent or creativity.  Let's say you want a five stanza poem on love. In seconds you have something like this:

In the dance of hearts, a melody sweet,
Love's symphony, in whispers discreet.
Through moonlit nights and sunlit days,
A timeless bond that forever sways.

Eyes that speak in a silent prose,
A language only true lovers know.
In every touch, a tender embrace,
Love's magic transcends time and space.

Through stormy seas or skies serene,
Love's fortress strong, an eternal sheen.
A tapestry woven with threads so fine,
Two souls entwined, an intertwining line.

In laughter shared and tears that fall,
Love weathers storms, standing tall.
A journey marked by moments divine,
A love story, forever to shine.

So let the echoes of love resound,
In every heartbeat, in love, be found.
A poem written in the language of the heart,
A masterpiece, where love is art. 

Well, at first glance, it seems like a reasonable poem. But read it more thoughtfully and you'll see it's not very good poetry. It is literally mindless. It uses cliches in a predictable 8 syllable, 4 step AABB rhyme scheme. It's bland, soulless, and takes no creativity or effort on your part.  In ChatGPT-3, the same words seem to appear repeatedly, such as serene, tapestry, entwined, embrace, eternal, etc. These are all tell-tale signs the poem was not written by a human. 

Now why would you want to put your name to such drivel? 

Furthermore, you wouldn't do it if you knew how AI actually works. It spiders (searches) all the poetry on the web (other poets' work), gathers expressions, lines and rhymes and stitches it all together so you can pretend you wrote it. It's plagiarism. It's dishonest. It's theft.

Now why would you want to associate yourself with that? And yet... and yet... a small minority in the group still persist, thinking they can fool everyone. They end up being banned from the group, and their name forwarded to the Admin of many other groups. Game over. 

If we suspect a poem has been AI generated we remove it from the group. If the member persists and posts more, we eventually remove them from the group. We throw people out of the group every week for trying to pass of AI poetry as their own. We don't lose sleep over it. We want to protect the integrity of the group and the interests of our members. There is software that can detect whether AI has been used, and we also have computer scientists on our Admin/Moderator team who are experienced in the use of AI.

So please don't even think about generating poems using AI. Write your own poetry. Poetry you can be proud of. Express yourself in your own words. Steer away from the kind of bland, soulless AI lines you see in the verses above. We don't want mindless poetry. We want soulful, authentic, from the heart poetry!

Come back at me if you disagree with any of this. I like a good fight.

Steve Wheeler 

Image from Pxhere