The short answer is no: this was not written by artificial intelligence. At last week’s Berrett-Koehler Authors Retreat (which, as in previous years, I will write about in more depth soon) I presented a version of the following ‘poem,’ with the same title as this blog post. It consists of random sentences from thirteen different books. Because of the title I chose, I wanted the segments to seem like they could have been composed by an artificial intelligence program, and that taken together they would make sense but perhaps not too much sense.
I also wanted to give the listener (reader in this case) a somewhat disoriented feeling, wondering what, if any, meaning is being created as it moves to its conclusion. Here are the segments, with their sources in endnotes:
“As the retreat was beginning, I happened to get a letter in the mail from a friend of mine in America who is a wildlife filmmaker for National Geographic.”[1]
“Overnight success is a myth. Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance.”[2]
“When Gutenberg invented the printing press, there were few in Europe who were able to read, and most of them did their reading in Latin.”[3]
“Overinvestment is not necessarily a bad thing-provided that it is eventually corrected.”[4]
“Once I assigned a class to eavesdrop on strangers and transcribe the results.” [5]
“Time—years, decades, and centuries—enables complexity.”[6]
“Many companies clearly articulate the core values that serve as a backdrop for everything they do.” [7]
“Every surgeon has been sparked by a mentor or role model who ignited his or her interest in surgical excellence.” [8]
“Art is a quality that permeates an experience: it is not, save by a figure of speech, the experience itself.” [9]
“It is common sense to gain a deep understanding of a situation before taking on a major risk.” [10]
“Words are symbols that assure a shared memory.” [11]
“What would life be like if we remembered everything we once knew? [12]
“Relevance alone is not enough to establish coherence. All the ideas in a paragraph can relate to the topic yet be poorly arranged.” [13]
It would be interesting to see how an artificial intelligence program would approach the same assignment: find thirteen sentences in thirteen separate books (of the program’s choosing) and compile them in a random, yet somewhat meaningful way. What would the program pick, and why?
[1] Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray Love, 2006, pg 195
[2] Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!, 2014, pg 47
[3] Fred Lerner, The Story of Libraries, 1998, pg 139
[4] Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat, 2007, pg 71
[5] Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer, 2006, pg 144
[6] Gary Hamel, What Matters Now, 2012, pg 115
[7] Lisa Bodell, Kill the Company, 2012, pg 117
[8] Christopher Ahmad, Skill: 40 Principles That Surgeons, Athletes, and Other Elite Performers Use to Achieve Mastery, 2015, pg 9
[9] John Dewey, Art as Experience, 1934, pg 326
[10] Karen Firestone, Even the Odds, 2016, pg 121
[11] Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Sand, 1971, pg 33
[12] Ellen Langer, The Power of Mindful Learning, 1997, pg 83
[13] Thomas S. Kane, The New Oxford Guide to Writing, 1988, pg. 72