6 ms·

Despite the headine, the article is actually pretty sceptical about the quality of current machine-generated poetry, aside from some fluff about the "inevitabil

Despite the headine, the article is actually pretty sceptical about the quality of current machine-generated poetry, aside from some fluff about the "inevitability" of AI being able to write human-quality poetry. There's nowhere in the article that I could see which claims that "many people can't tell the difference." (Headlines are often written by editors rather than the writers themselves, and this one seems to have generated a particularly big disconnection between the two - I think the write has been hard done by here). Besides which, often with these claims if you dig into them they start to fall apart. There's one about wine tasting that's often circulated - a study where people "couldn't tell the difference between red wine and white wine with added red food colouring". But IIRC the people in the study were first-year oenology (the study of wine) students, and I bet you (a) they'd be able to tell the difference between a Malbec and a Pouilly Fumé with red food colouring and (b) people who'd been tasting wine for longer (i.e. people who had more experience) would be able to tell the difference. I'm reminded of a radio comedy panel game where the punchline to a joke was "bite the wax tadpole", and there was quite a bit of laughter around the fact that it was probably the first time in human civilisation that those four words had been used in that order before. AI may eventually be able to write something reasonable, but there's something very specific about good poetry ("good" is of course subjective) that I think is likely to always set it apart.

alasdair_ 4y ago
> people who'd been tasting wine for longer (i.e. people who had more experience) would be able to tell the difference. I’m not so sure of this. Netflix had a fantastic documentary called “Som” that followed a group of people who were about to take the Master Sommelier exam (roughly fifty total in the whole world) and even these extremely experienced people would get even basic things like the varietal completely wrong quite frequently.
- frereubu 4y ago
  Thanks for the pointer - I'll have a look.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  What are you asserting specifically? That there is no such thing as expertise?
  - knighthack 4y ago
    There is such a thing as expertise. But in matters of taste, and specifically of wine-tasting, claims of 'expertise' have repeatedly been proven dubious. Run a search and you'll see why. There's a scam around that industry.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > But in matters of taste, and specifically of wine-tasting, claims of 'expertise' have repeatedly been proven dubious. I don't know about wine tasting but I've seen many claims that, in fields where objective data is limited, there is no knowledge, no quality, etc.; that reality is some extreme of relativism where everything is arbitrary preference. (What a depresssing, flat nihilism that results in!) For example, it's often applied to the arts and to things challenging, 'highbrow' - things that tend to make people feel intimidated or inferior. The argument amounts to, 'if I can't measure it, it doesn't exist', and I think that is dubious. It's dubious not only on its face, but because most of what humans do requires subjective judgment; very little depends mostly on objective information. Finally, in fields where I've gained expertise (or more sophisticated perception), I've come to see that I had been missing out previously. I've seen those claims many times - and people often believe what is repeated, regardless of evidence - but not proven.
  - alasdair_ 4y ago
    I am specifically claiming that I am not so sure an expert would be able to tell the difference in that experiment, given the video evidence that I’ve seen that shows that even the best in the world cannot always determine even basic aspects like the varietal in a blind tasting.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > cannot always That's an impossible standard for anything (though perhaps you didn't mean it literally). It's not 100% success or nothing.
- crossroadsguy 4y ago
  These things that involve some people being labelled distinguished, or of distinguished taste, is not actually those people being distinguished but just a branding that marks them as such and then them being accepted as such by people who are willing to just accept that blindingly and spend money around that experience and arrangement and then talk to each other about such mostly fake enterprise usually with multiple “you know.. you know” in a sentence. It’s just a market producing something that they convinced its target consumers that they need it, they’d enjoy it; and the consumers believe it. I believe I saw this specific charade from very close when I had the opportunity to taste fantastic 4-5-6 Euro wine bottles in Europe. “Oh, so woody”, “smoky”, “that’s peach, isn’t it?”, “No? Pineapple? Yes yes yes. I thought so. Of course, of course”, “Exquisite”, “I can almost taste the earth”, “You know it makes you hear the rain drops as it goes past your tongue”.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> bite the wax tadpole https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bite-the-wax-tadpole/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bite-the-wax-tadpole/

alasdair_ 4y ago

> people who'd been tasting wine for longer (i.e. people who had more experience) would be able to tell the difference. I’m not so sure of this. Netflix had a fantastic documentary called “Som” that followed a group of people who were about to take the Master Sommelier exam (roughly fifty total in the whole world) and even these extremely experienced people would get even basic things like the varietal completely wrong quite frequently.

frereubu 4y ago
Thanks for the pointer - I'll have a look.
wolverine876 4y ago
What are you asserting specifically? That there is no such thing as expertise?
- knighthack 4y ago
  There is such a thing as expertise. But in matters of taste, and specifically of wine-tasting, claims of 'expertise' have repeatedly been proven dubious. Run a search and you'll see why. There's a scam around that industry.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > But in matters of taste, and specifically of wine-tasting, claims of 'expertise' have repeatedly been proven dubious. I don't know about wine tasting but I've seen many claims that, in fields where objective data is limited, there is no knowledge, no quality, etc.; that reality is some extreme of relativism where everything is arbitrary preference. (What a depresssing, flat nihilism that results in!) For example, it's often applied to the arts and to things challenging, 'highbrow' - things that tend to make people feel intimidated or inferior. The argument amounts to, 'if I can't measure it, it doesn't exist', and I think that is dubious. It's dubious not only on its face, but because most of what humans do requires subjective judgment; very little depends mostly on objective information. Finally, in fields where I've gained expertise (or more sophisticated perception), I've come to see that I had been missing out previously. I've seen those claims many times - and people often believe what is repeated, regardless of evidence - but not proven.
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  I am specifically claiming that I am not so sure an expert would be able to tell the difference in that experiment, given the video evidence that I’ve seen that shows that even the best in the world cannot always determine even basic aspects like the varietal in a blind tasting.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    > cannot always That's an impossible standard for anything (though perhaps you didn't mean it literally). It's not 100% success or nothing.
crossroadsguy 4y ago
These things that involve some people being labelled distinguished, or of distinguished taste, is not actually those people being distinguished but just a branding that marks them as such and then them being accepted as such by people who are willing to just accept that blindingly and spend money around that experience and arrangement and then talk to each other about such mostly fake enterprise usually with multiple “you know.. you know” in a sentence. It’s just a market producing something that they convinced its target consumers that they need it, they’d enjoy it; and the consumers believe it. I believe I saw this specific charade from very close when I had the opportunity to taste fantastic 4-5-6 Euro wine bottles in Europe. “Oh, so woody”, “smoky”, “that’s peach, isn’t it?”, “No? Pineapple? Yes yes yes. I thought so. Of course, of course”, “Exquisite”, “I can almost taste the earth”, “You know it makes you hear the rain drops as it goes past your tongue”.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> bite the wax tadpole https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bite-the-wax-tadpole/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bite-the-wax-tadpole/