ChatGPT better poet than humans ? This study challenges all our certainties

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It is often said that AIs have no creative capacity. This is ultimately true insofar as ChatGPT and its rivals do not create in the human sense of the term. They assemble words or pixels in the way that makes the most sense to them based on the vast database they have ingested.

A new study conducted by researchers from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and published in the journal Scientific Reports has something surprising, however. They wanted to know the point of view of humans on poems written by their peers and on those generated by AI.

Disturbing results

To see things more clearly, the scientists recruited 1,634 participants and submitted ten poems to them. Five of them were the work of eminent authors, including William Shakespeare. The other five were produced by ChatGPT, which was asked to imitate their style.

The findings are enough to disappoint all lovers of literature. Indeed, the respondents were not able to distinguish the poems written by AI from those written by these great men of culture. Moreover, they were even convinced that those created by the language model were written by human beings.

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To go further, the researchers recruited a second group of 696 participants to evaluate the poems according to 14 criteria (emotion, rhythm, originality, beauty, etc.). When the latter were not informed of the origin of these productions, they tended to prefer the content generated by AI rather than that created by William Shakespeare and other authors.

How to explain such results ?

Scientists say humans tend to prefer poems written by AI because of their simplicity and accessibility. Another important detail: they know that they are supposed to prefer human productions to those created by a machine, and, since the latter are easier to understand, they wrongly think that they are the work of a human being.

What to remember:

• In theory, AIs do not have a real creative capacity
• According to a study, humans have difficulty distinguishing between poems written by a human and those generated by ChatGPT
• They also tend to prefer the productions of the language model over those of true poets

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