(Oh, and Make me World-Famous While You’re at It)
In her May 17, 2026, New York Times opinion piece “What A.I. Kant Do,” Maureen Dowd spotlighted some excellent advice. People unable to keep up with A.I., a professor of social ethics told her, “should read some poetry or literature or philosophy and remind themselves of ‘enduring sources of meaning in the world.’”
As one who writes poetry that few people on Planet Earth thus far have bothered to read, I recently decided to take the advice Dowd relayed and turn it upside down. I fed a few of my still-unpublished poems into the massive maws of the A.I. beast and asked it to read them and offer some feeback.
To my suspicion (and surprise), ChatGPT reacted eagerly to each verse I upload to its electron-choked cloud. Almost instantly, ChatGPT delivered not ominous growls but feel-good feedback, such as: “’Telemann on Eighth Avenue’ feels intellectually playful while still carrying loneliness, frustration, and desire beneath the surface.” It proposed possible markets: The New Yorker; Rattle; Poetry Magazine; and more. It even offered to sharpen certain word choices and rhythm breaks in each poem–or just rewrite the whole dang shebang.
Fortunately, its suggested revisions and rewrites, up to this point, have exhibited zero (or less) soul.
A.I. will not replace poets. Not yet.
Still, the experience has made me try harder at finding new and clearer ways to say what I have been attempting to say. Yet, in the process, I have now burned some important literary bridges before attempting to cross them.
Many publishing outets today have strict guidelines associated with A.I. They don’t want to read and publish anything that has had any kind of contact with any type of artifical intelligence.
Or what? They’ll send the poetry police to arrest me?
Perhaps I will just self-publish another chapbook, this time with A.I.’s help and give it credit in the acknowledgements. As in in the 1973 sci-fi movie Westworld, what could possibly “go worng…go worng…go worng…”
— Si Dunn
Si Dunn is a writer, poet, photojournalist, and book reviewer in Massachusetts. His three poetry chapbooks are: Waiting for Water, Anchoring, and Words Taken from the Sky, available on Amazon.com.
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