
Riddles in the Sand*
Riddles in the sand, a mystery to beholdA secret waiting to be found, a story untoldWhispers of the wind, carry clues to the gameAs seekers of the answer, we follow without shameThe tide comes in, and the riddles disappearLost to the ocean, the solution isn’t clearBut those who remain, undeterred and braveWill wait for the tide to recede, and the riddles to behaveThe sand is a canvas, a puzzle to solveA challenge to the mind, a mystery to revolveFor those who love riddles, the beach is a delightA place of wonder, where secrets take flight
*Have you been curious about the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot phenomena? I have too. And my curiosity got the best of me this morning and decided to try a little experiment. I made this photo of the sand and little wavelets at a beach in the Bahamas last week. The image was made with my iPhone and processed with Lightroom Mobile and the Snapseed app. All mine. No AI here. But, the poem was entirely the creation of artificial intelligence. At the chat.openai.com website, I typed the prompt “Write a romantic 3-stanza poem about ‘Riddles in the Sand.'” The bot generated this poem for me in less than ten seconds.
Love it or hate it, artificial intelligence is now a fact of our lives. We no longer know with certainty if the images we are viewing or the words we are reading are original works by an actual artist or writer or artificially generated by a bot, whatever that is. Ethical questions abound. Artists, photographers, and other creatives will have to adjust.
Tim esink
3 May 2023To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Ron Mayhew
3 May 2023Thanks, Tim. Lovely and obviously not written by a bot.