Riddles in the Sand

Riddles in the Sand*

Riddles in the sand, a mystery to behold

A secret waiting to be found, a story untold

Whispers of the wind, carry clues to the game

As seekers of the answer, we follow without shame

 

The tide comes in, and the riddles disappear

Lost to the ocean, the solution isn’t clear

But those who remain, undeterred and brave

Will wait for the tide to recede, and the riddles to behave

 

The sand is a canvas, a puzzle to solve

A challenge to the mind, a mystery to revolve

For those who love riddles, the beach is a delight

A 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.