AI and Bukowski Research

[Pogue Mahone Athbheoim]

I didn't think an AI conversation was appropriate for the Buk section (at this point anyway), but some might find this interesting and/or amusing.

Partly to be prepared for my day job, I've been playing with ChatGPT outside of work, including The Buk Shop. For my latest blog, I asked a factual question: What was the last name of Wilbur in Barfy. It's not that it got wrong that's surprising, it's that AI concocted an imaginary scene that I don't think is part of any of Bukowski's writing.

 

[Rekrab]

I've read that AI will sometimes make up stuff when asked factual questions. As an experiment (I wouldn't use AI in my writing) I asked ChatGPT to find a couple of photos of Linda Lee Beighle's health food restaurant the Dew Drop Inn that I know are online. It said there are no photos available. I gave it some clues, but it still couldn't find them.

 

[Macavity]

I asked ChatGPT to write a poem by Charles Bukowski about John Martin.


the man who sent the cheques

he was out there
wearing a tie
I was in here
swatting flies off my whiskey glass
trying to scratch brilliance
from a dirty ashtray.

John Martin, that lunatic,
thought poems mattered—
thought *I* mattered.
can you believe it?

he kept the presses rolling
while I kept the bottle open
and the typewriter bleeding
some kind of truth,
even when it stank.

he called it art.
I called it survival.
he mailed the checks
and didn't ask questions
when I spent it on horses
or hookers
or hamburgers.

once in a while
he’d come by, nodding politely
at the chaos
as if he admired the termites in the drywall.

he kept faith
in a man most people
crossed the street to avoid.

I hated the idea of gratitude
but there it was
every time
his envelope hit my door
like a small salvation.

hell, maybe he was the real poet
he saw beauty
where I saw rot
and paid me
to keep digging.


Chat GPT then asked: "would you like it reimagined as a monologue, or in a voice more suited to performance? Or even a Bukowski-style letter to Martin? I’ve got plenty more whiskey-drenched typewriter ink to spare". I didn't bother.

ChatGPT doesn't seem to be aware of the issues around the editing of the posthumous collections. Or maybe it is. The last stanza is quite interesting.

 

[Macavity]

Apologies, it was Copilot I asked, not ChatGPT.

 

[Pogue Mahone Athbheoim]

Well at least it wasn't a Rhymer, I guess...

 

[hoochmonkey9]

I'm pretty sure Mickey Rourke wrote that.

 

[Rekrab]

I've noticed the AI photos of Bukowski posted on Facebook groups often make his head and hands way too large. Also, he kind of resembles Santa Claus, and has a sad expression you never see in real photos. Sadness wasn't something he revealed in a visual way.

 

[zobraks]

And he wears a turtleneck sweater, like he always did:

AI got the crowd right, I'll give it that.

 

[GeorgeCarlinFan]

AI will tell you whatever you want to hear. Even when I would ask sources for Bukowski, I would get false. But if you call it out and say "I have that and no where does it say __________" they will admit or apologize. I once got, "This is what we THINK Bukowski would say". Not to mention dead links.. AI is also so pliable.

 

[Pogue Mahone Athbheoim]

You're correct. This is the next exchange from the original screen. I was just amazed how cocky it was with the original answer. They say AI is childlike in nature and that seems to ring true.