[jcims]

AI as we see it today is just a mirror reflecting us in a collective way. This little excerpt from Gwern’s efforts training GPT2 on classical poetry [0] absolutely spoke to me:

“How the clouds Seem to me birds, birds in God's garden! I dare not! The clouds are as a breath, the leaves are flakes of fire, That clash i' the wind and lift themselves from higher!”

As someone who grew up in Appalachia, I have never in my life encountered a more visual, visceral description of autumn leaves than ‘flakes of fire’. It’s perfection, and maybe a single human is behind it, but more likely we all wrote it.

[0] https://www.gwern.net/GPT-2