An Honorable Everyman: a Collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3 Neural Network
The poems in this project were written in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-3 API sandbox, which was introduced in May 2020 and was in beta testing as of July 2020, a period during which I accessed a trial of the application. I provided prompts to the system, which proceeded to draft these poems as blocks of prose. I then incorporated line breaks and adjusted the text to regulate verb tenses and condense for readability where necessary.
An Honorable Everyman
Men who don’t express their feelings learn to speak in bar fights.
I learned to sing in a womb.
No one learns how to be a man in an institutional setting.
The invisible everyman.
His name is almost said as it should be said.
Only a million mistresses and con-artists have gone into making him.
He’s a brother.
He is that guy. But he’s not that guy.
He doesn’t exactly know what the hell he is doing.
He’s never really studied urban planning.
He’s never had any interest in it.
He’s barely ever stepped foot inside an empty school.