Honestly, I would not say that any AIs do have any sort of creativity. I think creativity does not just about Meaningfulness and novelty, but also the willingness to express. I think one example from the activity on Tuesday shows this. I used this prompt: “Good morning Chat, Please write a poem in the style of Allen Poe, including his writing skills such as figure of speech, metaphor, symbolism, and narration. Take the Raven by Allen Poe as an example.”
And Chatgpt gave me this:
The Lantern and the Tide
Upon a midnight waning, when the stars were dimly straying,
And the wind spoke low and hollow through the ribs of rotting pine,
I sat in silence keeping, though I knew no gentle sleeping
Would descend upon a spirit so entangled yet as mine—
For a thought, long dead yet breathing, pressed its weight upon my spine,
Whispering, “You are mine.”
From the hearth no flame was turning, only ash in quiet yearning
Gave a dull and ashen glimmer, like an eye that would not close;
And the walls, with shadows bending, seemed to breathe a slow pretending,
As if memory itself had learned the art of silent throes—
As if time, with careful fingers, stitched its grief in hidden rows,
Where no daylight ever goes.
Then—there came a sound uncertain, like a hand upon a curtain,
Softly drawn yet filled with meaning none could ever dare define;
Not a knock of mortal making, nor a timber’s weary breaking,
But a pulse—alive, insistent—beating somewhere out of line.
“Who now walks,” I whispered faintly, “through the ruins of my mind?”
Came the answer: “Only thine.”
To the door I turned, unsteady; all the air grew thick and heavy,
And the lantern by my table flickered thrice, then guttered low;
When I opened—there was nothing but the dark, complete and muffling,
Save a tide of distant murmurs from a sea I did not know.
Yet within that void unbroken, something stirred, and seemed to grow—
Not of flesh, nor shade, nor woe.
Back I stepped, my breath retreating, heart and hollow rhythm meeting,
Till the chamber shrank to nothing but a stage for dread alone;
And upon the rafters leaning, where the blackest dark lay screening,
Sat a shape no light could capture, carved in silence, cold as stone.
Eyes like wells without a bottom fixed themselves upon my own—
And it spoke in monotone:
“Do you seek what once was taken? Do you walk though you are shaken?
Do you bind yourself to echoes that no dawn shall ever free?”
Thus it uttered, never lifting, never faltering nor drifting,
Like a verdict etched in iron, cast beyond eternity.
And I, though weak with knowing, asked the thing that haunted me:
“Shall there yet be mercy?”
Then the lantern died completely, and the dark grew far too neatly
Round the corners of my reason, folding thought in endless night;
Still the voice, unspent, unbroken, left no comfort in its token—
Only this, in endless echo, stripped of hope and stripped of light:
Not a cry, nor curse, nor pleading—only cold, unyielding rite:
“Evermore—despite.”
And the tide, though never nearing, I could hear it—ever searing,
Washing names from every surface, wearing time itself away;
While the figure, ever keeping watch above my spirit’s weeping,
Cast no shadow, claimed no substance, yet refused to fade or stray.
Thus I sit, with thought unending, where the night outlives the day—
And the tide will have its way.
You can see that the poem itself is great, but when we dig into the actual meaning of it: barely anything. AIs do not have any actual ideas and things to produce but to make something that seems to be right. The article from Freethink say that “AI doesn’t feel tension. It doesn’t labor through ambiguity. It doesn’t explore.” which I think is absolutely correct. AI does not create, but to gather old information together and form a “seems like a new” one.
This activity kind of motivates me to think more and write more with my own hands (and keyboard), but AI is still a great tool to develop ideas when stuck.
Bhatia, Ashish. “The Artifact Isn’t the Art: Rethinking Creativity in the Age of AI.” Freethink, April 4, 2025. https://www.freethink.com/opinion/studio-ghibli-chatgpt-creativity.
