Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is the hot topic nowadays (at least in the tech world), and large language models (LLMs or "chat bots") such as ChatGPT are the most accessible of the A.I. tools by the general public. Whether you feel that A.I. is a boon to mankind or threatens to destroy it, it can't be denied that the large language models offer the greatest potential boost to the productivity and creativity of those whose work involves research, writing and reporting plus the use of a computer.
Yes, you heard me right. I said "creativity". While granting that the LLMs are great at finding, summarizing and reporting data, many will argue that they can't spontaneously create works of fiction, novels, poems, songs and other such creative output.
I wouldn't be so sure. Although I didn't come right out and say so at the time, I did offer a hint (in the list of subject tags) that a recent post on this blog, entitled Give Us Back Our Rainbow was, in fact, written almost entirely by ChatGPT, with just a tiny bit of editing done by myself. It was written in response to the following request that I made to ChatGPT: "Write a tongue-in-cheek editorial chiding the LGBTQ community for co-opting the leprechauns' rainbow." That was it. The idea was mine. The rest was ChatGPT.
What amazed me most was that the post was actually funny. It actually made me laugh! Computers aren't supposed to understand the concept of humour. Even Star Trek's Lt. Commander Data could never get the hang of it. Yet ChatGPT made me laugh.
So, anyway, the other day I decided to toss another creative challenge at ChatGPT. My request was as follows: "Translate Hamlet's famous soliloquy to 'A Clockwork Orange' style slang".
A quick word of explanation for those who may not be familiar with the novel, A Clockwork Orange. It takes place in a dystopian future society and focuses on a gang of young hoodlums lead by a fifteen-year-old boy name Alex. We needn't concern ourselves about the details of the story for the purpose of this blog. You need only understand that, in the book, which is narrated in first person by Alex himself, he and his "droogs" or gang buddies, use a strange new type of slang, invented by the book's author, Anthony Burgess, called "Nadsat". I had forgotten what the slang was called, if I ever knew that at all, hence my omission of its name in my instructions to ChatGPT.
To fulfill the request, then, ChatGPT had to:
- Understand what I meant by "Hamlet".
- Figure out which part of "Hamlet" that I wanted translated (without my having referenced any specific quotes from the play).
- Understand the reference to A Clockwork Orange.
- Understand the slang used in the book, including its dictionary (i.e. the list of slang terms and what they mean) and its grammatical rules.
Rather than just spitting out the translation, ChatGPT began with the following preamble, both getting itself into character and confirming how it understood my instructions:
O my droogie, I viddy you want me to do the ol’ Ludwig van Bard in the govoreet of young Alex and his malchicks. Here’s Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” remixed in full Nadsat horrorshow style:
One comment about the above; you may wonder about the reference to "Ludwig van Bard". In the book, young Alex is a big fan of the music of Beethoven (whom he likes to call 'Ludwig van'). Crossing Ludwig van Beethoven with William "The Immortal Bard" Shakespeare in this manner may be exercising a bit of creative license, but you have to admit it is creative. Also, note that ChatGPT took the opportunity to point out that the slang to which I referred has a name (Nadsat). Anyway, having thus stated its intentions, ChatGPT proceeded to render the following translation of Hamlet's soliloquy:
To be or not to be, my brothers, that’s the real gloopy veshch:
Whether ’tis more horrorshow in the gulliver to slooshy the slings and arrows of bolshy fate,
Or to viddy arms against a sea of troubles and, by razrez, end them.
To snuff it, to slooshy no more—
And by snuff to say we stop the heart-ache,
And the thousand shocks of the flesh—such is the devotchka’s natural lot—
’Tis a pretty polly outcome, O my brothers.
To snuff, to slooshy no more—perchance to dream,
Ay, there’s the shilarny, for in that snuffing sleep,
What malenky dreams may come,
When we’ve put off this mortal platties,
Must give us a shiver.
That’s the razrez that makes calamity of such long life.
For who would bear the lashings and shame of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud veck’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delays,
The insolence of office, and the kicks and boots
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare nozhy?
Who would burdens carry, grunt and sweat under weary life,
But that the dread of something after snuff—
The undiscovered mesto, from whose bournes no chelloveck returns—
Puzzles the will, and makes us rather carry those miseries we know,
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn all razrez
And lose the name of action.
Wow! That was good beyond all my expectations! But ChatGPT wasn't done yet. It proceeded to ask me a follow-up question:
Want me to tighten it further so it sounds exactly like something Alex would spit out in the Korova Milkbar (more fractured, slang-heavy, and sneery), or keep it at this halfway point—still recognizable as Shakespeare, just laced in Nadsat?
So here was ChatGPT adding a caveat that its first translation was intended to preserve the style of Hamlet's soliloquy at the expense of being a bit less true to what young Alex might actually have said. I told it "Sure, go ahead" and it offered the following alternate translation (complete with another in-character preamble):
Right then, my droogie, here’s the soliloquy done up proper like Alex in full flow, sloshed on moloko plus, govoreeting all razrez with the old Nadsat:
**“To be or not to be, right right? That’s the gloopy veshch.
Whether it’s more horrorshow in the gulliver to slooshy the slings and arrows of bolshy rotten fate,
Or to grab the britva and razrez through a whole sea of troubles,
And by cutting, end ’em. Snuff it, sleep it, no more.
And by sleep say we zap the ache in the tick-tocker and all the thousand shocks a poor chelloveck’s flesh is heir to—
That’s a real cally outcome, O my brothers.
To snuff, to sleep, maybe to dream,
Ay, there’s the shilarny, right there, ’cause in that snuffing sleep,
What malenky sneety may come, when we’ve stripped off this mortal platties,
That makes a vecker pause. That’s the razrez, that’s the stinking rub.
For who’d viddy the lashes and jeers of time,
The chelloveck in power giving it the big yah, the pangs of starry love despised,
The starry law dragging its nogas,
The big vecks in office being all skorry with their boots,
When a vecker could make his quietus with just a nozhy slice?
Who’d carry the bouldy burdens, grunt and sweat in a gloopy long life,
But for the dreddy what-comes-after—
That undiscovered mesto, where no malchick nor devotchka ever comes back from—
That makes us all cowardy millicents.
We’d rather hold on to the miseries we viddy,
Than take a chance on horrorshow new ones we don’t know.
So the nagoy conscience makes chicken-hearts of us all,
And the fire and blood of will gets sicklied o’er
With the pale, pale cast of thinking,
And all our razrez plans, all full of oomny,
Get turned aside and lose the name of action. Right right.”**
What can I say except that I'm suitably impressed.
Posts
