I have a question. Can a computer write poetry? This is a provocative question. You think about it for a minute, and you suddenly have a bunch of other questions like: What is a computer? What is poetry? What is creativity? But these are questions that people spend their entire lifetime trying to answer, not in a single TED Talk. So we're going to have to try a different approach.
Imam pitanje. Može li računalo pisati poeziju? To je provokativno pitanje. Razmislite minutu i odjednom imate hrpu drugih pitanja, kao: Što je računalo? Što je poezija? Što je kreativnost? Ali to su pitanja kojima ljudi posvete cijeli život u potrazi za odgovorom, a ne samo jedan TED Talk. Pa ćemo morati promijeniti pristup.
So up here, we have two poems. One of them is written by a human, and the other one's written by a computer. I'm going to ask you to tell me which one's which. Have a go:
Dakle, ovdje imamo dvije pjesme. Jednu je napisalo ljudsko biće, a drugu je napisalo računalo. Pitam vas koja je koja. Pokušajte:
Poem 1: Little Fly / Thy summer's play, / My thoughtless hand / Has brush'd away. Am I not / A fly like thee? / Or art not thou / A man like me?
Pjesma 1: Mušice/tvoju igru ljetnu,/ moja slijepa ruka/smetnu. Jesam li/muha kao ti?/ Ili smo oboje/ljudi mi?
Poem 2: We can feel / Activist through your life's / morning / Pauses to see, pope I hate the / Non all the night to start a / great otherwise (...)
Pjesma 2: Osjećamo/aktivist kroz tvog života/jutro/ Zastaje da vidi, papa mrzim to/Ne svu noć da počne jedno/veliko inače (...)
Alright, time's up. Hands up if you think Poem 1 was written by a human. OK, most of you. Hands up if you think Poem 2 was written by a human. Very brave of you, because the first one was written by the human poet William Blake. The second one was written by an algorithm that took all the language from my Facebook feed on one day and then regenerated it algorithmically, according to methods that I'll describe a little bit later on. So let's try another test. Again, you haven't got ages to read this, so just trust your gut.
U redu, vrijeme je isteklo. Dignite ruku ako mislite da je pjesmu 1 napisalo ljudsko biće. Ok, većina vas. Dignite ruku ako mislite da je pjesmu 2 napisalo ljudsko biće. Vrlo hrabar izbor, jer je prvu pjesmu napisao pjesnik William Blake. Drugu je napisao algoritam koji je uzeo sav jezik iz mojeg jednodnevog Facebook feeda i algoritmički ga ponovno generirao prema metodama koje ću malo kasnije opisati. Pokušajmo s još jednim testom. Ponovno, nemate mnogo vremena za čitanje pa samo vjerujte instinktu.
Poem 1: A lion roars and a dog barks. It is interesting / and fascinating that a bird will fly and not / roar or bark. Enthralling stories about animals are in my dreams and I will sing them all if I / am not exhausted or weary.
Pjesma 1: Lav riče i pas laje. Zanimljivo je/i fascinantno da ptica leti i ne/riče niti laje. Očaravajuće priče o životinjama su u mojim snovima i pjevat ću o svima ako ne/budem iscrpljen ili umoran.
Poem 2: Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You are really beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! All / the stuff they've always talked about (...)
Pjesma 2: Oh! klokani, šljokice, čokoladne sode! Prelijepa si! Biseri,/harmonike, žižule, aspirini! Sve/o čemu su uvijek pričali (...)
Alright, time's up. So if you think the first poem was written by a human, put your hand up. OK. And if you think the second poem was written by a human, put your hand up. We have, more or less, a 50/50 split here. It was much harder.
Ok, vrijeme je isteklo. Dakle, ako mislite da je prvu pjesmu napisalo ljudsko biće, dignite ruku. Ok. A ako mislite da je drugu pjesmu napisalo ljudsko biće, dignite ruku. Sada je omjer više-manje pola-pola. To je bilo mnogo teže.
The answer is, the first poem was generated by an algorithm called Racter, that was created back in the 1970s, and the second poem was written by a guy called Frank O'Hara, who happens to be one of my favorite human poets.
Odgovor je, prvu pjesmu generirao je algoritam zvan RACTER, koji je stvoren u 1970-ima, a drugu je napisao tip zvan Franck O'Hara, koji je jedan od meni najdražih ljudskih pjesnika.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So what we've just done now is a Turing test for poetry. The Turing test was first proposed by this guy, Alan Turing, in 1950, in order to answer the question, can computers think? Alan Turing believed that if a computer was able to have a to have a text-based conversation with a human, with such proficiency such that the human couldn't tell whether they are talking to a computer or a human, then the computer can be said to have intelligence.
Ono što smo ovdje izveli je Turingov test za poeziju. Turingov test je prvi put predložio ovaj tip, Alan Turing, u 1950-ima kao odgovor na pitanje mogu li računala razmišljati? Alan Turing je vjerovao da ako računalo može pismeno komunicirati s ljudskim bićem tako spretno da ljudsko biće ne bi moglo procijeniti priča li s računalom ili s drugim ljudskim bićem, tada bi se za računalo moglo reći da je inteligentno.
So in 2013, my friend Benjamin Laird and I, we created a Turing test for poetry online. It's called bot or not, and you can go and play it for yourselves. But basically, it's the game we just played. You're presented with a poem, you don't know whether it was written by a human or a computer and you have to guess. So thousands and thousands of people have taken this test online, so we have results.
Godine 2013. moj prijatelj Benjamin Laird i ja stvorili smo online Turingov test za poeziju. Zove se "Bot or not" i možete otići i sami ga isprobati. Ali svodi se na igru koju smo upravo igrali. Dana vam je pjesma, ne znate je li ju napisalo ljudsko biće ili računalo i morate pogoditi. Tisuće ljudi su isprobale ovaj test online, pa imamo rezultate.
And what are the results? Well, Turing said that if a computer could fool a human 30 percent of the time that it was a human, then it passes the Turing test for intelligence. We have poems on the bot or not database that have fooled 65 percent of human readers into thinking it was written by a human. So, I think we have an answer to our question. According to the logic of the Turing test, can a computer write poetry? Well, yes, absolutely it can. But if you're feeling a little bit uncomfortable with this answer, that's OK. If you're having a bunch of gut reactions to it, that's also OK because this isn't the end of the story.
A što kažu rezultati? Turing je rekao da, ako računalo može zavarati ljudsko biće da misli da priča s drugim ljudskim bićem 30 % vremena, računalo prolazi Turingov test inteligencije. Imamo pjesme u našoj bazi koje su zavarale 65 % ljudskih čitatelja, koji su mislili da su ih napisala ljudska bića. Dakle, mislim da imamo odgovor na naše pitanje. Prema logici Turingova testa, može li računalo pisati poeziju? Pa, da, apsolutno može. Ali ako osjećate blagu neugodu zbog ovog odgovora, to je u redu. Ako instinktivno reagirate na njega, i to je u redu, jer to nije kraj priče.
Let's play our third and final test. Again, you're going to have to read and tell me which you think is human.
Odigrajmo treći i posljednji test. Ponovno ćete morati pročitati i reći mi koje je ljudsko.
Poem 1: Red flags the reason for pretty flags. / And ribbons. Ribbons of flags / And wearing material / Reasons for wearing material. (...)
Pjesma 1: Crvene zastave razlog za ljupke zastave/I vrpce. Vrpce zastavi/i tkanine za nošenje/ Razlozi za nošenje tkanina. (...)
Poem 2: A wounded deer leaps highest, / I've heard the daffodil I've heard the flag to-day / I've heard the hunter tell; / 'Tis but the ecstasy of death, / And then the brake is almost done (...)
Pjesma 2: Ranjeni jelen skače najviše/ Čuh sunovrat Čuh zastavu da-nas/ Čuh lovca kako kaže;/ Da to tek je zanos smrti/ A onda uzde otkažu (...)
OK, time is up. So hands up if you think Poem 1 was written by a human. Hands up if you think Poem 2 was written by a human. Whoa, that's a lot more people. So you'd be surprised to find that Poem 1 was written by the very human poet Gertrude Stein. And Poem 2 was generated by an algorithm called RKCP. Now before we go on, let me describe very quickly and simply, how RKCP works. So RKCP is an algorithm designed by Ray Kurzweil, who's a director of engineering at Google and a firm believer in artificial intelligence. So, you give RKCP a source text, it analyzes the source text in order to find out how it uses language, and then it regenerates language that emulates that first text.
Ok, vrijeme je isteklo. Dignite ruke ako mislite da je pjesmu 1 napisalo ljudsko biće. Dignite ruke ako mislite da je pjesmu 2 napisalo ljudsko biće. Vau, to je puno više ljudi. Pa, iznenadit će vas da je pjesmu 1 napisala vrlo ljudska pjesnikinja Gertrude Stein. A pjesmu 2 je generirao algoritam zvan RKCP. Prije nego nastavim, dajte da ukratko opišem kako RKCP radi. Dakle, RKCP je algoritam koji je dizajnirao Ray Kurzweil, direktor inženjeringa u Googleu i veliki pobornik umjetne inteligencije. Dakle, date RKCP-u izvorni tekst, on analizira izvorni tekst kako bi shvatio kako tekst koristi jezik, i onda ponovno generira jezik koji oponaša izvorni tekst.
So in the poem we just saw before, Poem 2, the one that you all thought was human, it was fed a bunch of poems by a poet called Emily Dickinson it looked at the way she used language, learned the model, and then it regenerated a model according to that same structure. But the important thing to know about RKCP is that it doesn't know the meaning of the words it's using. The language is just raw material, it could be Chinese, it could be in Swedish, it could be the collected language from your Facebook feed for one day. It's just raw material. And nevertheless, it's able to create a poem that seems more human than Gertrude Stein's poem, and Gertrude Stein is a human.
Za pjesmu koju smo upravo vidjeli, pjesmu 2, onu za koju ste svi mislili da je ljudska, nahranili smo ga hrpom pjesama pjesnikinje Emily Dickinson, RKCP je vidio kako ona koristi jezik, naučio model i regenerirao model koristeći iste strukture. Ali ono što morate znati o RKCP-u je da ne zna značenja riječi koje koristi. Jezik je samo sirovi materijal, može biti kineski, švedski, može biti jezik vašeg jednodnevnog Facebook feeda. To je samo sirovi materijal. A unatoč tome, može stvoriti pjesmu koja se čini ljudskijom od pjesme Gertrude Stein, a Gertrude Stein je ljudsko biće.
So what we've done here is, more or less, a reverse Turing test. So Gertrude Stein, who's a human, is able to write a poem that fools a majority of human judges into thinking that it was written by a computer. Therefore, according to the logic of the reverse Turing test, Gertrude Stein is a computer.
Dakle, ono što smo ovdje napravili je više-manje obrnuti Turingov test. Gertrude Stein, ljudsko biće, sposobna je napisati pjesmu koja zavara većinu ljudi da misle da je pjesmu napisalo računalo. Stoga, prema logici obrnutog Turingova testa, Gertrude Stein je računalo.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Feeling confused? I think that's fair enough.
Jeste li zbunjeni? Mislim da je to u redu.
So far we've had humans that write like humans, we have computers that write like computers, we have computers that write like humans, but we also have, perhaps most confusingly, humans that write like computers.
Dosad smo imali ljude koji pišu kao ljudi, računala koja pišu kao računala, računala koja pišu kao ljudi, ali imamo i, što možda najviše zbunjuje, ljude koji pišu kao računala.
So what do we take from all of this? Do we take that William Blake is somehow more of a human than Gertrude Stein? Or that Gertrude Stein is more of a computer than William Blake?
Što možemo zaključiti? Trebamo li misliti da je William Blake nekako više ljudsko biće od Gertrude Stein? Ili da je Gertrude Stein više računalo od Williama Blakea?
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
These are questions I've been asking myself for around two years now, and I don't have any answers. But what I do have are a bunch of insights about our relationship with technology.
To su pitanja koja postavljam samom sebi već dvije godine, i još uvijek nemam nikakav odgovor. Ali imam nekoliko uvida o našoj vezi s tehnologijom.
So my first insight is that, for some reason, we associate poetry with being human. So that when we ask, "Can a computer write poetry?" we're also asking, "What does it mean to be human and how do we put boundaries around this category? How do we say who or what can be part of this category?" This is an essentially philosophical question, I believe, and it can't be answered with a yes or no test, like the Turing test. I also believe that Alan Turing understood this, and that when he devised his test back in 1950, he was doing it as a philosophical provocation.
Prvi uvid je da, iz nekog razloga, poeziju asociramo s ljudskošću. Pa kad pitamo može li računalo pisati poeziju, također pitamo i što znači biti ljudsko biće i gdje ljudskost prestaje? Kako da kažemo tko ili što treba pripadati kategoriji ljudskog? Vjerujem da je ovo jedno od temeljnih filozofskih pitanja na koje se ne može odgovoriti s da ili ne, kao na Turingov test. Vjerujem i da je Alan Turing to shvaćao i da je osmislio test 1950. kao filozofsku provokaciju.
So my second insight is that, when we take the Turing test for poetry, we're not really testing the capacity of the computers because poetry-generating algorithms, they're pretty simple and have existed, more or less, since the 1950s. What we are doing with the Turing test for poetry, rather, is collecting opinions about what constitutes humanness. So, what I've figured out, we've seen this when earlier today, we say that William Blake is more of a human than Gertrude Stein. Of course, this doesn't mean that William Blake was actually more human or that Gertrude Stein was more of a computer. It simply means that the category of the human is unstable. This has led me to understand that the human is not a cold, hard fact. Rather, it is something that's constructed with our opinions and something that changes over time.
Stoga je moj drugi uvid da, kad rješavamo Turingov test za poeziju, zapravo ne testiramo sposobnost računala, jer su algoritmi za generiranje poezije prilično jednostavni i postoje više-manje od 1950-ih. Ono što zapravo radimo s Turingovim testom za poeziju jest skupljanje mišljenja o tome što to znači biti ljudsko biće. Shvatio sam da, to smo vidjeli ranije, kažemo da je William Blake ljudskiji od Gertrude Stein. Naravno, to ne znači da je William Blake stvarno bio ljudskiji, ili da je Gertrude Stein bila više računalo. To naprosto znači da je kategorija ljudskog bića nestabilna. To me navelo da shvatim da ljudskost nije jasna, neporeciva činjenica. Radije, to je nešto što gradimo svojim mišljenjima, nešto što se tijekom vremena mijenja.
So my final insight is that the computer, more or less, works like a mirror that reflects any idea of a human that we show it. We show it Emily Dickinson, it gives Emily Dickinson back to us. We show it William Blake, that's what it reflects back to us. We show it Gertrude Stein, what we get back is Gertrude Stein. More than any other bit of technology, the computer is a mirror that reflects any idea of the human we teach it.
Moj posljednji uvid je da računala više-manje funkcioniraju kao ogledalo koje odražava ideju ljudskog bića koju im pokažemo. Ako im pokažemo Emily Dickinson, odraze Emily Dickinson. Ako im pokažemo Williama Blakea, to nam i odraze. Ako im pokažemo Gertrude Stein, dobijemo natrag Gertrude Stein. Više od bilo koje druge tehnologije, računalo je zrcalo koje odražava koju god ideju ljudskosti ga naučimo.
So I'm sure a lot of you have been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence recently. And much of the conversation is, can we build it? Can we build an intelligent computer? Can we build a creative computer? What we seem to be asking over and over is can we build a human-like computer?
Siguran sam da su mnogi od vas slušali mnogo o umjetnoj inteligenciji. Većina razgovora svodi se na pitanje možemo li je izgraditi? Možemo li izgraditi inteligentno računalo? Možemo li napraviti kreativno računalo? Čini se da zapravo neprestano pitamo možemo li izgraditi računalo nalik ljudima?
But what we've seen just now is that the human is not a scientific fact, that it's an ever-shifting, concatenating idea and one that changes over time. So that when we begin to grapple with the ideas of artificial intelligence in the future, we shouldn't only be asking ourselves, "Can we build it?" But we should also be asking ourselves, "What idea of the human do we want to have reflected back to us?" This is an essentially philosophical idea, and it's one that can't be answered with software alone, but I think requires a moment of species-wide, existential reflection.
Ali upravo smo vidjeli da ljudskost nije znanstvena činjenica, već vječno neuhvatljivi splet ideja koji se mijenja s vremenom. Kad se ubuduće uhvatimo u koštac s idejama o umjetnoj inteligenciji, ne trebamo se pitati samo možemo li mi to izgraditi. Trebamo se zapitati i koju ideju ljudskosti želimo da odražava? To je u biti filozofska ideja, na koju se ne može odgovoriti samo softverom, već koja zahtijeva da se ljudska vrsta zamisli sama nad sobom.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)