Author: Jon Stone, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Anglia Ruskin University

Has the bell finally tolled for Shakespeare and Byron? New research conducted by philosophers of science Brian Porter and Edouard Machery suggests that the latest AI-generated poetry is “indistinguishable from human-written poetry” and “rated more favourably”. Ten poets, from the medieval Geoffrey Chaucer to modern writer Dorothea Lasky, were successfully impersonated by AI chatbots, with most of the 696 participants slightly preferring the imitation to the real thing. Porter and Machery conclude that “the capabilities of generative AI models have outpaced people’s expectations of AI”. But they don’t say AI has been proven an adequate replacement for human poets –…