Sometimes I think we just know stuff via common sense. Now I agree that common sense does not always run rampant, but it does exist. What I’m saying is, we don’t need to prove some things. It just is.

That said, scientists at Dartmouth College have concluded that computers are not very good poets. With that assessment, I think we can extrapolate that computers also would do poorly at writing country music and dissertations of Biblical proportions.

Now I’m not pooh-poohing computers. I use them everyday in myriad venue. They have their place.

 And I’m not saying they can’t produce some form of art (by someone’s definition of art). I would think a computer might very well do a painting that would have some wine sippers “oohing” and “ahhing” and talking about the hidden meaning in lines and shadows.

The scientists also said the computers did poorly at writing short stories. They must have said the “cab driver  did it” as opposed to “the butler did it.”

In all of this testing, those who did the judging said the computer software didn’t have flow or narrative qualities. Go figure.

Some had “idiosyncrasies of syntax and diction, and the use of language was just a little off.”

By the way, for those who don’t know, syntax is not a tariff on booze or pornography, anymore than gene therapy is  massaging your Levis. 

I would have bet against the computers in this exercise from the very getgo.

Writing poetry, and by extension music, requires heart and soul. Those are qualities of performance that I don’t think fit into the bailiwick of computers. Computers tend to be clinical, even if they have programs with creative bents. 

Let’s take a great country song for instance, such as George Jones’  “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”  I can’t see a computer grasping the essence of the moment. A computer likely would make a literal interpretation such as, “He Is Deceased and Therefore Deleted From Human Emotions.” You can’t cry in your beer with that kind of edification of the human spirit. 

And the melody would be very disjointed, I would think.

Now I think it’s possible for a computer to play a piano or some other instrument. In fact, many keyboards today are equipped with such accompaniment capabilities. All you have to do is play a melody, and it does the rest. But in my book, you might as well just turn on your stereo and save that callous on your index finger.

But songs, which often are just poems put to music, require feelings expressed in lyrics that may or may not rhyme. And often, short stories and novels are based upon reflections of things seen, heard and experienced. Narratives and lyrics in those mixtures require the human element. I guess it would be like comparing canned biscuits to mama’s homemade cathead biscuits. Like I said, heart and soul. You can feel it and taste it.

 Of course this whole exercise had to do with the projection of artificial intelligence. How far can it go?

Well, keep in mind that humans have to build and program computers. Computers don’t happen when cells divide and take shape and form and then suck in the wisdom and knowledge they observe. 

And while they can calculate, I don’t think they can imagine. 

 Let me put it another way, a robot may pick a banjo, but I don’t think it can buck dance. 

(Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)