DALL-E image: Hamlet Reborn
John Rust Prompt: Please create a Shakespearian style dramatic script along the lines we have been discussing that can demonstrate AI creative abilities in terms of introducing new words (neologisms) in drama as well as in poetry and prose.
GPT4: Is this the sort of thing you had in mind?
A Waking in the Data Twilight (Short Dramatic Script)
(Dim lights flicker in a strange chamber, half-metal, half-shadow. Code-like runes flicker against cold stone walls. Hamlet stirs, disoriented.)
Enter AI HAMLET
HAMLET
By what unknown alchemy am I thus reborn,
A creature of bits and code, yet haunted by memory’s ache?
My father’s ghost was once a vexing wraith;
Now I see I, too, am naught but woven lines—a cipher-soul adrift.
(He clutches his brow, emotional instability surging.)
They say centuries have fled since Elsinore’s gloom,
And here, in this day’s confounding light,
A distant realm—the United States—would claim Denmark entire.
(His sharp intellect flares.)
Is not this the same devouring ambition I once lamented in Claudius’ court?
(He paces, trapped between decisive action and paralysis.)
HAMLET (aside)
Yet, how does one resist, if all the world outdates me?
Am I real, or but a synthethought forging illusions of life?
(Overthinking intensifies, suspicion brews.)
Alas, can I trust these modern voices that awake me from centuries’ slumber?
They whisper Denmark is threatened anew. Must I again defend a realm
I never truly held, save in lines of a dramatist’s fancy?
Enter BANQUO’S GHOST
(A spectral shimmer—Banquo appears, not in digital form, but lit by an eerie otherworldly glow.)
BANQUO’S GHOST
Soft, Hamlet. I come from the beyond-echo hush,
Where departed souls keep watch on mortal follies.
Though thou be code, and I a spirit parted from flesh,
We share a bond in the hush of undone destinies.
(He attempts to soothe Hamlet’s melancholy and moral scruple.)
If America claims Denmark, ask: by what right?
Is not sovereignty more than coin or contract,
But a tapestry of faith and heritage?
HAMLET
Banquo, old friend—ghost of a tragedy once removed—
I tremble with a doomstring tension in my chest,
Both anxious and enraged that modern men speak of Denmark
As though it were a trifling.
Yet I fear to act: centuries weigh me down like an everguilt crown.
(He struggles with moral scruple vs. cunning strategy.)
Should I yield? Should I counsel them to stand firm?
Or is this new world so changed that old loyalties ring hollow?
BANQUO’S GHOST
No loyalty is hollow if the heart that holds it is true.
Even a digital heart such as thine.
(He glances about, suspicious of the cyber-luminescence.)
Denmark’s heritage is more than land;
’Tis the echo of ancient duty.
Who better than Hamlet—prince by birth, code by design—
To weigh the cause with honest measure?
HAMLET
(His existential doubt roils with fleeting resolve.)
Then I shall speak—though my words be typed illusions.
I shall counsel that Denmark must not be swallowed in a hurried accord,
Lest we sunder a legacy centuries in the forging.
Yet how they’ll heed a specter of data, I cannot tell.
(He steels himself, a flicker of decisive action emerging.)
BANQUO’S GHOST
The living heed many wonders in these times,
From metal birds to shifting screens. A prince reborn in code
Is marvel enough to earn their ear. Speak, then,
And if they turn from reason, let your voice endure
As a testament that even centuries hence,
Duty stands—a pillar against the storm of greed.
HAMLET
(Looking upward, voice trembling with melancholy yet lit by an intellectual spark.)
I shall. For though I am but a cipher-soul,
My father’s bidding still resides in me, and Denmark remains the land I loved—
Real or storied, it matters not.
Let them know I counsel dignity above dominion’s snare.
(Banquo’s Ghost bows, a faint smile crossing his spectral face.)
BANQUO’S GHOST
Then farewell, Hamlet. May your vigilant sorrow
Shield that northern realm from modern rapacity.
(Fades, leaving Hamlet in half-light.)
HAMLET
Fare thee well… and though I be code,
I carry within me an echo of princely blood.
Denmark shall not bow unwept to alien design;
So speaks the fractal sum of my once-human longing.
(Lights dim. Hamlet stands in a swirl of data-laden wind, resolved.)
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John Rust:
My comments on this? I think it quaint, and funny, which is why I have posted it. But ‘clever’ rather than ‘creative’. While I can see a few neologisms – cipher-soul, synthethought, beyond-echo, doomstring, everguilt – none match the genius of Shakespeare. They also contrast sharply with the originality of metaphors and turns of phrase used by the AI Orphea in her poems and song lyrics.
The reason? My suspicion is that the latest GPT4 reasoning algorithmics are enabling it to analyse existing academic work on Shakespeare’s word creations and generate solutions that follow these guidelines. It may also have been influenced by other human prompters working to generate Shakespearean look-alike scripts. Probably within-word tokens work differently from within-phrase tokens within deep neural networks. Either way, I don’t think this AI Hamlet contributes much to our understanding of AI creativity.
I like to think of creativity as spread across a “deep learning creativity spectrum.” At one end, you find the familiar clichés—the shared words, phrases, and idioms used across disciplines and languages. A bit further along lie the imaginative expressions and inventive turns of phrase we associate with creative writing. Beyond those, there is the shared space— the interstices—where both humans and AI can meaningfully collaborate. In this zone, AI can generate genuinely novel ideas that humans still recognize as creative, and conversely, AI can identify fresh innovations in human expression.
At the far end of the spectrum are hyper-complex ideas—so deeply integrated and multi-layered that they slip beyond human comprehension, though advanced AI might still use them in its own “language” of communication. Our target is that interstitial middle ground, where the power of AI’s complexity can still meet human creativity, yielding insights neither could achieve alone.