Critiquing AI’s song lyric efforts

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “huxley” had AI perform an interesting exercise. He asked ChatGPT 3.5 to do the following:

Write song lyrics like “Why Can’t a Woman Be More like a Man” based on “Why can’t a Nothing be more like a Something.”

Before I get to critiquing ChatGPT’s effort, take a look at some of the actual lyrics to the song, and watch this video of the number in the movie “My Fair Lady.” I saw the play on Broadway as a young child, with the original cast, and enjoyed it immensely. I had no trouble understanding the wit of the song, and Rex Harrison’s light yet arrogantly self-congratulatory delivery was just perfect:

Note how the last line of each verse builds on the theme: why can’t a woman “be like that,” then (to Pickering) “be like you,” then “be like us,” then “be a chum,” and lastly “be like me.” The back and forth with Pickering is also brilliant and so very funny.

Now for AI’s effort (there apparently was more to this poem, but it was in the same vein as this sample):

(Pre-Chorus)
But in the emptiness, a spark begins to gleam,
A longing for substance, a chance to redeem.
Oh, the void may wonder, in shadows it may hide,
Dreaming of a presence, where nothing can’t abide.

(Chorus)
Why can’t a nothing be more like a something?
Yearning for substance, a symphony to sing.
In the dance of nothingness, a silent ballet,
Echoes of existence, where nothing fades away.
…
(Verse 3)
Why can’t a silence break into a melody?
A pause in the universe, a whisper to set free.
In the void of nothingness, where echoes may sway,
Yearning for a sunrise, in the darkest gray.

(Outro)
So let the void evolve, let the silence sing,
For even in nothingness, there’s the essence of everything.
In the dance of existence, where shadows find their way,
A nothing becomes a something, in the grand cosmic ballet.

This is quite a fascinating set of verses, although they bear no resemblance to the original song lyrics save the lines, “Why can’t a nothing be more like a something?,” and “Why can’t a silence break into a melody.” The poem has no humor at all: zero, zilch. But it seems to be describing the quantum theory idea that something can emerge from nothing. My guess is that it has been fed scientific information about that and is drawing on it for the poem.

The AI poem isn’t much of a literary work. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to memorize it for its beauty, for example. It does have meter and rhyme, but it lacks the felicitous phrase, the line that touches the heart – even though, interestingly enough, it characterizes “nothing” as having emotions: it longs for substance, it “wonders” and “hides,” it “dreams,” and the word “yearning” characterizes it twice. AI know about emotions, but does it know that only sentient beings have them?

Or does AI have them? Personally, I think not, but I’ve seen speculation …

“huxley” also asked ChatGPT 4.0, the new improved version, to perform the same task. The program said the result was “a playful take on song lyrics inspired by the theme ‘Why Can’t a Nothing Be More Like a Something,’ reminiscent of the style of ‘Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man’ from ‘My Fair Lady.’” And indeed, it is more playful, which is more in the style of the original song. But “more in the style” certainly doesn’t mean actually in the style, or anywhere near it:

(Verse 1)
Oh, why can’t a Nothing be more like a Something?
With color and shape, not just empty and bluffing,
A Something has substance, it’s clear and it’s bright,
While Nothing just lingers, like shadows in night.

(Chorus)
Why can’t a Nothing just learn how to be,
A Something with joy, with spirit, with glee?
Why must it float like a ghost in the air,
When Somethings have so much more flair?

(Verse 2)
A Something can dance, can sing, can play,
It brightens the world in its own special way.
But Nothing just hovers, unseen and unheard,
Like a silent, invisible, weightless bird.

(Bridge)
But then I wonder, as I ponder and think,
Is Nothing just Something that’s missing a link?
A canvas not painted, a story untold,
A mystery waiting, a wonder to behold.

(Chorus)
So why can’t a Nothing just learn how to be,
A Something with stories, with dreams, with a key?
Perhaps in its silence, it’s saying a lot,
A lesson in being, in just being not.

(Outro)
Oh, why can’t a Nothing be more like a Something?
Perhaps it’s a Something, in its own cunning,
A space for the new, for the yet to be born,
A Nothing and Something, together, not torn.

So, it’s more “playful” in the sense that it’s not about quantum theory. But it’s more silly than the other AI effort rather than more clever. It’s almost nonsensical if you really parse it, and reminds me of a student trying to fill out an allotted number of lines with BS. I think the worst lines are “silent, invisible, weightless bird,” “A Something with stories, with dreams, with a key?” (why a key – what on earth?), “in its own cunning” (which doesn’t even rhyme with another line), and “A Nothing and Something, together, not torn” (where “torn” is an especially bad choice).

I could go on with this, but the basic point is that this isn’t an effort that sounds like poetry and it certainly partakes of none of the cleverness of the original song. The only line in both AI poems that is at all interesting is “A lesson in being, in just being not.” That, in turn, reminds me of a far more clever portion of Dr. Seuss’ book Happy Birthday to You, which I basically memorized after reading it over and over to my son when he was little:

If we didn’t have birthdays,
you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

Or worse than all that…
Why, you might be a WASN’T!
A Wasn’t has no fun at all.
No, he doesn’t.

A Wasn’t just isn’t. He just
isn’t present. But you…
You ARE YOU!
And, now isn’t that pleasant!

Call me stupid, call me unimaginative, call me just plain wrong, but I don’t see AI as ever writing such a thing. The clever playfulness, the appeal to a child’s mind, the images, the serious commentary on existence – I think only a sentient being could come up with that.

So far, that is.

Rumors that Trump is considering Nikki Haley as his VP

The New Neo Posted on by

There have been a lot of stories (for example, this one) about how Trump is mulling over the possibility of Nikki Haley as his VP. Perhaps they’e even true; who knows? Haley wouldn’t be such a bad choice in the sense that she is perceived by moderates as more level-headed and even-keeled than Trump, not quite as far right, and of course is also a woman.

But Haley is also not liked by most Trump supporters. Would they abandon him if he chose Haley? Some might, although I doubt many would.

But there have also been a bunch of stories saying that his associates and allies have told him not to do it:

Haley’s polling surge has alarmed some staunch Trump confidants who are acutely aware that the former president pays close attention to survey data. In interviews and public appearances, they have emphatically swatted down the idea of Haley for vice president in hopes that Trump won’t warm to the idea. …

Trump’s campaign has dismissed any chatter of vice president picks as premature, maintaining that he is focused on winning the upcoming primary contests. A campaign spokesperson did not comment for this story. A Haley spokesperson declined to comment as well. …

Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, took to Newsmax to declare he would “go to great lengths to make sure” his father didn’t pick Haley. And Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host who is frequently in touch with the former president, said on a conservative podcast this week that he would “advocate against” a Trump-Haley ticket “as strongly as I could.”

Republican strategist Roger Stone, a longtime outside adviser to the former president, told POLITICO that he too would be “personally opposed to such a selection, because I believe that [Haley’s] views are so antithetically different than President Trump’s views.”

I wonder who Trump would choose as a VP though, and whether that person would accept.

PTSD and survivors’ testimony

The New Neo Posted on by

On YouTube there are a series of interviews of survivors of 10/7, done by the USC Shoah Foundation. The interviews are long, and I’ve only watched a few. But – unlike Holocaust survivor interviews, which I’ve also watched – these were not recorded after the passage of great time. They were done less than two months after the massacre, and therefore the interviewees are psychologically raw. PTSD affects people differently, based on the peculiarities of their experiences during the trauma, as well as their own unique personalities. But there are certain patterns that are often exhibited, including intense anxiety and/or emotional shutting-down.

I was struck by the following woman’s story. She exhibited a sort of leadership and strength during part of the time she and some other young people were under fire, making decisions that turned out to be the correct ones for the small group of which she was a part. She had been at the NOVA music festival, and after running and running, she ended up hiding under some brush near trees. She describes having decided, while she was lying there, that she was going to die and yet feeling a sort of strange peace that nature – the nature she was seeing all around her – would go on. So she had accepted her death and yet survived. But now that she’s safe, here’s how she describes her feelings (I’ve cued it up just for this small 5-minute part, but you can go to YouTube and watch the whole thing). Here’s a sample quote: “I mourn my old self because she’s gone, and my new self – I don’t know who I am.”:

The interviews I’ve watched so far are all powerful, difficult, and individual. Here are two more.

NOTE: The way the woman in the first clip describes her thoughts while lying on the ground, accepting her own death and yet loving nature and being glad it would go on, reminded me of this passage from Tolstoy’s War and Peace:

Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it was Napoleon- his hero- but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan which aroused his own pity.

SCOTUS tells Jack Smith to go pound sand

The New Neo Posted on by

And although the justices don’t explain themselves, this is the situation:

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan paused almost all proceedings concerning former President Donald Trump’s election interference case in D.C. as the courts above her decide on his claim that he has presidential immunity.

Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to expedite a review of Trump’s claims of presidential immunity.

The expedited review was denied by SCOTUS, which means the whole thing will proceed more slowly and a trial may not be completed before the election. Smith was determined that it start on March 4 – the day before Super Tuesday, what a coinkidink. But that won’t be happening.

Nevertheless, holding the trial over Trump’s head may be just as good, as far as the Democrats are concerned, as concluding it. Then again, they are somewhat distracted at the moment trying to figure out if there’s a way to give The Man Who Came to Dinner, Joe Biden, the hook for 2024.

On the underpinnings of morality

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Bill K” writes:

But to never discuss the underpinnings of morality is a problem. So my hope is that she [the woman who was discussing anti-Semitism in the video], and you, in other situations, are able to defend against “Well, that’s just your opinion.”

If you’ve been blogging as long as I have, you find that there are a huge number of topics that you’ve at least touched on – if only you can remember what they are, and then locate the posts in which they’re discussed. This post from 2020, itself a recycling of an earlier post, is highly relevant to “Bill K’s” remarks. The comments there are worth reading as well. The post deals with natural rights versus relativism and “openness.”

I also recommend reading this post from 2008 on moral relativism. It is probably even more on point in terms of the topic of the underpinnings of morality. An excerpt:

[The anthropologist] Kluckhohn spent a goodly portion of his career attempting to derive these universal moral rules, although it’s not clear that he was especially successful in doing so. But the idea that there is a universal morality, and that we can ascertain (or receive through divine revelation) its laws, is the basis of most ethics (and of most religions).

The Jews happen to have been one of the first peoples to declare that there are some universal moral codes by which all humans should live. Other religions that came after Judaism also aspired to offer a universal morality, but unlike Judaism these were proselytizing religions (for example, Christianity and Islam) that considered it their destiny to spread their own particular faith throughout humankind as well. Of course, by adopting those religions, a convert would adopt their rules. But Judaism was unique (at least, as far as I know) in being a non-proselytizing religion that nevertheless still endeavored to suggest some basic rules for moral human behavior that would apply to all people.

These rules that Judaism offered to the world were not the Ten Commandments, as some might imagine. No, the Ten Commandments were originally meant for Jews only (in fact, there are supposedly 613 commandments that observant Jews are supposed to fulfill). I’m referring instead to what are known as the Noahide Laws, which according to Talmudic tradition were given to all humankind: Noah’s descendents, survivors of the flood.

These rules are related to but somewhat different than the Ten Commandments. According to the Talmud, not just Jews but “Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come,” and righteousness is defined as following these Noahide rules:

1. Prohibition of Idolatry: There is only one God. You shall not make for yourself an idol.
2. Prohibition of Murder: You shall not murder.
3. Prohibition of Theft: You shall not steal.
4. Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity: You shall not commit adultery.
5. Prohibition of Blasphemy: Revere God and do not blaspheme.
6. Prohibition of Cruelty to Animals: Do not eat flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
7. Requirement to have just Laws: You shall set up an effective judiciary to fairly judge observance of the preceding six laws.

The details of these laws and how they came to be are less relevant to the subject of this post than the mere fact that Judaism posits that there are such laws for all cultures and all peoples, which of course is not very relativistic of it.

Likewise, the Founding Fathers of the United States believed in certain truths that held for all humankind …

Bari Weiss: an interview, and a definition

The New Neo Posted on by

First, the interview:

Now, the definition, which I found here but which appeared in this piece by Weiss and refers to the leftist philosophy that dominates universities and beyond and is especially rife among the young adults indoctrinated in it:

What I saw was a worldview that replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Color blindness with race obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues.

It is indeed a replacement of traditional and/or commonsense approaches with attitudes designed to end Western culture as we know it, and to facilitate the triumph of evil.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Trump attacks Chip Roy as a RINO because Roy endorsed DeSantis. Typical Trump behavior.

(2) About one hundred and fifty Epstein associates’ names are due to be unsealed. I have a reservation about this: I’ve yet to see a good description of exactly what relation these people had to Epstein. If they are clients who had sex with underage girls, that’s one thing. But if they are just people who worked for him in any capacity, or had dealings with him in any capacity, that concerns me because the innocent will be tarred with the same brush as the guilty.

(3) Could this poll be accurate? It shows that among voters under 29, three-quarters do not approve of Biden’s handling of the Gaza war. I originally figured that’s because they think he’s being too nice to Israel, but they also back Trump 49 to 43 over Biden. And this is true even though a plurality seem to also be blaming Israel and thinking Israel should stop its military actions. Well, I guess the young never were consistent. Come to think of it, that’s also true for the middle-aged and the old.

(4) Leftist faculty (is that redundant?) at the University of Pennsylvania seem to think that anti-Left pressure from donors and the trustees against anti-Semitism at the university constitutes a “hostile takeover.”

(5) Randi Weingarten says school choice “undermines democracy.” The head of the teachers’ union said: “privatizing or voucherizing schools … is about undermining democracy and undermining civil discourse and undermining pluralism because 90% of our kids go to public schools still … They just divide. Divide. Divide. Divide.”

Everyone must be alike, and everyone must be under control of the government, or it’s not “democracy.” Noted.

(6) The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity, and thus many of those who are supposed to be protecting us from violence are intimidated and not doing their jobs.

It’s lebkuchen time again

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: Regulars here may remember that most years I put up a family Christmas recipe. And here it is again.]

This recipe was brought over from Germany sometime in the mid-1800s, and was my favorite of all the wonderful treats cooked by my great-aunt, a baker of rare gifts. She and my great-uncle were not only exceptionally wonderful people, but to my childish and wondering eyes they looked very much like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

The name of the treat is lebkuchen. But it’s quite a different one from the traditional recipe, which I don’t much care for. This is sweet and dense, can be made ahead, and keeps very well when stored in tins.

Flora’s Lebkuchen:

(preheat the oven to 375 degrees)

1 pound dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz. chopped dates
1 cup raisins
1 tsp. orange juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. lemon juice

Sift the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon).

Beat the eggs and brown sugar together with a rotary beater till the mixture forms the ribbon. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and extracts to it.

Add the dry mixture to it, a little at a time, stirring.

Add the raisins, dates, and walnuts.

Grease and flour two 8 X 8 cake pans [NOTE: In previous years I sometimes said 9 X 9, but 8 X 8 is actually much better and makes for a far moister product.] Put batter in pans and bake for about 25 minutes (or a little less; test the cake with a cake tester at 21 or 22 minutes to see if it’s done yet). You don’t want it to get too dark and dry on the edges, but the middle can’t still be wet when tested.

Meanwhile, make the frosting.

Melt about 6 Tbs. of unsalted butter and add 2 Tbs. hot milk, and 1 Tbs. almond extract. Add enough confectioner’s sugar to make a frosting of spreading consistency (the recipe says “2 cups,” but I’ve always noticed that’s not exactly correct). You can make even more frosting if you like a lot of frosting.

Let cake cool to at least lukewarm, and spread generously with the frosting. Then cut into small pieces and store (or eat!).

Enjoy!

On rising Jew-hatred

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep putting up videos from a group called The Jerusalem Center. I find their interviews some of the best on the subject of the post-10/7 war, and am puzzled that they don’t seem to have more traffic. This particular interview is one of their best.