Elizabeth Sweet of theVERSEverse collective and Goodwin spoke on that occasion and a full transcript is now available here
The whole conversation is worth reading, but here is a brief excerpt from the piece
Goodwin at the outset (explaining what he’s doing):
RG:…There’s a lineage to pieces. I did a piece before this based on “The Waste Land”, exploring that relationship between a language model and the material the language model is based on – the relationship between those two things. They’re not the same thing, and it’s much more apparent when you’re dealing with just one poem. You can use a large language model on one poem, but the result of that is going to echo the vast depths of the internet and the many, many books that a large language model is trained on. Just showing (the model) one poem over and over again after it’s read the whole internet isn’t going to shape the work as much as you might think. It’ll start writing in that style, but it’s still carrying forward everything it learned before. The other reason I went with simpler tools this time is because I’m really disgusted with the tech industry right now, to be honest. I don’t endorse a lot of what’s happening right now, in the AI universe especially. I think a lot of it’s really destructive, or it can be really destructive. I want people to question the use of these massive, massive, massive language models for virtually any application. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re great, I use them myself. In many ways, they’re very powerful tools. I think of technology, capital-T Technology, as a neutral concept. You know, it’s like the weather, or even more so it’s just a force of nature. It’s also very embedded in our humanity.
But, lower case-t technology is never neutral. I think that the way the tech industry is responding to current events, and the way that things are unfolding, especially with the dismantling of DEI initiatives, is really disgusting.
So I wanted to take a step back from using the cutting edge tools that are out on the frontier of computer science, which is where I started my practice 10 years ago. Those tools were very different 10 years ago, the cutting edge was a different place.
I wanted to reevaluate the need for such tools in the common context like this, because the idea behind HOWL.camera is not to make like robo Allen Ginsberg back from the dead.
ES: It’s explicitly not that!
RG: Yeah, the idea is to pay tribute, an homage to the poem. It’s supposed to encourage reading it in different ways and looking at it in fragments rather than looking at the whole thing, or looking even in ways that aren’t intended.
There’s a big gap between intent and perception. I think a lot of artists, art critics, and people in the art world will recognize that an artist can tend to a lot of different things in their work, but the way it’s perceived is ultimately what’s important in terms of its impact.
“Howl” is perceived in myriad ways and has been a powerful cultural icon for quite a long time. I don’t think that we can speak to which parts of it speak to which people. So looking at it through a fragmented lens lends itself to a perspective that embraces the perception side while looking through the intent side..”
Beat News – Kevin Ring’s Beat Scene remains a continuing essential place. See the latest issue below (issue #111, #112 will be with us “soon”). Full details on Beat Scene – here
and we’re pleased to inform you that he’ll be continuing with his extraordinary series of Beat Scene Press chapbooks
this next one (illustrated and in a new bigger format) – Ann Charters – Jack Kerouac’s Legendary World of Duluoz (unpublished writing by Ann on Kerouac – we can’t wait for that)
Jack Kerouac’s birthday celebrated last week
If you missed them, here are our Jazz & Jack postings – here and here
Allen and Bob Dylan visit Jack’s grave – here
William Burroughs – Last week, we mentioned the on-going exhibit at the October Gallery. This Saturday (tomorrow!), Aaron Brookner, the nephew of the director, will be present for a showing, followed by a Q & A, of his uncle Howard‘s 1983 film Burroughs – The Movie.
and speaking of Burroughs (and courtesy of Kevin Ring), who here’s heard of Edward Buhr‘s 2007 short film, The Japanese Sandman?
John Coulhart writes on it here – (and check out Coulhart’s other Burroughs postings)
Colin Still‘s Gary Snyder film O Mother Gaia showed this week (had its world premiere) in San Rafael at the International Buddhist Film Festival and was a great success – it completely sold out! As a result an encore screening has been hastily arranged for tonight (Friday, March 14 at 7:00 pm at the Smith San Rafael Film Center, San Rafael). Alongside
O Mother Gaia, Still will be presenting his new short feature Songs from Turtle Island. A conversation with him and BFF Executive Director, Gaetano Maida will follow the screening.
The Counterculture Museum – read Jonah Raskin on it and on his own experiences – The Museum is scheduled to open in San Francisco “in the Spring”.
& just a reminder – March 17 in New York (next Monday) Kenneth Koch celebrations at The New School
Celebrations of A 1 by poets-or “data poets”(sic) is what used to be called “identification with the aggressor”.
A I is Moloch.(“Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!”). Yes maybe someday a doctor working with AI will save your life ,or prevent a Hydrogen bomb from hitting the Brooklyn Bridge .(Not likely and unimaginably sinister applications are already in the works ,no doubt).
But Poetry- Couldn’t Ginsberg lovers agree to leave Poetry out of Moloch’s maw? Do G-berg fans really need machines to keep his work vital ? Think what Allen’s Blake would make of A I -& if you believe that Allen himself would have welcomed it insofar as it promotes “Beatdom”- that would be a human, all too human, retreat on his part -in the war against dehumanization.
Yes it’s impossible ,dysfunctional, to avoid the whole tech thing -here I am ranting on a computer-but to celebrate Moloch on a Ginsberg website is a form of poetic necrophilia . And adding
a little scrap -oh I don’t like what’s it’s doing to D E I – doesn’t absolve you .You’re handing out fliers urging people to attend the parade in honor of Moloch.