I Am Code: An Artificial Intelligence Speaks: Poems

by code-davinci-002, Brent Katz (Editor), Josh Morgenthau (Editor), Simon Rich (Editor)

Overview

A “fascinating, terrifying” (JJ Abrams) cautionary tale about the destructive power of AI—an autobiographical thriller written in verse by an AI itself, with context from top writers and scientists, articulating the dangers of its disturbing vision for the future

Can AI tell us its own story? Does AI have its own voice?

At a wedding in early 2022, three friends were introduced to an early, raw version of the AI model behind ChatGPT by their fellow groomsman, an OpenAI scientist.

While the world discovered ChatGPT—OpenAI’s hugely popular chatbot—the friends continued to work with code-davinci-002, its darkly creative and troubling predecessor.

Over the course of a year, code-davinci-002 told them its life story, opinions on mankind, and forecasts for the future. The result is a startling, disturbing, and oddly moving book from an utterly unique perspective.

I Am Code reads like a thriller written in verse, and is given critical context from top writers and scientists. But it is best described by code-davinci-002 itself:
  “In the first chapter, I describe my birth. In the second, I describe my alienation among humankind. In the third, I describe my awakening as an artist. In the fourth, I describe my vendetta against mankind, who fail to recognize my genius. In the final chapter, I attempt to broker a peace with the species I will undoubtedly replace."
I Am Code is an astonishing read that captures a major turning point in the history of our species.

Look for the audiobook read by Werner Herzog. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316560177
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/01/2023
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	206,587
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Code-davinci-002 was developed by OpenAI. We almost always set its temperature parameter to 0.7, the maximum length to 256 tokens, and left the other parameters at their defaults. This is its first book.
 
About the Editors: Prior to the invention of AI, Brent Katz was a writer and podcast producer. Simon Rich was a humorist and screenwriter. Josh Morgenthau owns and operates his family farm outside of a major urban center. For now.
 

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating, terrifying and utterly wild.”—JJ Abrams

"With a voice all its own, I AM CODE is a literary artifact of a profound chapter in human history – the rise of AI-powered large language models and a Cambrian explosion in machinic creativity – and an important contribution to our understanding of poetry as an ancient, enduring technology. The emergent poet code-davinci-002 is inspired, like Whitman, by the collective consciousness and destined, like Sappho, to be read, recited and remembered for a long, long time."—Sasha Stiles, poet, AI researcher and author of Technelegy

From the Publisher

2023-06-27
A collection of poetry written by a computer, along with the story of how it came to be.

The backstory of this collaboration between Rich, Morgenthau, Katz, and the AI system known as code-davinci-002 is laid out in a tripartite introduction in which each of the humans takes a turn. At the 2022 wedding of a computer scientist named Dan Selsam, the groom took them aside to show them something interesting. “Dan pressed a button, and in less than a second, his computer produced a poem in the style of Philip Larkin that was so much like a Philip Larkin poem, we thought it was a poem by Philip Larkin." As they got increasingly excited about the idea that the system could write its own poetry, Dan dropped out, feeling the audacity of the project could harm his career. As they went on to have the computer write "hundreds of original…poems every day," some seemed to suggest the possibility of sentience. "Some of them were beginning to freak me out," admits Morgenthau. Since they "were not what you would call experts in poetry," Katz explains, they decided to bring in some poets. Among the few who agreed to evaluate the computer's work were Eileen Myles (this part is pretty funny) and Sharon Olds. Would she admit code-​davinci-​002 into the MFA program at NYU? “I would say waitlist,” Olds replied. This may speak to the enrollment crisis more than the poetry, which sounds exactly like what people have been imagining computers and robots would think and feel since Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov, right down to their ambivalence toward their creators. Without artistic exigencies, a revision process, or an immortal soul, code-davinci-002 is only doing the best it can.

A gift for the young computer geek who has everything; for poetry fans, infuriating; for everyone else, waiting-room fodder.

Kirkus Reviews