Today, I asked Copilot to write a sonnet. My instruction was: Write a Shakespearean sonnet about the emotional horror of war. I timed it, and Copilot wrote the following sonnet in 9 seconds.
The drums of war do sound a dreadful call
That summons men to face their mortal foes
And bids them leave behind their loves and all
The joys of life that only peace bestows
They march with courage, but with trembling hearts
For who can tell what fate the field will bring?
They know that some will fall before it starts
And some will live to weep and never sing
The clash of steel, the roar of guns, the cries
Of wounded men do fill the air with woe
And blood doth stain the earth and cloud the skies
And death doth reap where only life should grow
O war, thou art a monster most unkind
That feeds upon the souls of humankind
This is much improved over the sonnet I asked Bing to write two months ago that didn't even have the required metre or rhymes. So yes, Artificial Intelligence is learning how to write poetry. But this is not an excellent sonnet as it's bland and trite. While it follows the metre and rhyme pattern, IMO foes/bestows/woe/grow are too similar, and archaic language is unnecessarily used and it doesn't have the signature volta to introduce a contrast. In short it is missing the human element, the poetic conceit.
I suppose I could've fed Copilot a more accurate command, but wouldn't it just be better to write my own sonnet? I can't see any value in AI writing except perhaps for notices announcing that the power company is increasing your monthly bill by 5% come March.