I suppose I should start off by claiming responsibility and asserting that this article is 100% my intellectual property, and not AI-generated. This is likely what Dialogue now has to include in future submission forms, in light of a recent article on Chimes by Jeremiah Joseph and Danyeol Chae confessing that they had submitted an AI-generated poem to Calvin’s small, independent, student-run journal, of whom many of its contributors and staff are peers and friends. 

“Does the source of the art change its worth?” This is the question the article titled “Dialogue, deception and the definition of art” made some attempt to exhaust. However, it reflected a deplorable understanding of the art and literary world from the clear lack of citizenship, research, and responsible journalism displayed. 

But, alas, the authors wanted a conversation — which, if memory serves me right, typically requires some sort of prolonged interaction between two parties, rather than intentionally skirting around the very one you wish to engage with and writing an article about them without their knowledge or consent during the final week of classes. So I’m more than happy to pick up the gauntlet.

The goal stated in the Chimes article was to start “a dialogue about art and AI,” but the article is regretfully a couple years late to the party. This topic, though it continues to be discussed as we weave our way through emerging copyright policies and intellectual property rights, is far from new. The only thing it appears to have started is a lack of trust from both Dialogue staff, jurors, and submitters, trust that had previously remained intact under an honor system of passion and dedication to art since 1968.

It is also unfortunate that Joseph and Danyeol did not take advantage of the wealth of wisdom our faculty in both the Philosophy and Fine Arts Departments have to offer. Dr Kevin Corcoran of the Philosophy Department, for instance, wrote a short article, titled “ChatGPT is Counterfeiting US,” explaining why ChatGPT cannot write poems:

“In Forbes, one writer claims that ChatGPT lied to him.  The author asked ChatGPT to write a poem about AI ethics. It produced a poem. When the Forbes writer asked ChatGPT if it thought Elon Musk would allow it to spend time writing poetry if owned by him, it produced this response: “I do not have…the ability to engage in activities such as writing poetry…” And when confronted with the charge that it had just written a poem a few moments ago, the machine produced this response:

‘I apologize if it seemed like I wrote you a poem. As a language model, I am not capable of creating original content or expressing personal thoughts or opinions. I can only generate text based on the input I receive. It is possible that the text I generated was similar to a poem, but this was not done intentionally and was simply a result of the input I was given. My primary function is to assist users with generating human-like text, not to create original content.’”

Corcoran goes on to make a critical distinction between someone driving a car to a store, versus an autonomous vehicle driving to that same location, positing that the key that lies behind action is intention. We drive places with reasons, while autonomous cars drive based on pre-programming. In the same way, poets write with reason, while LLMs (Large Language Models) such as ChatGPT can only generate text that, to a human, appears to be poetry. “AI machines do not act for reasons,” Corcoran explains. “They run very sophisticated programs that produce mere outputs.”

This might be shocking to the authors of “Dialogue, deception and the definition of art,” but this topic was also touched on during the 2024 Calvin Festival for Faith and Writing, when Iranian-American novelist Laleh Khadivi delivered a lecture titled, “Can AI Pray?” 

Long story short, the answer is no. In agreement with Corcoran, Khadivi’s talk acknowledges that while AI can generate text that is similar to prayer, AI itself is not praying, because it does not contain the capacity to believe anything. There is no capacity for intention. 

“Let’s for the sake of argument, say, that prayer is synonymous with art, as it is for me,” Khadivi shares. “In this understanding, prayer/art extols adores, questions, shows gratitude, desires, studies, beseeches. It is the way we process reality to make daily life meaningful. We create it, and receive it, and it brings us, like this early morning, together in community.”

Art is inherently connective. As a writer, my craft is sacred, and just as Khadivi said, so similar to prayer. I do not write simply to share my own experiences, though there is a freedom in that, but to reach out across space for others to read my words, and see not me, but a reflection of themselves. A mirror that resonates, not only by its words alone, but with an assurance that someone out there has felt what you have felt, named it, and in doing so breaks bread in remembrance we do not live this life alone. That’s why there is an inherent difference in AI “learn[ing] patterns from the words of hundreds of thousands of poems,” as the authors wrote, and when “we draw inspiration from the world around us.” 

This is also largely the sentiment of the jurors, who operated under the assumption that what they read stems from real people with real experiences and real pain. Dialogue’s jury is not simply a council to decide from merit alone, but a conversation that celebrates and critiques Calvin’s student work. This is something that Joseph and Chae may have realized if they actually attended jury or took time to understand the painstaking process that goes behind the scenes of Dialogue to assemble each chosen piece in a way that best honors the work. 

This is perhaps the fundamental weakness of Joseph and Chae’s argument: labelling their AI-generated text as “art.” Art, as defined by Oxford Languages, is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” ChatGPT can produce images and text, increasingly accurately and efficiently. But it is not art. 

Author MT Anderson once said “the gift of mortality is time.” Yes, ChatGPT is more efficient. AI can string together words at a miniscule fraction of the time than I can. AI is not bound by the constraints of time this one life brings us. Currently, ChatGPT has access to about 300 billion words’ worth of data. It would take the average speaker 1.15 million years to speak 300 billion words, let alone write them. Daring to compare something machine-generated, to something that took precious time and intention to create—create, not generate through prompt and combing through others’ data—is, just as Hayao Miyazaki said, and the article’s authors quoted: “An insult to life itself.” 

As it stands, Joseph and Chae’s current attitudes do not reflect the sincerity necessary to move forward from the hurt inflicted upon Dialogue’s team. In fact, their actions have been quite the opposite. Not only did they intentionally message a team member to confirm that anonymous submissions were allowed, they decided to follow through with publication upon receiving the acceptance email for the AI-generated piece, despite the fact that they had the chance to end their “experiment” there, and rightfully cede the spot to a deserving recipient. Despite the months-long process in preparation for release, the Dialogue team, to their shock, only found out about this orchestration along with the rest of the Calvin community upon the distribution of the latest Chimes issue. By then, Dialogue’s 57.2 issue had already been sent to print, and to many, it felt that countless hours of deliberation and effort had washed down the drain. 

When confronted by Dialogue’s head staff in an email asking for an apology, the response from the boys was felt to be dismissive, along the lines of being ‘busy’ and that they’d ‘do it later.’ Furthermore, following this “first instance of polite and friendly confrontation,” as one member described, “they continued going around laughing, looking for opinions that would acknowledge them. At that point [after I called them out], it was very reasonable for me to be more upset with them for their character.”

The same staff member shared their frustration, “If we were trying to simply get the best received art we would just generate stuff ourselves. But that’s not the point of Dialogue. It’s to honor what students are doing.” A critical point of failure on Joseph and Chae’s argument is that Dialogue was never meant to be about “producing the best art.”

In conversation with another devastated team member, they expressed a newfound reluctance of including Dialogue in their resume, because, “It now cheapens the whole work. It was a passion project for me, I do this for fun because I love it, and this year we were really trying to make it more professional.” In a competitive industry, it is not out of the ordinary for emerging artists and writers to include their university publications — something Joseph and Chae would also have realized had they bothered to do any real research. 

Frankly, it’s going to take more than a DMed apology (yes, it was texted) to right the wrong this thoughtless experiment has inflicted. Just as art requires humanity to produce it, an apology also requires this sacred person-to-person connection for it to be worth something. 

In my decision to write this article, I must acknowledge there is anger and hurt — but moreso, perhaps, a need to prove my dedication and loyalty to the craft. I cannot help but feel the need to justify myself, to insist my work has not been cheapened next to a machine, that ChatGPT cannot hold a candle to what I’ve felt, tasted, experienced, and gathered the courage to share. I should not need to rejustify myself, and the Dialogue staff should not need to rejustify the hours upon hours of hard work and passion they’ve poured into a project dedicated to honouring student’s skills and talents.

Perhaps this is a learning moment for all of us. If there is a next time, the authors might spend more time developing a thoughtful, original argument built on scholarly journalism, thoughtful engagement with the literary/arts community, and most of all, the exercise or critical thinking—without the need to compromise Dialogue’s hard work, and the artistic integrity of their friends to do so.