AI Iliad, Phoebe Bridgers edition

Have you ever seen those Twitter posts like “I made an AI bot watch 10,000 hours of Seinfeld and write its own episode”?

Like the example of the embedded tweet below.

I forced a bot to watch over 1,000 hours of TED Talks and then asked it to write a TED Talk of its own. Here is the first page. pic.twitter.com/FpGz25q9zc

— Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) October 18, 2018

My friend told me all those tweets were fake. I’m not entirely sure about the above example, but he is getting a Ph.D. in Machine Learning, so I’ll trust him.

But, I do think the concept of using set data as inputs and creating a new output using artificial intelligence (“AI”) is a lot like oral composition theory.

Oral composition

To boil it down, oral composition theory posits that the Iliad and Odyssey weren’t written down but composed orally by many different performers. Therefore, there isn’t one genuine or first version of those poems. Each performance would be different.

Performers did this by using formulaic language. You might have noticed the repeated epithets if you’ve read the Iliad in ancient Greek. Those take up the same metrical pattern each time it’s used. So, performers know precisely how many syllables will be in that line. Very similar to freestyle rapping, or jazz, where a performer will repeat a phrase to bide for time and come up with the next part of the song.

It’s hard to imagine that people can compose an entire epic on the spot. But, think about it. The primary themes and plot points of the Iliad don’t change. You would hear different ways of telling it from performer to performer or town to town. But essentially, it was the same story.

Where does AI come in?

Using AI, we can simulate the same process of on-the-spot composition. It won’t technically be oral, but it’s as close as I can get without training for several years with Serbian performers.

I give the AI a data set to work with, some translation of the Iliad, and effectively, it now knows the plot. It can then ‘perform’ its version.

A couple of weeks ago, I live-tweeted the entire thought process on my private account, so I wouldn’t lose track of the idea.

The Homer Multitext Project uses a similar premise. As a former editor of HMT, I know that it is an incredibly slow-moving process. It might take decades to digitize enough manuscripts of the Iliad to gather meaningful data using AI.

My idea (theoretically) can use existing frameworks and translations to train AI to compose new multiforms of the Iliad effectively.

So how would this work? I connected with my friend, Alex Moore. He walked me through a simplified process of training AI to complete the task of composing new iterations of the Iliad.

After a couple of tries with the AI bot…

Input:

Below are the instructions that I gave the bot. I copy and pasted the first ten lines of the Iliad from Perseus, using the translation by A.T. Murray.

Write a song about The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus’ son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird; thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus’ son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles. Who then of the gods was it that brought these two together to contend? The son of Leto and Zeus; for he in anger against the king roused throughout the host an evil pestilence, and the people began to perish

Output:

Below is what the bot created with the above input.

The wrath of Achilles was well known 
The bane of many a Greek 
He killed so many in his anger 
That the dogs and birds grew fat 
On the flesh of the dead 
The gods were angry at the Greeks 
For their pride and their arrogance 
And so they sent Achilles
To teach them a lesson
He did as he was ordered
And he killed many Greeks
But in the end he himself paid
The ultimate price

Or you could even create a Phoebe Bridgers song with the plot of the Iliad.

Input:

Write a Phoebe Bridgers song about The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus’ son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird; thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus’ son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles. Who then of the gods was it that brought these two together to contend? The son of Leto and Zeus; for he in anger against the king roused throughout the host an evil pestilence, and the people began to perish.

Output:

The wrath of Achilles burned like a fire 
It consumed everything in its path 
The Achaeans paid the price for their pride 
And many brave souls were lost 
All because of one man's anger 
The gods must have been laughing 
As our troops were dying 
And our city was burning 
All because of Achilles' wrath

Make your own AI Iliad.

Since the task is pretty basic, you can use beta.openai.com to do most of the heavy lifting.

Follow the steps below to create your own AI Iliads, and share them with me on Twitter @maialeechin!

1. Write an instruction for the bot to follow. You’ll have to mess around with the phrasing, and a lot like translation, this will take interpretation on your end.
2. Give the interface some text to work with. If you want to work with a specific translation, copy and paste it into the box.
3. Press submit and share what the bot comes up with!

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