A Found Poem About Friendship Based on a ChatGPT Poem About Socks

When I asked ChatGPT to write a sonnet about socks, it did! And a surprisingly coherent one, too. But then I wanted to see if I could take what it created and turn it into something new.

Written by

Randall J. Greene

Published on

January 5, 2023

Go BackBlog, Poetry, Stories

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence system created by OpenAI, is all the rage right now. It’s really simple to use – just create an account, and then you type in a question AskJeeves-style, and it will compile an answer out of the work it’s done scouring the internet. It’s really, really good at it.

But I wanted to put it to a new kind of test. Could it create art? And if it did, could I create art out of what it created?

When I asked it to write a sonnet about socks, it did! And a surprisingly coherent one, too. But then I wanted to see if I could take what it created and turn it into something new. So here are both of them. The first one was created by ChatGPT, and the second one is my found poem based on the first.

ChatGPT's sonnet about socks:

Warfare, a cruel and bitter game
Where lives are lost and futures maimed
Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters
All fall victim to the constant slaughter

The sound of gunfire, the smell of death
The screams of the wounded, the final breath
The fields are stained with blood and tears
As the soldiers face their darkest fears

But for some, the fight is just a job
A means to an end, a way to lob
Their families depend on their return
But for many, their fate is left to burn

The politics and power, the greed and hate
Are the true causes of this deadly fate
But the soldiers pay the ultimate price
As they lay down their lives, so others may thrive

So let us remember those who fell
In the name of freedom, they served so well
Their sacrifice will never be forgotten
As we honor their bravery, and the wars they've fought in — ChatGPT’s Sonnet

My found poem:

Oh companions, my travels never dull, and still thou art always for every journey, short or long or far, cold or wracked, and never close my journey. — ChatGPT’s Sonnet

Here’s the text of my found poem:

Oh companions
my travels never dull,
and still thou
art always
for every journey, short or long or far,
cold or wracked,
and never close my journey.