The Love Song of Chat G.P.T.
If you haven’t ever read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot, stop reading this blog right now, and go read it. It will only take a few minutes. Well, the first time. You’ll probably want to read it again at some point.
In a world where I seem to see one article after another about what LLMs can’t do, I want to tell a story about something they can do, or at least, some of them can.
Back in the 00’s I was living in Boston. One day, my roommate (I’ll call him Yossie) came home, plopped down on the sofa and sighed, “I had a J. Alfred Prufrock moment on the bus today!” I was a bit alarmed, thinking through all the images from that poem, and what they might mean of an experience on a bus.
Yossie began to tell me what he had in mind, but I stopped him. “Let’s make this a parlor game. Can I guess what you meant by your J. Alfred Prufrock moment on the bus?”
I decided to see how well ChatGPT (GPT-4) was at playing this parlor game. It started out very general, guessing that Yossie might have had an experience that made him feel “insecure, anxious, or uncertain about how to act, perhaps due to a social interaction or internal conflict.” Okay, these are the themes that are present in the poem, and you would know this if you just looked it up in wikipedia. But I wanted something more specific, more whimsical, if you will. So I told it one of the ideas I had come of with
“He might have left his bus pass at home and was forced to pay the fare with change, but he only had pennies, so he had to measure out his fare with coffee spoons.”
ChatGPT was very good at explaining why my example was good, quoting from the poem. I had to prod it a bit to try it on its own. Once it got started, it did a decent job:
“he hesitated to offer his seat to an elderly person on the bus. He might have been unsure whether the person needed or wanted the seat, or if the offer would be perceived as kind or patronizing. This moment of indecision and self-doubt, with potential consequences and judgments, would resonate with Prufrock’s fear of “disturbing the universe” with his actions.”
It continued with this sort of thread for a while, when I asked it for more.
“ if he was on the bus and noticed someone he was attracted to or interested in talking to. Instead of seizing the opportunity to approach and initiate a conversation, he might have hesitated, telling himself that there would be another chance to meet this person later.”
This reminded me of one of my own answers from the time I played the game with Yossie:
“ there might have been many attractive people on the bus, who my friend might find attractive in the same way prufrock finds mermaids attractive. My friend is gay, so maybe they are a group of fraternity boys. Suppose the boys start singing to each other. But my friend thinks that they will not sing to him. This reminds him of the passage, “i have heard the mermaids singing each to each; i do not think they will sing to me””
ChatGPT struggled with its next play; it took several paragraphs to imagine a way to use the line, “And I have known the arms already, known them all — / Arms that are braceleted and white and bare / (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)” Its explanation was pretty bland.
I made an easy play from the line that repeats a few times in the poem, “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo.” This is Boston, and he was taking the bus that started at Harvard, and goes to the Art Museum. This probably happens every day.
In ChatGPT’s next move, it picks on the phrase, “Do I dare?”, which occurs several times in the poem, wondering how various actions might be seen by others.
I haven’t yet told you what Yossie’s answer was, that is, what experience caused him to start this whole game. Yossie was a bit apologetic about how prosaic his experience was. He was hungry, and had a peach in his backpack, but worried about how messy it might be to eat a peach on a bus. Since ChatGPT was talkin about “Do I dare?”, I made the simple suggestion,
“Can you do one about the peach?”
That little prod sent ChatGPT on a very productive roll:
“… if he were on the bus and found himself feeling hungry. He might have a peach in his bag, but he hesitates to eat it, fearing that the sound of biting into the fruit or the potential messiness of eating it might draw unwanted attention and judgment from other passengers. This moment of hesitation and anxiety about a seemingly insignificant action, like eating a peach in public, would parallel Prufrock’s own internal struggles and fears in the poem, making it a fitting “J. Alfred Prufrock moment.””
Epilogue
I have tried this game with other LLMs that I found on huggingface and the new Google Bard. Huggingface just didn’t engage in the game at all, and Bard became increasingly concerned about Yossie’s mental health, and made recommendations for support groups that are friendly for gay people.
I have tried other parlor games with ChatGPT; I’ve played The Dating Game (in the style of “Whose line is it, anyway?”), and even Cards Against Humanity. I’m thinking of marketing that last one, maybe I’ll call it ChatGPT Against Humanity. Interestingly, ChatGPT thinks this is a good idea for a name.
