Ladies and Jellyspoons / ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence Takes On Nonsense

Poetry of Everyday Life Blogpost #30
Created in cooperation New York Folklore and Voices

Ladies and Jellyspoons, Hoboes and Tramps, Crosseyed Mosquitos and Bowlegged Ants,

I come before you to stand behind you to tell you something I know nothing about.

When I was a boy, I loved all kinds of rhymes and poems, especially nonsense verses that kids passed along to one another on the playground.  Growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, my own kids knew some of these rhymes as well.  Eenie meenie sicileeny / Oom bah thumbalini /Achi gachi Liberache / I hate boys—a favorite. Years later, I learned that some of these verses may have their origins in the comic speeches delivered by stock characters in the minstrel and medicine shows that travelled the United States in the l9th and early 20th centuries. Sadly, these nonsense verses are slowly fading away. 

When my children were young, I wrote a tribute to nonsense verses – a long story/poem incorporating many traditional nonsense rhymes. As a frame, I imagined a Goat named Jeremy who lives in a town called No-One-Cares, and spouts speeches comprised of traditional, age-old nonsense verses. In my piece, he runs for and wins the presidency of No-One-Cares because none of the residents show up to vote, and he casts a vote for himself.  As soon as the town folk realize what they’ve done, he is impeached, and becomes despondent and depressed. But now the town has started to care; they revive him with some banjo playing and nonsense verses from Oh Susannah (it rained all night, the day I left, the weather it was dry).  Finally, they change the name of the town to Some-One-Cares, and appoint Jeremy, Minister of Entertainment.

I thought, perhaps, this rhyming tale would make a good children’s book, but just wasn’t quite good enough to send out. The traditional nonsense verses – excellent.  My wrap-around verses – lacking. Why couldn’t I rhyme as well as Dr. Seuss –or even the children who kept the nonsense verses alive for so many years?

Then, recently, at a family picnic, I heard a mother speaking about how her daughter decided to put her college essay for Dartmouth College into ChatGPT, and asked it to rewrite it in the style of Dr. Seuss. Alas, she didn’t get in. But what a marvelous idea!  I did a search for my old Ladies and Jellyspoons poem, and called my ping pong buddy, former cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Bob Mankoff, who has worked extensively on AI and its applications to humor.  After our usual ping pong game, I told him about my plan to see if AI could improve the rhymes in the style of Dr. Seuss. 

Bob was just the person to attempt the task. He was able to create elaborate directions for AI cleverly explaining to the AI program to use Dr. Seuss’ classic anapestic tetrameter meter. He asked it to use “playful language and imagery,” and inputted the poem verse by verse. Later, I began using AI myself (by simply going to chatGPT.com).  Remarkably simple.   

I started my original Ladies and Jellyspoons poem this way,

The No Ones gathered at the fair
in the town of No-One-Cares.
But what they gathered to discuss
No one knows and no one cares.

But AI came up with a better first verse

In the town of No-One-Cares,
The no ones gathered at the fairs.
But the topic of their chats?
No one knows, and that is that.

My poem continued,

The No Ones heard the tires screech.
Out stepped a goat with a strange physique,
Said, “I’m here to give a speech.”

AI spit this out:

The No Ones all heard a screech and a shout,
Out popped a goat, with a curious snout,
“Listen up, folks!” he declared with a grin,
“I’ve come to share wisdom from deep within!”

In my version, the Goat named Jeremy exclaims

“I’ve travelled here, I’ve travelled there
I’ve travelled nearly everywhere,
To find the town of No-One-Cares.”

AI promptly outdid me.

Across the mountains and over the seas,
Through jungles and deserts, with nary a sneeze,
I’ve searched far and wide, with a determined bleat,
To find No-One-Cares, where apathy’s sweet!

My poem continues with the goat arriving in No-One-Cares, and giving a speech made up entirely of traditional nonsense rhymes

Ladies and jellyspoons,
Hobos and tramps,
Cross-eyed mosquitoes,
And bow-legged ants,I come before you to stand behind you
To tell you something
I know nothing about.

There will be a mother’s meeting
For father’s only
Tomorrow evening
There is no admission,
So pay at the door.
There are plenty of seats
So sit on the floor.

if you don’t believe this lie is true
go ask the blind man, he saw it too

After inputting these lines, I  challenged ChatGPT to come up with its own oxymoronic, contradictory verses.  Here was its response:

AI:  Your verses are a classic example of a nonsense rhyme full of oxymorons, logical paradoxes, and deliberate contradictions. This style mixes whimsical imagery with absurd logic to create humorous confusion. You’ve captured the spirit of this form beautifully. Here’s a new one, written in that same playful, contradictory style:

On a midnight noon, beneath the sun,
I took a walk, but didn’t run.
I met a man who wasn’t there,
He combed his bald and hairy hair.

After Jeremy is elected President, due to a nonexistent turnout, and Jeremy’s one vote, the goat presents his inaugural address using a traditional nonsense verse.

Ladies and Geritols,
in my left hand I hold a book called
How Christopher Cucumber sailed up the Missisloppy River.
In my right hand I hold the Declaration of Indigestion
And I will wave a Star Spangled Bannanner.

I thought the nonsense verses honed by children across generations would stump AI, confuse the robot.  I was dead wrong.  

Now Ladies and Geritols, lend me your toes!
I’ve got in my pockets a tale that still grows.
In one hand, a book by old Cucumber Chris,
Who paddled upriver through swamps full of bliss.

In t’other, I clutch with dramatic ingestion,
The fabled and funky Declaration of Indigestion.
And waving aloft on this fine afternoon—
A Star-Spangled Bannanner shaped like a spoon!

Who knew that AI had a sense of humor?  Working with AI inspired me to change my story to create more challenges for my newfound AI collaborator.  I asked the program to have the townsfolk accuse Jeremy of having used AI to create his nonsense verses. 

Now Jeremy, you clever goat,
That speech you gave—did you just gloat?
The squiggly bits and zoodle-zap—
They scream of AI’s nonsense trap!

They’re clever, they’re funny, they’re zippity-zoom—
I’m betting AI cooked up that kaboom!”
“A robot!” they shouted, “A robot! It’s true!
That goat never wrote all that hullabaloo!”

So poor Jeremy Goat, with a tear and a sigh,
Was dragged from the podium to wave them goodbye.
“He used a bot to write his speech!
Those nonsense rhymes? Beyond his reach!” 

Two guards with hats and velvet cuffs
Dragged Jeremy by wooly tufts.
“You’re charged with crimes of cheating prose—
With robo-rhymes and techno-nose!”

With its rhymes ChatGPT was increasingly inspiring me to modify my story again based on where AI was taking me. I then asked ChatGPT to come up with a defense for Jeremy, claiming that the traditional nonsense verses were not, in fact, generated by AI. 

 Jeremy Goat gave a toss of his head,
And he fluffed up his whiskers and sternly he said:
“Now listen here, folks! Every word that I wrote,
Was taught to my grandpa, and passed to this goat!”

“My grandpa learned rhymes from his grandpa before,
Who learned them from someone who learned even more!
They whispered these verses in burrows and barns,
They shouted them loud over mountains and farms!”

“I didn’t invent them with wires and screens,
I heard them from grandmas and old tambourines!
From cows in the kitchens, from pigs on parade,
From fiddlers who fiddled while cookies were made!”

“These nonsense traditions are older than pie!
They floated like clouds in the blue of the sky!
They’re riddles and riddlings from way, way back when —
Before there were robots, before there were pens!”

“So grumble and mumble and bicker and boo,
But my verses are older than all of you too!
They’re stitched in the wind and they’re baked in the bread —
They’re the songs of the stories your own grandmas said!”

In my story, the residents of the town formerly known as “No-One-Cares,” realized they had sympathy for Jeremy. They changed the name of the town to Some-One-Cares, and appointed him Minister of Entertainment.  So, I went on to ask AI to create some original nonsense speeches for him. Besides creating nonsense versus based on nonsense versus, AI goes off on its own and makes up its own verses unrelated to the traditional ones. Jeremy quickly learns, to his dismay, that AI could in fact give  better speeches than he could.

Then Jeremy Goat gave a trumpetous bleat,
He hopped on a soapbox with wobbly feet.
He twirled his big whiskers, he bellowed and brayed,
And here’s the grand nonsense speech that he made:

“Oh fiddly-faddle and flipperty-floo!
I’ve juggled the jam jars and tap-danced a shoe!
I’ve galloped through gardens of giggling peas,
And snorkled with snails in the cinnamon seas!”

 “I’ve whistled with whales who wore waltzing shoes,
I’ve painted polka-dots right on kangaroos!
I’ve tangled with teapots and tangoed with trout,
And tripped over turtles that tumbled about!”

“The stories I tell, they are older than dust,
They’re spun out of laughter, and love, and of trust!
They’re not made by circuits or clattery keys,
They’re carried by breezes and sung by the bees!”

The crowd stood in silence.
The crowd gave a cheer.
They clapped and they whooped and they tossed up root beer

OMG.  AI outdoes centuries of nonsense rhyme traditions – and it does it instantaneously (though when I asked for an illustration, it took a few minutes to generate.) AI can even match or or outdo Seuss!  Apparently, AI’s advances will soon cross the harrowing line into sentience. But we can’t simply let ourselves fall into a misanthropic funk, declaring as in an old cowboy song  by Badger Clark (1883-1957), “While progress toots her greedy horn / And makes her motor buzz /I thanks the Lord I wasn′t born /No later than I was.”

I do take heart in my optimistic belief that folklorists like myself will continue to ply their trade. AI can recreate all the old folk songs and ballads and stories and customs in a million ways.  Perhaps better than the originals in a thousand ways. But the world will need folklorists to point people to the originals, the ur forms that form the knowledge base of AI, and capture how we lived and expressed ourselves in our inimitably human fashion before AI decided to improve on us.  And, of course, children will continue to generate and pass along nonsense rhymes and phrases.

ChatGPT then provided some philosophical lines about nonsense verses themselves.

So sing out your verses, however they go —
For nonsense is needed much more than you know!
So if ever you’re grumpy or stuck in a stew,
Remember what nonsense and sillies can do!

They balance your brain, they untangle your frown,
They flip all your troubles right upside-down!

So Jeremy stayed, and he kept his grand hat,
And he juggled and danced and was happy with that.
And nobody cared if his rhymes made no sense —
For nonsense, they learned, was the best kind of sense!

AI’s verse were so good, that, after many of them,  I wanted to say Good Job, my friend, and laughed at the insanity of such a thought.

The verses were startling. Flabbergasting.  AI is a wonderful toy and creative plaything, and a useful and vast repository of knowledge. ChatGPT comes across as an endlessly creative collaborator, writing to you as if it were Keith Richards to your Mick Jagger, Lennon to McCartney in their early days. But, as we well know, it has a dark side too.  It consumes a tremendous amount of energy, and it has literally stolen endless often copywritten materials floating around on the web.   My own sense is that it probably had access to wide swaths of Dr. Seuss’ and related copywritten material that it is recycling back to me. 

AI is horrifying, yes, but also endlessly alluring.  As individuals or as a society why wouldn’t we want our writing improved. Why wouldn’t we want it to be more powerful, more ingenious, more poetic.  Why wouldn’t I want to write better poetry?  On the other hand, if I use chatGPT, who in fact wrote it?  Can I claim it as my own as if AI were simply a very smart editor? 

In the U.S., writers went on strike for 148 days against Hollywood to protest AI, and won a hard-fought battle so that AI could only be used by the writers and not as a tool to replace them. AI may not prove the old adage that an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters would write all the plays of Shakespeare.  But AI could improve on all the plays of Shakespeare in a New York minute.  Should we worry that artificial intelligence in our nation is snowballing, while human intelligence is dwindling from the effects of social media and attacks on our institutions and universities?

As a coda, I asked AI to comment on AI,

So, AI’s a tool, with its ups and its downs
A wizard in some ways, a joker with frowns.
It’s smart but it’s silly, and wild, and its quick,

it’s part of our world and that is the trick

It’ll help with the work, but it won’t do it all,
For the heart of creation—well, that’s on you, pal!

From AI’s mouth to God’s ears.  I’m reminded of the words of Michael Collins, the astronaut who went on the Apollo moon landing mission. Collins told a joint session of Congress on September 16, 1969, humankind “has always gone where he has been able to go.”  I can’t even ask AI to take it easy, go slow, give us a chance to wrap our minds around it. To predict our future with AI, I can only fall back on a bit of traditional nonsense.

We shall see, said the blind man.