So much fuss around artificial intelligence, and at the slightest request it went pffft. A few days ago, Ubiratan Brasil, in O Estado de S. Paulo, accessed ChatGPT, an AI tool that boasts of reproducing the style of any writer, and challenged him to write texts in the manner of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Clarice Lispector and Rubem Fonseca. And, just like at school, he chose the topic of his essay: violence against teachers and students in the classroom.
The chat went back two steps and advanced a few more. He admitted that it was difficult to surmise how these writers “would tackle such a specific subject,” but he was willing to give it a try. The result was texts of high school platitude, unworthy of Drummond, Clarice and Zé Rubem, and far removed from the originals in terms of style.
I recognize that these writers are difficult to imitate, unlike, say, Nelson Rodrigues, Guimarães Rosa and Carlos Heitor Cony. Due to their exceptionally striking verbal universe, diction and rhythm, Nelson, Rosa and Cony are easy to copy — just as, with just two or three props, anyone can dress up as Groucho Marx, Carmen Miranda and Carlitos. It’s difficult to penetrate a writer’s head, predict his instabilities, intuit his moods.
In the past, famous mediums “psychographed” the deceased Olavo Bilac, Humberto de Campos and Noel Rosa. But the respective poems, chronicles and sambas that their ectoplasm produced only proved that dying is bad for writing well.
As for me, I’m cool. ChatGTP will be able to ape my tics and verbal quirks. But if you venture to produce a biography, I want to see you go out and interview 200 sources live, four or five times each, for a total of nearly a thousand interviews; check the information, organize it coherently and then put it on paper in a clear, objective and truthful way. The rest I leave.
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#ChatGPT #pffft #Ruy #Castro