Artificial or Real? That Is the Question

Researchers at IBM Research Australia, the University of Toronto and the University of Melbourne used an artificial intelligence (AI) bot to analyse more than 2600 sonnets by William Shakespeare. They then asked the AI to use what it had ‘learnt’ to create its own poem. Can you tell which of the two stanzas below was penned by the Bard and which one was written by a machine?

A: With joyous gambols gay and still array

No longer when he twas, while in his day

At first to pass in all delightful ways

Around him, charming and of all his days

B: Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste

The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste