When I was at school, I was fortunate enough to have an excellent English teacher, Tim Cornish. What made him exceptional was his ability to bring literature to life for a group of schoolboys, which is indeed a gift.
One of the poets he introduced us to was Wilfred Owen. This has led me to a lifetime interest in the work of this great poet. He could articulate the graphic and horrific scenes that confronted him on the Western Front during the First World War.
I'm not certain where it came from, but I had a lightbulb moment: what if I used one of Owen's poems as a prompt for ChatGPT?
ChatGPT gave me a list of Owen’s poems from which I selected, and this is what I got:
Dulce et Decorum Est:
Exposure:
The Sentry:
Strange Meeting:
Owen's skill with words translated into the most vivid pictures. One art form is converted into another: It's quite remarkable.
It added to my impression that AI vision has come a long way. Furthermore, it made me wonder whether ChatGPT's ability to interpret images had improved too.
Taking a picture of a red, amber, and green risk report, I asked ChatGPT to explain what it was seeing. My previous blog is the result: https://www.barbicanconsulting.co.uk/post/red-amber-green-gpt-4-does-risk
It is odd how the mind works; my classroom experiences of Owen's poems led to prompting a picture that then led to analysing risk through vision. I never would have thought that my English lessons all those years ago would have helped me do this. It's inconceivable.
It's also an example of where mental mindsets are extremely valuable in tackling problems, and AI has been able to facilitate this.
That's why there will be many discoveries that are beneficial to mankind over the coming years, arising from connections that AI can help us make, a Strange Meeting.