"Chireullegi Nalgaejit-e Haruhae Jeomulgo"... Japanese AI Creating Poetry Emerges, Literary World 'Sulreong'

Reaching a Level Indistinguishable from Human-Written Poetry
Potential for AI vs. Human Copyright Disputes and Plagiarism Controversies

“The day fades away to the chirping of sparrows’ wings,” “I step out with an umbrella, and autumn rain falls.”

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) that composes Japanese fixed-form poetry called 'Haiku' is causing a stir in the Japanese literary world. It has rapidly advanced beyond merely combining and arranging words, reaching a stage where it is indistinguishable from poems written by human poets. Even in the literary world, where it was believed AI could not easily replace humans, a sense of crisis is beginning to emerge, urging preparation for future copyright disputes.

On the 26th, the Mainichi Shimbun introduced 'AI Issa-kun' through an editorial by literary critic Hiroshi Kuribayashi. The AI named Issa, developed by Hokkaido Institute of Technology, takes its name from Kobayashi Issa, a representative poet of the Edo period. This AI, born through a demo version in 2017, initially only outputted meaningless word combinations, but now composes poems indistinguishable from those recited by humans.

Image of 'AI Issagun'. (Photo by Harmo Lab website)

Last November, a poetry gathering was held inviting this AI Issa-kun. At the gathering, 23 human participants and Issa-kun exchanged seven-line verses, selecting the best seven-line verses from each other. As a result, the top ranks were all poems written by humans, but two poems submitted by Issa-kun each received one vote and were awarded.

Furthermore, when all participants were asked to pick out works that seemed to be written by AI, only two verses were correctly identified as AI-written by humans. Conversely, more than 30 verses written by humans were mistakenly guessed to be AI-written. It has become practically difficult to distinguish between human and AI works.

In the Japanese literary world, optimistic views such as “Poems written by AI are out of the question” and “It is not yet a threat to humans” prevail. Kuribayashi said, “Although the majority still respond that poetry is composed by humans, if AI develops its abilities further and even starts to critique, the way people enjoy poetry might change.”

Creative poems randomly posted by AI Issagun on his social networking service (SNS). (Photo by AI Issagun Twitter account)

However, Kuribayashi expressed concern that new copyright disputes are likely to arise in the literary world due to AI poets. Under current Japanese law, works created by AI do not generate copyright. However, if a human refines and publishes AI-created haiku and creativity is recognized in this process, disputes may arise over whether the human or the AI holds the copyright.

Since AI can generate a large volume of poetic verses in a short time, humans are increasingly at risk of being embroiled in plagiarism disputes. This could happen if AI produces millions of verses and publishes them. Because AI creates poems by combining various words, it is highly likely that future verses or similar structures recited by humans are included. If a human poet unknowingly publishes a similar poem and wins an award, a malicious AI administrator might demand the award be revoked by citing their own case.

Kuribayashi added, “Issa-kun, which advocates harmony with humans as its ideal, has no such worries, but if such incidents occur, the literary world will be ruined.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.