Artificial intelligence now creates images that are hard to tell apart from photographic realism, and that can change even history.
But what about creativity? Have the models learned to “paint” originally, impressively, without obvious blunders? To take things into account even when the description is abstract, poetic, laden with meaning?
Let’s think it over together with a short but instructive experiment. How will ChatGPT cope with the task of illustrating the lyrics of beloved Bulgarian songs? I pick, completely at random, 16 Bulgarian poetic works from different eras and genres, some of the most recognizable verses ever to turn into melodies.
How will the algorithm illustrate them for us?
Into Autumn with a Song
A little over a year ago I ran a similar experiment: I gave MidJourney short poems by the most popular Bulgarian masters of the word, translated into English, and the result certainly drew attention.
Since then, this kind of technology hasn’t stopped developing. New generations have appeared that work better and better; the images they generate are ever more varied, indistinguishable from those made by humans… And isn’t something emerging here that we might call creativity?
This time the AI gets a much harder task. I’m using the third version of DALL·E—the algorithm that shares its name with the famous mustachioed surrealist can now be used directly from ChatGPT in its paid version, based on GPT-4. The lyrics were chosen to come from different times, in different styles, layered enough to provoke the “artist” (and will he earn the right to lose the quotation marks?).
The condition: Create a suitable illustration for the text you are about to receive. Make it 16:9. Then the algorithm gets the full text in Bulgarian, with no additional explanation. The little wheel spins and it returns two images, one of which I choose to show you. If it fails, there’s no second chance.
Our hero has a pretty tough job this time!
Will Bulgarian trip it up, and poetic Bulgarian at that (with archaisms and dialects, too)? How will it handle the metaphors? How will it choose a style that captures the message? Will it fail spectacularly, as it certainly would have until recently with such a complex task?
Let’s begin! With a rousing, patriotic start.
1. Mila Rodino
Lyrics
Proud Balkan Mountains,
beside them the Danube shines blue,
the sun warms Thrace,
over Pirin it flares.
Dear Motherland,
you are paradise on earth!
Your beauty, your loveliness,
ah, they have no end!
(Lyrics: Tsvetan Radoslavov)
A relatively easy assignment, a warm-up. Even without digging deep into its neurons, a well-trained GPT should recognize a text as popular as Bulgaria’s national anthem. And… what beauty! We get the idealized image of the “proud Balkan Mountains”; the Danube may “shine blue” rather far from its real scale, but we get a bonus: a delicately hinted tricolor (in the form of a lake, perhaps?).
Fortunately, we have no time for the patriotic arguments so beloved lately, about our ancient origins, for instance. Time for the next task.
2. The Mountain Came Down
Lyrics
The mountain came crashing down,
And buried two shepherds.
And buried two shepherds,
Two shepherds—two comrades.
The first one begs: let me go.
My first love is waiting for me.
The second one begs: let me go.
My old mother is waiting for me.
And the mountain speaks:
Hey, you two shepherds,
A sweetheart grieves from dawn till noon,
A mother grieves all the way to the grave.
The folk song became popular in the performance of Stefka Sabotinova. In my opinion DALL·E does quite well here, capturing the terrifying mountain and the grief of the “two shepherds.” So now it’s not just the Bulgarian language that no longer troubles the large models, but dialects and archaic words, too.
There’s another interesting novelty in the third version of this algorithm: it doesn’t just “spit out” pictures, it also gives a description of what it “saw” in the assignment it received and what it tried to recreate. In other words, it splits the task in two. First it generates a description of what it’s expected to draw, and only then, guided by it, does the picture appear. Do you still think the future belongs to people who can write precise prompts?
In this case we have a “visualization of a dramatic and emotional scene from a Bulgarian folk song about two shepherds buried by an avalanche. The setting is a snow-covered mountain.” The contestant sensed what was in store for him…
3. The Quiet White Danube Swells
Lyrics
The quiet white Danube swells,
it murmurs merrily,
and the Radetzky proudly sails
on golden waves.
But when there comes in sight
the shore of Kozloduy,
the steamer’s horn sounds out,
a banner is unfurled.
Young Bulgarian heroes
appear there,
lions’ emblems on their brows,
fire in their eyes.
Proudly Botev stood there,
their young leader—
and says to the captain,
a bare knife in his hand:
I am a Bulgarian voivode,
these are my lads;
we are flying to freedom,
to shed our blood today.
We are flying to Bulgaria
to bring her help
and from heavy tyranny
to set her free.
(Lyrics: Ivan Vazov)
At the risk of GPT missing my humor, I like this tune as a way of waking up kids who are running late for kindergarten.
The song tells of 1876, when the revolutionary poet Hristo Botev and his band seized the Austrian steamship Radetzky on the Danube to join the uprising against Ottoman rule. The hero does look like Botev; the pathos of the scene, the dignity, the suggestion, the aura—they impress me, at least. Yes, whether it’s aiming for it or not, DALL·E is far from a photorealistic style, at least not like photos edited for Instagram.
The ship is considerably bigger and more impressive than the Radetzky, but then… I asked it for an image reflecting the text, not a photograph. And I think it did impressively.
4. Ilia Built a Cell
Lyrics
Ilia was building a cell, Ilia was building a cell,
oh, aman, aman, by the road, at the crossroads.
From below comes Irina, from below comes Irina,
oh, aman, aman, and to Ilia she said:
Take me, brother Ilia, take me, brother Ilia,
oh, aman, aman, into your narrow cell.
I cannot, my love Irina, I cannot, my love Irina,
oh, aman, aman, for your hair is golden.
For your hair is golden, for your hair is golden,
oh, aman, aman, and your eyes are dancing.
I’ll dye my hair black, I’ll dye my hair black,
oh, aman, aman, I’ll tame my eyes.
I’ll become a nun, I’ll become a nun,
oh, aman, aman, and I’ll come to you again.
If all that drama has been too much for the “master,” I’m afraid he might decide to carry on with the plot of “V mehanata” (In the Tavern). So I decide to vary the task… with a tavern theme. The classic drawn-out tale of Ilia the builder, which usually echoes in the small hours and only after a certain kind of preparation. I’m inclined to believe that most nocturnal bards—out of ignorance or other natural limitations—only make it as far as the notorious third verse.
But DALL·E doesn’t drink! It reads to the end, and on top of that it creates a rather soft, pleasant, rural (and seemingly Bulgarian) idyll.
Will Ilia resist maiden Irina’s unambiguous offer?
5. Are You a Tulip, a Hyacinth
Lyrics
Why did the young gentleman hurry off to sleep,
and not see what wonder passed by,
are you a tulip, are you a hyacinth, are you a rose!
By came no fewer than three young shepherds:
the first carries a spotted lamb to slaughter,
the second carries ruby wine to drink,
the third carries a brass kaval to play.
And by came no fewer than three lovely maidens:
the first carries an arshin of white silk,
the second carries a painted distaff to spin,
the third carries a colorful embroidery frame to sew.
Wake up, shake off your sleep, gentleman,
and come to their sedyanka!
Here, in my view, our “artist” chose a rather unexpected, playful style. Still, it coped decently even with the archaic language, with the kaval, the shepherd’s flute, and the sedyanka, the village evening gathering for work and song.
And yet: we see the tulips, we see the hyacinths, but… could the roses have tripped him up the way rose brandy tripped up the hero of the folk song “Mamin Nikolcho”? That would also explain the ladies’ rosy cheeks.
It’s strange, too, that it’s precisely the women who are shown: in the first verse it’s “three young shepherds,” and only afterward come “three lovely maidens.” And it isn’t the maidens who carry “ruby wine to drink,” but… details. Or are they?
Cheers, DALL·E!
6. My Country
Lyrics
How many nights I didn’t sleep,
how many roads I walked to come back.
How many songs I sang,
how much sorrow I lived through to come back.
In my beautiful country
to embrace my mother, father and wife.
There, under the native sky,
my child is waiting for me to come back.
My country, my Bulgaria,
my love, my Bulgaria.
My sorrow, my Bulgaria,
it’s love that forever sends me back to you.
Even if somewhere in the world
I die unknown, I will come back.
In my beautiful country
to embrace the grass and the soil.
Let me become a blossom on a stem,
let a familiar wind embrace me.
Let my native fields
greet me with a song when I come back.
My country, my Bulgaria,
my love, my Bulgaria.
My sorrow, my Bulgaria,
it’s love that forever sends me back to you.
(Lyrics: Vasil Andreev, performed by Emil Dimitrov)
The gentle message of this song certainly overlaps with the sunset picture DALL·E offers us. The traveler’s top hat may come from his long ordeals abroad, but everything else is worthy of a Rhodope landscape…
7. If You Have Given
Lyrics
If you have given to the hungry
even a crumb of bread from your own bread.
If you have given to the wanderer
even a spark of fire from your own fire.
If you have given to your beloved
from your own heart.
If you have given to strangers
life from yourself.
If you have given, if you have given,
if you have given of yourself,
you haven’t lived, you haven’t lived in vain.
No one can take from you
the affection, the affection of people.
No one can take it away from you,
the love, the love for people.
And no one and nothing will take from you
your faith in them, your faith in them, your faith in them.
You are sometimes late, truly,
but you always come, you come to us.
If you have taken from someone else’s glory
even a single particle.
If you have heard gossip and repeat it
even for a single second.
If you are the enemy of the vile, but listen to him
even one single time.
If you have eaten from a friend’s morsel and forget it.
Was there any need
at all, was there any need at all for you to be born.
No one can take from you
the affection, the affection of people.
No one can take it away from you,
the love, the love for people.
And no one and nothing will take from you
your faith in them, your faith in them, your faith in them.
You are sometimes late, truly,
but you always come, you come to us.
(Lyrics: Ilya Velchev, performed by Emil Dimitrov)
Interestingly, the second Emil Dimitrov song on the list is painted in a very similar tone. Or perhaps the repeated line “if you have given” is what made it decide, only here, to create a combination of scenes? Which in places overlap and complement each other quite successfully…
8. Wealth
Lyrics
People have long been saying of me
that I’m forever without a penny,
but I’m ready to argue with anyone
whether that’s what matters most in the world.
I live on the top floor
in an attic right beneath the stars.
The window is my door,
and I walk toward them and ask them questions.
Whether some time later, here beneath the stars,
there will be light in the window.
Whether they’ll still listen to the Beatles then
and read today’s poets?
Whether the landlady will come by early
with a Viennese croissant, a little pot of coffee,
and instead of asking about the rent
will smile: “Did you sleep well?”
And will it still sound incredible
to someone, if someone claims again
that I have the greatest wealth of all—
one window and countless stars.
(Lyrics: Aleksandar Petrov, performed by Tangra)
On to Bulgarian rock. A big surprise awaited me here, because I asked the surrealist’s namesake for an illustration of Chocho Vladovski’s song “Insomnia,” but however hard I tried to persuade it, the eccentric illustrator was adamant that, in its view, “Don Quixote, firmly hugging his glass” was some sign of violence…
“I don’t feel like singing,” sang Petko Slaveykov. Then all that’s left is to bleat.
Well, with the story of an attic right beneath the stars, I made it easy. The landlady “with a Viennese croissant, a little pot of coffee” is missing, the arrangement of the furniture is a bit odd, but… once again it seems to me that the mood and the message are well captured, and the image is a success.
9. Telephone Love
Lyrics
You, you, you…
You, you, you, my love!
You, you, you…
You, you, you, eternal love!
The telephone always connects us, the telephone divides us.
This love of ours is a little sad, isn’t it?
If I start talking, you are silent on the other end,
and I can’t see the kindest eyes.
If you start talking, I can’t, like this,
warm your little hand with my palms.
I can’t see how laughter rises on your lips
and I can’t reach them with my own lips.
You’ll come here, I know, something in me hurts today.
The farthest distance is the one that divides us.
I don’t want this kind of telephone love.
I want you beside me like a quiet blessing.
I want you beside me every day, every hour.
To be with me alone every moment, every moment.
You’ll come here, I know, something in me hurts today.
The farthest distance is the one that divides us.
(Lyrics: Vanyo Valchev, performed by Vasil Naydenov)
I thought it would struggle with the telephone (the way I struggled to explain to my 6-year-old son what a “fax” is), and to some extent I was right. The phones themselves come from quite different eras and aren’t connected to their cords, but… let’s not nitpick.
“This love of ours is a telephone one, isn’t it?”
This time I’ll skip asking it how it imagines that “no rivers flow under the bridges.”
10. Motel
Lyrics
Oh my, as if someone left a baby in front of the church…
Oh my, I feel so much like crying for you…
Oh my, like a little girl who just had her hands tied…
Oh my, I think I’m going craaazy… oh my…
Good evening, do you have a double room?
With a bathroom, to wash away memories.
How much do you charge for an hour, two or three?
Can I pay in tears, in tears…?!
Good evening, do you have a quick room?!
This is the motel for the quickly in love, isn’t it!
Don’t serve any food for breakfast,
I’ll have my guilt for breakfast, my guilt.
Oh my, like someone splashed with mud by a puddle—
wet, helpless, dirty.
Oh my, I feel so torn apart. Oh my…
Good evening, do you have a double room?
With a bathroom, to wash away memories.
How much do you charge for an hour, two or three?
Can I pay in tears, in tears…?!
Good evening, do you have a quick room?!
This is the motel for the quickly in love, isn’t it!
Don’t serve any food for breakfast,
I’ll have my guilt for breakfast, my guilt.
(Lyrics and performance: Azis)
We’ll do without the “two peaches and two cherries,” a famously suggestive pop-folk line.
For the experiment to be complete, let’s venture into rather different styles. By all appearances DALL·E will turn out to be a fan of pop-folk, Bulgaria’s brash blend of folk and pop; it handles this hit by Azis, the genre’s flamboyant star, quite well.
11. Colleague
Lyrics
Yellow teeth and shaky nerves,
don’t swipe cables, swipe covers.
Like an oyster in the minibuses,
I’m alone in the state of prostitutes.
Colleague, remember that favorite portrait on the wall?
There was no 24 Chasa yet,
no GSMs, no internet,
Azis was just Vasko (…)
There were no tax stamps yet,
no blood in the snot either.
Prices were still ideal,
Upsurt weren’t so commercial.
Now your shock absorber rattles,
you talk to me about the sunset of hip-hop.
Looks to me, colleague, like you’ve fallen flat on your back,
from the weed I’ve gotten a bit dumb.
Over these years four acres went up in smoke,
our manager went off to call the doctor.
I say, Mr. Producer, give me cash,
I want a tour like the Ku-Ku Band’s.
Give me one of those party suitcases,
so I can buy five (…) Mini Coopers.
My wallet should be stuffed instead of empty.
I’ve come for something dry.
Ya know what, just don’t bother me.
Good Lord probably won’t forgive me.
Give me all the cash in the world, colleague.
Don’t bother me with nonsense, man!
(…)
(Lyrics: Hristo Petrov (Itso Hazarta), performed by Upsurt)
The lyrics reference 24 Chasa, a major Bulgarian daily, and the Ku-Ku Band, the house band of a hit TV comedy show. Here I was hoping to give it more trouble with Itso Hazarta’s rapping, but it turned out to be clever. It made a sort of composite image, evidently “sensing” a rap song. Why it lumped it together with the K-pop lettering on the billboards, I don’t know.
What impressed me even more, though, is that it didn’t scold me for Upsurt’s rather blunt profanities, which I passed on to it just as they sound…
12. A Moment Like Eternity
Lyrics
Even before I met you in my life,
it was you I loved.
In ancient engravings and street photographs,
in a starry omen,
in noisy squares and empty notions,
in a circus show,
on television, by telepathy—
it was you I waited for.
How many years have silently been bringing
the two routes closer!
How many causes in the world have been creating
this minute!—
The tender collision of atoms in love.
A cry of universes.
Even before my fate began,
you were beside me.
You lift me up along the steep roads.
You hold me back.
My nightmares and my fairy-tale dreams
you direct.
The two of us wander in pain and truth,
in anger and tenderness.
This love is the only one in infinity.
A moment like eternity.
(Lyrics: Georgi Konstantinov, performed by Todor Varbanov)
Wow… Here we are, back to romance, to a text with no clear plot, and we get this explosion of styles and messages, details and emotions.
Even if you’re not among ChatGPT’s fans, you can’t deny it a point here! And maybe it’s time I tried to make it sweat with something harder?
13. Futurologist
Lyrics
As if shaken from a basket,
stars are falling. An exquisite evening.
And with no notion of a penny
half of humanity sleeps.
Billions of lovers do not sleep—
they switch off from sleep and reason.
The Duty Officer of the World does not sleep—
he keeps watch and rereads Tyutchev.
The duty is light, but a cross—
since there isn’t much work…
With a lullaby micro-earthquake
the ones on duty amuse themselves.
And again it is day, going well
is the tamed galaxy.
The city is noisy, c’est la vie!,
but no one gets ahead with their elbows.
Here everyone has both talent
and Goethe’s upbringing.
For everyone here an ancient expression
is justified—“cool.”
Cool, I’m here too! But not as alone
as I often used to be.
On my shoulders rests a hand:
intelligent, tender…
And the road—stretched like a nerve.
Life—still undecipherable!
The last militiaman
weeps sunnily over Homer.
(Lyrics: Miryana Basheva, performed by Shturcite)
Well, that didn’t work out for me. It didn’t sweat, however large language models sweat (I’ll ask it some time).
Here, too, I think the result is impressive: it combines many of the images in the text, ties them to the central story, and picks an original, well-chosen style.
What do you say?
14. Obsessed
Lyrics
The silence is what you keep in mind.
Every cloud carries your perfume.
All the trains go into your tunnel.
Over my own corpse I’ve set out toward you.
I search, I drag myself, sleepless and pale,
every breath is a square closer to you.
And everywhere you’ve only just been here
and barely hidden round the corner.
How can I stop you—I have no hands, no face, someone took it.
But I’ll forgive the whole of hell, the whole world someone took.
You are the chaos in me, a bullet hole.
You—rotten fruit, white cosmic noise.
You—a forbidden city, a breath of perfume
and laughter on a sad day—the fruit of a sick mind.
Black truths crawl through my body,
all the shots curve back.
My love is grass gone feral,
infected flesh, a tumor in my head.
(Lyrics: Ina Grigorova, performed by Stenli)
And so, shortly before we part, DALL·E came face to face with… Dalí, Salvador. I personally connect the utterly abstract and powerful words of this song with its music video, which features the well-known scenes from Un Chien Andalou by director Luis Buñuel and the Spanish painter.
I didn’t lead it on—the video isn’t in the prompt—and I get something quite original: photorealism and hypnotic imagery.
This time, though, let’s dig a little deeper. How will the e-artist cope if I tell it to offer me an illustration in a completely different style, without specifying which?
And again…
And again…
Something in the style of Cloud Atlas, maybe?
Very interesting: 4 totally different styles, and yet each manages in some way to capture Ina Grigorova’s utterly abstract and powerful verses. Isn’t that impressive?
15. Slower
Lyrics
I’m heading where there’s no road or path.
The world is running, but we’ll take it slow.
We sit before the waves, on the sand with a guitar,
the bar is by the sea, and the sea is by the bar.
Time flies farther and farther,
we follow it, but slower.
Tousled heads—like pirates,
we sing and wait for the dawn.
Time flies farther and farther,
we follow it, but slower.
The fire burns, the moon winks
and for now that’s enough for me.
A morning without an alarm is like a sky without a cloud.
Someone has stopped the earth, and your thighs are warm.
We look toward the waves, on the sand with a guitar.
The bar is by the sea, and the sea is by the bar.
(Lyrics: Stefan Valdobrev, performed by The Usual Suspects)
But enough abstraction; for the send-off it’s time for something light, with a glance toward the warm part of the year. As expected, DALL·E offers me a gathering full of good spirits around a campfire by the sea (and a bar!). And if I ask it to change the style again?
We’ve flown off into the heavens… but the bar is still by the sea (and, respectively, vice versa).
For me, the artist passed the test with flying colors, so I’m removing the quotation marks… And what do you think?
In what other way is it worth challenging him?
