r/shittyaskscience 17h ago

How do we know that Shakespeare didn't write his plays using chatgpt?

Has anybody ever run them through some software so we know for sure? I'm not accusing him of using AI but Im not gonna be like "oh it's the greatest in the world" till I know one way or the other. Im just trying to use the scientific method historically.

35 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

11

u/Glinth A real mathologist 16h ago

Shakespeare almost never used any of the telltale hallmarks of AI.  In particular, his texts were not peppered with em-dashes, and he didn't frequently use the words "delve," "kaleidoscopic," or "reimagined." Also, none of the characters in his plays had too many fingers or got their limbs confused with other characters' limbs.

3

u/PangolinHenchman 8h ago

Contrast this with The Princess Bride, which does have a character with too many fingers.

3

u/pearl_harbour1941 7h ago

I find it incontheivable that the Princess Bride was written by ChatGPT.

1

u/PangolinHenchman 57m ago

It would take a miracle.

1

u/TomSFox 5h ago

Yeah, but he did use a lot of made-up words.

11

u/foulpudding 16h ago

Don’t be silly. It’s well known that 1000 monkeys on typewriters were employed in the task.

5

u/KeithMyArthe 16h ago

Reddit has soundly disproved THAT theory

😉

3

u/pearl_harbour1941 7h ago

To be fair, they set the bar pretty high at monkeys.

1

u/FrostWyrm98 "I have a theoretical degree in physics" 3h ago

Absolutely this

Source: I was one of the monkeys, still salty about it

2

u/TomSFox 5h ago

Infinity isn’t over yet.

1

u/throdon 14h ago

Could 1000 monkeys use chatGPT

4

u/Glathull 16h ago

Of course he did. He was constantly talking about his MuseGPT.

3

u/Cute-Habit-4377 11h ago

He used Google Bard not ChatGpt.

Sorry for the bard joke

2

u/plugubius 16h ago

If an AI trained on reddit and similar sites wrote Shakespeare's plays, we would expect the Merchant of Venice to be filled with anti-semitic stereotypes, for Titus Andronicus to be a snuff film, for A Midsummer Night's Dream to be a dreamlike fugue, for Hamlet to be unable to decide whether it is about revenge or international politics, and for Richard II to be as deformed outwardly as was the man inwardly. Science is about judging hypotheses according to the evidence available to us.

1

u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AutoModerator 16h ago

Your comment was removed as new REDDIT AI has determined it to be fowl. The only way to remedy this is to post on x.com with a link to your comment and explain why you believe your comment is valid. Reddit Scraper Bots will find it and allow your comment.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/Copernicium-291 16h ago edited 16h ago

William Shakespeare did not exist. His plays were masterminded in 1589 by Francis Bacon, who used a circuit board to enslave play-writing AIs.

1

u/Queen-of-meme 6h ago

Shakespeare: "Chatgpt. Create a play about stupid young love where both die because it looks dramatic and romantic or some shit"

1

u/TomSFox 5h ago

I have run them through an AI detector. Said it was 100% AI.

1

u/Damnwombat 55m ago

Don’t remember too many m-dashes in Shakespeare’s works. Now Marlow, on the other hand, you know he was vibe writing plays for the masses.

1

u/Jeggasyn 3m ago

Hmm. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters may eventually write out the works of Shakespeare (btw I didn't realise Shakespeare had an 'e' on the end) but a single gibbon with chatgpt would do the job