Tyler Cowen Shares Astra-Generated Poem Written in the Style of Rilke
Key Takeaways
- •Economist Tyler Cowen prompted Google's Astra to write a Rilke-style German poem and published the single unedited result.
- •Astra is Google DeepMind's multimodal AI assistant capable of processing and responding to text, audio, and video in real time.
- •The AI produced a German-language poem titled 'Die Hand im Schlaf' ('The Hand in Sleep') on the first prompt.
- •Rilke's work is a common benchmark for testing whether AI can produce stylistically faithful verse rather than generic output.
- •The 'no cherry-picking' framing addresses skepticism that impressive AI outputs are selected from many attempts, though the result's artistic merit remains open to interpretation.
Economist Tyler Cowen, writing at Marginal Revolution, demonstrated the creative capabilities of Google's Astra by prompting it to write poetry — with, as he noted, "one prompt, no cherry-picking."
Astra is Google DeepMind's AI assistant, unveiled by the company as a multimodal agent designed to process and respond to text, audio, and video in real time. Cowen, an economist at George Mason University who frequently tests and comments on frontier AI models at Marginal Revolution, used the demo as a live test of how far the model's generative range extends beyond conventional tasks.
The prompt he gave was: "Now a short poem in the style of the very best Rilke, in German:"
Astra responded with the following German-language poem, titled "Die Hand im Schlaf" ("The Hand in Sleep"):
Nun liegt sie offen. Alles, was sie hielt,
ist in die eigne Schware heimgekehrt.
Nur eine kleine Höhlung bleibt,
als hätte ein Vogel hier geruht
und sie gelehrt,
auch das Entwichene noch zu umgeben,
behutsam, ohne Wunsch nach Wiederkehr.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was an Austrian poet widely regarded as one of the most significant German-language writers of the twentieth century, known for his lyrical, contemplative style. His poems, marked by precise imagery and themes of transience, remain a common benchmark for testing whether AI systems can produce stylistically faithful verse rather than generic output — making him a natural choice for this kind of one-shot creative experiment.
The "no cherry-picking" caveat speaks to a recurring debate around AI-generated art: skeptics often note that impressive samples may be selected from many attempts. Publishing a single, unedited response on the first prompt sidesteps that objection, at least anecdotally. Whether such outputs constitute genuine stylistic mastery or skilled imitation of Rilke's idiom remains a matter of interpretation.
Source: Marginal Revolution
