Weirding AI: Fine tuning and RAG for Poets & Artists
This 2-day workshop invites participants to explore the intersection of AI-generated poetry and queer poetics, crafting their own fine-tuned, AI-driven poetic voices. Rather than simply prompting a language model, participants will engage in the deeper creative act of designing the datasets that shape AI’s expressive potential—curating its tone, constraints, and poetic identity.
We’ll examine AI as an uncanny poetic collaborator, situating our work within a lineage of algorithmic writing that spans Markov chains, Oulipo constraints, and contemporary LLMs. Through hands-on experimentation, we’ll move beyond surface-level AI generation to explore fine-tuning and dataset curation as a form of authorship, uncovering how AI can serve as an extension of poetic intention, surprise, and enchantment.
Concepts We’ll Explore:
- AI & Divination: Generative text as a form of oracular revelation (Tarot, automatic writing, AI as an unpredictable mirror)
- The Psychedelics of AI: The uncanny, the surreal, and the queerness of probabilistic meaning
- Poetic Constraint vs. AI Uncanniness: What happens when we design the constraints rather than just generate text?
- Performance, Theatricality & AI: What does it mean to create an AI with a persona? How do we perform with machines?
- Fine-Tuning vs. Prompt Engineering: The difference between curating a dataset vs. writing good prompts
This workshop is for poets, artists, and technologists eager to experiment with AI not just as a tool, but as a co-creator—one that challenges, surprises, and extends our sense of poetic authorship.
✰ Final Event: An Open Mic for Robots & Poets ✰ (Date TBA)
Join us to create, experiment, and perform at the boundary of human and machine-generated poetry.
Course Logistics
Dates: Saturday, March 29 + Sunday, March 30, 2025
Times: Saturday + Sunday, 1:00 – 4:00PM
(Total: 6 hours)
Location: Gray Area / Grand Theater – 2665 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Cost: $250
Scholarship: We also offer Diversity Scholarships.
Apply by March 15, 2025.
Experience Level: Beginner to advanced
Requirements:
• Participants only need to bring a PC or Mac laptop—no prior software installation is required. We’ll use browser-based tools like v0.dev, Google Colab, and Hugging Face, which should ensure accessibility without complicated setup.
Additional Information:
• No Refunds or Exchanges.
• View our FAQ here.
• Contact [email protected] with any questions.
Workshop Outline
- Algorithmic Poetics: How simple Markov models shaped early AI poetry
- LLM Instructions & Fine-Tuning: Customizing AI’s voice, tone, and poetic form
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): Using external sources to inform AI-generated poetry
- AI as Performance: Crafting personas, reading AI poetry aloud, and staging hybrid human-machine works
About Technologies
This workshop blends AI tools, development platforms, and creative writing techniques to help participants craft their own AI-driven poets.
- AI & Fine-Tuning
- GPT & Open-Source LLMs – For generating and shaping poetic text
- LoRA Fine-Tuning & RAG – Training AI on custom datasets to develop unique poetic voices
- Development Tools
- v0.dev – AI-assisted IDE for prototyping generative poetry
- Hugging Face & Google Colab – For accessing and fine-tuning AI models
- Data & Text Curation
- Google Sheets / Excel – Organizing poetic datasets
- Performance & Interaction
- Text-to-Speech & Voice Modulation – Bringing AI poetry into performance
Educational Goals
Participants will leave with:
- A functioning AI poet or companion, fine-tuned to their creative vision
- A methodology for curating datasets that shape AI-generated text
- A deeper understanding of the history of computational poetics, from Tzara’s Dadaist cut-ups to contemporary LLMs
- A critical engagement with AI’s role in voice, tone, and the hybridization of language
- Participation in an “Open Mic for Machines”, where AI-generated poetry is performed
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