Exploring the Power of Critique in Poetry: A Comparative Study of Literary Authors and Artificial Intelligence Through Lexical and Referential Semantic Analysis

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has enabled machines to perform tasks traditionally carried out by humans, including the creation of written works such as poetry. Exploring the emotional power, aesthetic dimensions, and embedded meanings contained in poetry generated by AI offers a compelling basis for comparison with poetry by human authors. This research aims to assess and compare the critical strength of poetry generated by AI (Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT) with that of literary works, using a sample of social criticism-themed poetry by W.S. Rendra, Wiji Thukul, and Gus Mus. It employs descriptive research with a comparative approach using lexical and referential semantic methods. The findings reveal that the social criticism poetry of W.S. Rendra, Wiji Thukul, and Gus Mus possesses a deeper and sharper critical and emotional strength compared to that created by AI (Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT). The poetry by AI is unable to surpass the emotional power of humans. Although the themes of the poetry requested in the three AI applications are pretty complex and detailed, the results sometimes deviate from expectations. The language and diction used tend to be generic and occasionally irrelevant, which affects the meaning of the poetry, particularly in terms of lexical and referential meanings.