essay about homer iliad

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The Iliad recounts a brief but crucial period of the Trojan War, a conflict between the city of Troy and its allies against a confederation of Greek cities, collectively known as the Achaeans. The conflict began when Paris , the son of Troy’s king Priam , seized a willing Helen , the most beautiful woman in the world, from the Achaean king Menelaus . The Achaeans raised a massive army and sailed to Troy, bent on winning Helen back by force.

As the story begins, the war is in its ninth year. The Achaeans have recently sacked a nearby city, taking several beautiful women captive along with a lot of treasure. Chryses , a priest of Apollo from the sacked city, approaches the Achaean camp and asks Agamemnon , the leader of the Achaeans, to release his daughter, who is one of the captives, from slavery. Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays to Apollo to punish the Achaeans, and Apollo rains down a plague on the Achaean army.

The plague ravages the Achaean army. Desperate for an answer, the Achaeans ask the prophet Calchas about the plague’s cause. Calchas instructs Agamemnon to give back Chryses’ daughter. Agamemnon agrees reluctantly, but demands that he be given Briseis , the captive girl given to the warrior Achilles, as compensation. Achilles is enraged by Agamemnon’s demand and refuses to fight for Agamemnon any longer.

Achilles, the greatest of the Achaean fighters, desires revenge on Agamemnon. He calls to his mother Thetis, an immortal sea-nymph, and asks her to beseech Zeus to turn the tide of the war against the Achaeans. Since Achilles is fated to die a glorious death in battle, an Achaean collapse will help give Achilles glory, allowing him to come to their aid. Zeus assents to Thetis’ request.

On the battlefield, Paris and Menelaus agree to duel to end the war. Menelaus is victorious, but the Trojans break the agreement sworn to beforehand. The armies plunge into a battle that lasts several days. In the fighting, many soldiers distinguish themselves, including the Achaean Diomedes and Priam’s son Hector . The tide of battle turns several times, but the Trojan forces under Hector eventually push the Achaeans back to the fortifications they have built around their ships.

Meanwhile, a surrogate conflict is being waged between the gods on behalf of the Trojans and Achaeans. Athena , Hera , and Poseidon support the Achaean forces, while Apollo , Aphrodite , and Ares support the Trojans. As the battle rages on, the gods give strength and inspiration to their respective champions. Eventually Zeus, planning to shape the conflict by himself so that he may fulfill his promise to Thetis, bans intervention in the war by the other gods. Zeus helps engineer the Trojan advance against the Achaeans.

Under immense pressure, the elderly Achaean captain Nestor proposes that an embassy be sent to Achilles in order to convince him to return to battle. Achilles listens to their pleas but ultimately refuses, stating that he will not stir until the Trojans to attack his own ships. After a prolonged struggle, the Trojans finally break through the Achaean fortress, threatening to burn the ships and slaughter the Achaeans.

Achilles’ inseparable comrade Patroclus , fearing the destruction of the Achaean forces, asks Achilles if he can take his place in battle. Achilles eventually agrees, and as the first Achaean ship begins to burn, Patroclus leads out Achilles’ army, dressed in Achilles’ armor in order to frighten the Trojans. Patroclus fights excellently, and the Trojans are repulsed from the ships. However, Patroclus disobeys Achilles’ order to return after driving back the Trojans. He pursues the Trojans all the way to the gates of Troy. Zeus, planning this sequence of events all along, allows Apollo to knock Patroclus over. Hector then kills Patroclus as he lies on the ground, and a battle breaks out over Patroclus’ body. Hector strips Achilles’ armor from Patroclus, but Menelaus and others manage to save the body.

When Achilles learns of Patroclus’ death, he is stricken with grief. Desiring revenge on Hector and the Trojans, Achilles reconciles with Agamemnon. His mother Thetis visits the smith god Hephaestus , who forges new, superhuman armor for Achilles, along with a magnificent shield that depicts the entire world. Meanwhile, the Trojans camp outside their city’s walls, underestimating Achilles’ fury. The next day, Achilles dons his armor and launches into battle, slaughtering numerous Trojans on the plains of Troy. Achilles also fights the river god Xanthus , who becomes upset with Achilles for killing so many Trojans in his waters.

The Trojans flee from the rage of Achilles and hide inside the walls of Troy. Hector alone remains outside the wall, determined to stand fast against Achilles, but as Achilles approaches him, Hector loses his nerve and begins to run. Achilles chases Hector around the walls of Troy four times, but eventually Hector turns and faces Achilles. With the help of Athena, Achilles kills Hector. He attaches Hector’s corpse to his chariot and drags the body back to the Achaean camp as revenge for Patroclus’ death.

Achilles, still grieving, holds an elaborate funeral for Patroclus, which is followed by a series of commemorative athletic games. After the games, Achilles continues to drag Hector’s body around Patroclus’ corpse for nine days. The gods, wishing to see Hector buried properly, send Priam, escorted by Hermes , to ransom Hector’s body. Priam pleads with Achilles for mercy, asking Achilles to remember his own aging father. Achilles is moved by Priam’s entreaty and agrees to give back Hector’s body. Priam returns to Troy with Hector, and the Trojans grieve for their loss. A truce is declared while the Trojans bury Hector.

Traditional Epic Hero in Homer’s “The Iliad” Essay

A hero in the society can be defined as an individual who is admired and emulated by everyone because of his superior virtues and character that the culture or the society has. A Hero has virtues and attributes that are adored, valued and desired by many.

The ideals of a given culture are determined by the social –cultural conditions of a society or can also be greatly influenced by the views and the perceptions of the author. The motivations and the actions of a hero greatly determine the society view towards them.

The Iliad is one of the ancient literatures that date between 900 and 750 B.C. The events took place in the ancient Greek Bronze Age. During the time, the Greek region was filled with strife and there was need for strong men to provide defense to the community.

One of the heroic acts was to become a great warrior who feared nothing. In the Greek Dark Age, most of the rulers were the warrior class and they had to show the ability to defend the land and its populace.

In the Iliad, the two main heroic characters were Achilles and Hector. These two were drawn from the two main armies, that is, the Greek army and the Trojan army. These two warriors share some commonalities as well as differences (Samuel 5).

The two heroes share some common features that distinguish them as heroes. Both were great warriors from both sides. The two warriors were strong and had high confidence in themselves. During the duel between the two warriors, they were confident that they would beat each other. The two warriors were also men of honor and had pride.

Hector refused to retreat when ordered by his father Priam while Achilles decided to avenge the death of Patroclus . Both warriors also wanted glory and everyone to respect them. Another similarity is that both warriors are faithful to their family and friends. Achilles decides to forget his differences with the Agamemnon so as to avenge the death of his friend. He also wept bitterly for the loss of his friend Patroclus (Samuel 25).

The Ilaid also shows a number of differences between the two warriors. Prince hector is viewed as an epitome of the humane warrior and a fierce fighter. He is courageous and even fights the Greek giant Ajax. He is humane and is portrayed as been a father and a loving son to his aging parents. He also loves to his wife Andromache.

On the other hand, Achilles is depicted as a rough cruel and unmerciful warrior. He only has her mother and Patroclus his friend. Even though hector pleads with Achilles to allow him get a decent burial, Achilles kills hectors and drags his body on his chariot as a sign of dishonouring and disrespecting him. Achilles is mostly portrayed as a man of rage and furious. His anger towards the Agamemnon made Achilles to stop fighting for the Greeks and decided to fall back (McKenzie, 6)

Unlike hector, Achilles fights for the glory and honour of his name. He has excessive pride and has no regard or love for his countrymen. This is seen when he withdraws from the war leaving the Greek venerable to death. Achilles is also very individualistic and full of vengeance. Hector is an honourable and patriotic man. He fights to defend his own kingdom and the people of Troy as well as his honour.

Achilles is also depicted as a traditional epic hero. The Iliad discuss him as a superhuman that cannot be conquered but having a weakness only in his kneel. Hector is not deemed as invisible but as a person who can be conquered. The king urges hector not to fight Achilles indicating that Priam feared his son would be defeated.

Works Cited

Samuel, Butler. Homer’s The Iliad . New York: Orange Street Press. 1998. Print.

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• The Figure of Hector in Homer’s “The Iliad”
• Literature Studies: "The Iliad" by Homer
• Pride in Ancient Greek
• Philosophy & Literature: Mythology Through Gilgamesh
• The Comparison of Gilgamesh and Odysseus
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Achilles Armour
• Use of Mythology in Snow Crash

ESSAYS ON HOMER'S ILIAD

These essays, prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC (now Vancouver Island University), are in the public domain, and may be used by anyone, in whole or in part, without permission and without charge, provided the source is acknowledged, released August 2005. For comments and questions please contact Ian Johnston .

INTRODUCTORY COMMENT

The essays listed below, which are a restatement of the argument laid out in The Ironies of War , all deal with aspects of Homer's Iliad . They may be read in any order, although the reader should probably be familiar with the introductory note immediately below and the first essay in order to understand the central thrust of each of the others. Quotations from Homer's poem in these essays are from the on-line translation by Ian Johnston available through the following link Iliad . And all line numbers refer to that edition (for the reader's convenience I have also, in most cases, included an approximate line reference for the Greek text, which is given in square brackets). A bibliography for all the essays is given later on in this page. The essays here are a systematic attempt to explore the Iliad as a great literary masterpiece, to see what it is holding up to us in modern North America as a vision of experience which can illuminate important aspects of our own lives. Hence, they pay little attention to any contextual matters, like Homer's identity, the facts of Homer's own times, the treatment of Homer by classical Greek traditions, and other historical issues. The assumption here is that this is a vitally important poem for contemporary readers because it speaks directly to their own age, not because it offers some interesting insights into an old, long-forgotten, and irrelevant civilization. Those readers seeking such a historical treatment of the work should look elsewhere. The central claim coordinating these essays is that Homer's vision is a fatalistic view of war as a condition of life, that the best and worst human experiences arise out of this condition, and that there is no way this condition will change. The vision is thoroughly ironic, and thus there is no easy way to sum it up with a simple moral judgment. In fact, the power of this poem stems from its ability to challenge our faith in such judgments, in other words, from its power to disturb us, to complicate our understanding, to make us re-examine some of our most cherished beliefs. This approach to the poem thus seeks to counter both the long tradition in Homer scholarship of treating the poem merely (or primarily) as a historical document and the tendency of much Homer criticism, still very much alive today, of neutralizing the challenge of the Iliad by interpreting it to fit the long moral traditions of a providential universe governed by a benevolent deity or reason or progress or some other optimistic hope that the brutalities of life are part of a consoling moral order.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

Essay 1: Homer's War Essay 2: Homer's Similes: Nature as Conflict Essay 3: The Gods Essay 4: The Heroic Code Essay 5: Arms and the Men Essay 6: Hector and Achilles Essay 7: Homer and the Modern Imagination Essay 8: On Modern English Translations of the Iliad

LIST OF WORKS CITED

The following titles identify works referred to in the eight Essays on Homer's Iliad and do not constitute a detailed bibliography of works on the poem. Arnold, Matthew. "On Translating Homer." Matthew Arnold: Selected Essays . Ed. Noel Annan. London: Oxford University Press, 1964. Atchity, Kenneth John. Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory . Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Auster, Al and Dan Georghkas. "The Warriors: An Interview with Sol Yurick." Cineaste 9.3 (Spring 1979): 22-24. Bespaloff, Rachel. On the Iliad . Translated Mary McCarthy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947. Rep. 1970. Blackie, John Stuart. Homer and the Iliad , Volume I: Homeric Dissertations. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Boswell, James. Life of Johnson . London: Oxford University Press, 1965. Bowra, C. M. Tradition and Design in the Iliad . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930. Rep. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977. Burnett, John. Early Greek Philosophy . New York: Meridian, 1957. Cahill, Thomas. Sailing the Wine-dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Carne-Ross, D. S. "The Beastly House of Atreus." Kenyon Review NS 3.2 (Spring 1981): 20-60. Clarke, Howard. Homer's Readers: A Historical Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey . Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1981. Clausewitz, Carl von. On War . Edited and Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Dodds, E. R. The Greeks and the Irrational . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Dryden, John. The Essays of John Dryden . Selected and edited by W. P. Ker. In 2 vols. New York: Russell & Russell, 1961. Fitzgerald, Robert. "Heroic Poems in English." Review of The Iliad of Homer , trans. Richard Lattimore. Kenyon Review 14.4 (Autumn 1952): 698-706. Else, Gerald F. "The Old and the New Humanities." Daedalus 8.3 (Summer 1969): 803-808. Grant, George. Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North America . Toronto: Anansi, 1969. "Four Shots at The Deer Hunter." Film Quarterly 32.4 (Summer 1979): 10-22. Gould, John. "On making sense of Greek religion." Greek Religion and Society . Edited P. R. Easterling and J. V. Muir. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Rep. 1986: 1-33. Griffin, Jasper. Homer . New York: Hill and Wang, 1980. Griffiths, Trevor. Comedians . New York: Grove Press, 1976. Hadas, Moses. A History of Greek Literature . New York: Columbia University Press, 1950. Herodotus. The Histories . Translated Aubrey de Selincourt. Revised A. R. Burn. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Herr, Michael. Dispatches . New York: Avon Books, 1980. Homer. The Iliad . Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1990 Homer. The Iliad . Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1974. Homer. The Iliad . Translated by Margin Hammond. Bungay: Penguin, 1987. Homer. The Iliad . Translated by E. V. Rieu. Bungay: Penguin, 1950. Homer. The Iliad of Homer . Translated by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf, and Ernest Myers. New York, Random House, 1950. Homer. The Iliad of Homer . Translated by Richard Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. Homer. The Iliad . Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. Homer. The Iliad . Translated by Ian Johnston. http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/homer/iliad_title.htm . Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Letter to A. W. M. Baillie (10 Sept. 1864). Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins . Ed. W. H.Gardner. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967. Howard, Michael. War and the Liberal Conscience . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1978. Hughes, Robert. "God of the Nomads." Time . 21 April 1975: 54. James, William. "The Moral Equivalent of War." War and Morality . Edited by Richard Wasserstrom. Belmont Wadsworth, 1970: 4-14.

Jaynes, Julian. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Kael, Pauline. "The God-Bless-America Symphony." When the Lights Go Down . New York: Holt Reinhart and Winston, 1980: 512-519. Kirk, G. S. The Songs of Homer . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Rep. 1977. Knight, Douglas. Pope and the Heroic Tradition A Critical Study of His Iliad . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951. ---. "Homer." The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: I: Greek Literature . Edited by P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985: 42-91. ---. The Iliad. A Commentary : Volume I: Books 1-4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Lawrence, D. H. Kangaroo . London: Heinemann, 1923. Rep. 1974. Lenson, David. Achilles' Choice: Examples of Modern Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. Logue, Christopher. War Music: An Account of Books 16 to 19 of Homer's Iliad . New York: Farrar, 1987. McCary, W. Thomas. Childlike Achilles: Ontogeny and Phylogeny in the Iliad . New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Michalopoulos, Andre. Homer . New York: Twayne, 1966. Mueller, Martin. Review of Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Iliad . Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 6 (1979) 428-35. Myres, Sir John L. Homer and His Critics . Ed. Dorothea Gray. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958. ---. "Knowledge and Delusion in the Iliad." Essays on the Iliad: Selected Modern Criticism . Ed. John Wright. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978: 105-123. Paley, F. A. The Iliad of Homer , with English Notes. In 2 vols. London: George Bell, 1866. Redfield, J. M. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. Schein, Seth L. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer's Iliad . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Scott, John A. The Unity of Homer . New York: Biblo and Tannan, 1965. Silk, Michael. Homer: The Iliad . Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1987. Smith, Geoffrey S. "Vietnam Without Fear." Queen's Quarterly 90.4 (Winter 1983): 972-982. ---. "Vietnam Post-Mortem." Queen's Quarterly 94.2 (Summer 1987): 415-426. Swerdlow, Joel L. "To Heal a Nation." National Geographic 167.5 (May 1985): 555-573. Turner, James. "Recovering the Uses of History." The Yale Review 70.2 (Winter 1981): 221-233. Vivante, Paolo. The Homeric Imagination: A Study of Homer's Poetic Perception of Reality . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970. West, M. L. "Homeric and Hesiodic poetry." Ancient Greek Literature . Ed. K. J. Dover. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1980: 10-28. Whitman, Cedric H. Homer and the Homeric Tradition . New York: Norton, 1965.

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Thomas Van Nortwick and Geoffrey Steadman

Iliad XXII 289-336 essay

Iliad  22.289-336

By Thomas Van Nortwick

The moment towards which Homer has been drawing us since at least Book Fifteen has now arrived. Hector’s death is the dramatic climax of the poem and, true to his practice, the poet holds the moment and marks its importance with similes. Hector, buoyed by Athena’s lies and Achilles’ miss, throws his weapon, hits his mark, and watches the spear bounce harmlessly off the divine armor. He calls to Deiphobus for help, and the trap closes:

But he was not nearby. Hector knew in his heart and spoke: “Ah, now surely the gods have called me to my death.”                              Iliad 22.295–297

Though we have known for some time that the Trojan hero and his city are doomed, the directness of this statement rings ominously. At key turning points in the story, Homer often foregoes his usual expansive style in favor of concision, letting the meaning hit home unadorned. Some examples: Antilochus breaks the news of Patroclus’s death to Achilles in three terse clauses:

Patroclus lies dead; they are fighting over his naked corpse; Hector of the shining helmet has his arms.                               Iliad 18.20–21

Zeus’s golden scales render a verdict, sending Hector to his death:

Hector’s day of death sank; it moved toward Hades’ house; and Phoebus Apollo left him.                               Iliad 22.212–213

Achilles agrees to return Hector’s body, opening the way for Hector’s funeral:

So be it. Let him bring ransom and take the corpse, if the Olympian himself earnestly urges it.                               Iliad 24.139–140

Perhaps only now, with his own simple realization and admission, do we feel the full weight of the desolation that settles over Hector. He has led an exemplary life, devoted to others, and his reward is to die abandoned, utterly alone.

Although—or maybe because—he knows the issue has been decided, Hector makes one last charge, and the poet gives him a valedictory simile: he swoops like an eagle swoops at a tender lamb or a cowering hare. Since we know the imminent result, the simile only adds to the pathos in Hector’s bravado.

With this one final nod to the Trojan hero’s gallantry, Homer shifts the focus to Achilles, whose armor glitters with the uncanny menace we first saw when Athena delivered it from Olympus in Book Eighteen: the beautiful figured shield, the gleaming four-horned helmet with golden tassels, the spear point that shines,

As a star moves among the other stars in the murk of night, the evening star, the most beautiful one in the heavens…                               Iliad 22.317–318

The simile echoes Priam’s earlier nightmare vision of Achilles as the Dog Star, racing across the plain toward Hector ( 22.26–31 ). The emphasis there was on the star’s baneful power, bleaching the strength from men’s limbs. Here it is the beauty of the star—which might seem slightly incongruous given Achilles’ savage behavior—that captures the poet’s attention. But despite their differences, the two similes share the quality of transcendence, which may finally be more important for the poet’s purposes. However revolting Achilles’ actions may be, Homer can never let the bestial aspect of his hero entirely overwhelm our sense of awe at his semi-divine nature. The character only works if part of him remains frightening but also mysterious, removed. The Greek word for this quality is δεινός, “awe-inspiring,” which covers a wide range of meaning , from dreadful, terrible, to mighty, even venerable. The twang of Apollo’s bow, the Gorgon’s head on Athena’s shield , the force of the fire snorted out by the Chimaera, all are δεινός. Even as he closes in for the kill, ready to savage his enemy’s corpse, Achilles must inspire not only revulsion but also a horrified fascination. The full force of the poem’s luminous resolution in the last book depends on it.

Achilles closes in for the kill, selecting the most efficient place for the deathblow as our vision narrows with his down to the target: the small triangle of soft tissue at the base of the throat. As he did in Priam’s horrific vision of his own genitals being eaten by dogs ( 22.66–71 ), the poet draws us slowly closer to the vulnerable flesh. In the taunting speech that follows, Achilles keeps Priam’s nightmare in our minds, vowing that Patroclus will get an honorable funeral, while Hector’s corpse will be torn apart by dogs and birds. It seems the wrath of Achilles will finally come to fruition:

Sing the wrath, goddess, of Achilles, son of Peleus, destructive, which sent countless pains upon the Achaeans, and threw forth many strong souls of heroes to Hades’ house, but left their bodies as spoils for the dogs and all the birds…                               Iliad 1.1–5

Homer tells us that when Achilles’ spear rips through Hector’s throat it somehow misses the windpipe. He is pinned to the ground like a butterfly on the collector’s page, an inert body, whispering his last words. The gruesomely detailed description of Hector’s body has already begun to change him from valiant hero to lifeless corpse.

Further Reading

Goldhill, S. 1991. The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature, 96–166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Griffin, J. 1980. Homer on Life and Death , 115–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Redfield, J. 1975. Nature and Culture in the Iliad , 31–35. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Schein, S. 1984. The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer’s Iliad , 151–152. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Van Nortwick, T. 1992. Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero’s Journey in Ancient Epic , 70–73. New York: Oxford University Press.

Return to Text

Thomas Van Nortwick, " Iliad  22.289-336," in Thomas Van Nortwick and Geoffrey Steadman,  Homer: Iliad 6 and 22 . Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries, 2018. ISBN: 978-1-947822-11-5.

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The Old-Fashioned Library at the Heart of the A.I. Boom

By Cade Metz Photographs by Christie Hemm Klok

OpenAI may be changing how the world interacts with language. But inside the company’s San Francisco office, there is a very old-fashioned homage to the written word: a library.

Many of the books lining the walls were suggested by the company’s more than 1,200 employees.

On one shelf is “American Prometheus,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Three books over is “Endurance,” about the doomed Antarctic journey of Ernest Shackleton.

There are multiple copies of “The Precipice,” a book about the existential risks facing humanity, along with science fiction classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

There are also books about taking mind-altering drugs and empowering women. And what A.I. company’s office library would be complete without Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

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By Cade Metz

Photographs by Christie Hemm Klok

The two-story library has Oriental rugs, shaded lamps dotting its desks and rows of hardbacks lining its walls. It is the architectural centerpiece of the offices of OpenAI, the start-up whose online chatbot, ChatGPT, showed the world that machines can instantly generate their own poetry and prose .

The building, which was once a mayonnaise factory, looks like a typical tech office, with its communal work spaces, well-stocked micro-kitchens and private nap rooms spread across three floors in San Francisco’s Mission District.

But then there is that library, with the ambience of a Victorian Era reading room. Its shelves offer everything from Homer’s “The Iliad” to David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity,” a favorite of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

Built at Mr. Altman’s request and stocked with titles suggested by his staff, the OpenAI library is an apt metaphor for the world’s hottest tech company, whose success was fueled by language — lots and lots of language. OpenAI’s chatbot was not built like the average internet app. ChatGPT learned its skills by analyzing huge amounts of text that was written, edited and curated by humans , including encyclopedia articles, news stories, poetry and, yes, books.

The library also represents the paradox at the heart of OpenAI’s technology. Authors and publishers, including The New York Times , are suing OpenAI, claiming the company illegally used their copyrighted content to build its A.I. systems. Many authors worry that the technology will ultimately take away their livelihood.

Many OpenAI employees, on the other hand, believe the company is using human creativity to fuel more human creativity. They believe their use of copyrighted works is “fair use” under the law, because they are transforming these works into something new.

“To say that this is a public debate right now is an understatement,” said Shannon Gaffney, co-founder and managing partner of SkB Architects, the architectural firm that renovated OpenAI’s headquarters and designed its library. “Though things might look like they are going in different directions, the library serves as a constant reminder of human creativity.”

When OpenAI hired Ms. Gaffney’s firm to renovate the building in 2019, Mr. Altman said he wanted a library with an academic aura.

He wanted it to be a reminder of the Green Library, a Romanesque library at Stanford University, where he was a student for two years before dropping out to build a social media app; the Rose Reading Room, a Beaux-Arts study hall on the top floor of the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan; and the library-like bar inside the now defunct Nomad Hotel, 15 blocks south of the Rose.

“My dining room and living room at home is inside a library — floor-to-ceiling books all the way around,” Mr. Altman said in an interview. “There is something about sitting in the middle of knowledge on the shelves at vast scale that I find interesting.”

Once the library was built, OpenAI’s head of real estate began acquiring titles, many suggested by the company’s researchers, engineers and other employees.

Natalie Staudacher, who was part of a team that decamped to the library as they were working on an early version of ChatGPT, suggested Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.”

Others, like “American Art of the 20th Century,” seem to acknowledge that OpenAI’s chatbot technology now learns from both text and pictures.

Some, like David Foster Wallace’s encyclopedic postmodern novel “Infinite Jest,” seem like a sly comment on the new world OpenAI is helping to create.

Many titles, like “English Masterpieces, 700-1900” and “Ideas and Images in World Art,” seem like the weighty hardbacks that professional decorators place strategically inside hotel lobbies because they look the part. Still, the library is a reflection of the organization that built it.

On a recent afternoon, two paperbacks sat beside each other at eye-level: “Birds of Lake Merritt” ( a field guide to the birds found in a wildlife refuge in Oakland, Calif. ) and “Fake Birds of Lake Merritt” (a parody written by GPT-3, an early version of the technology that drives ChatGPT ).

Some employees see the library as a quieter place to work. Long Ouyang, an A.I. researcher, keeps a rolling desk against the wall. Others see it as an unusually elegant break room. On weekends, Ryan Greene, another researcher, pumps his digital music through the audio speakers tucked among the hardbacks.

It is, other employees said, a far more inspiring place to work than a cubicle. “This is why so many people choose to work in the library,” Ms. Staudacher said.

Recently, Mr. Greene began feeding lists of his favorite books into ChatGPT and asking for new recommendations. At one point, the chatbot recommended “The Book of Disquiet ,” a posthumously published autobiography from the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. A friend, who knew his tastes well, had recommended that he read the same book.

“Given the trends and patterns in things that have happened in the past, the technology can suggest things for the future,” Mr. Greene said.

Ms. Gaffney, from OpenAI’s architectural firm, argued that this blend of the human and the machine will continue. Then she paused, before adding: “That, at least, is what I hope and feel.”

Cade Metz writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology. More about Cade Metz

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News  and Analysis

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OpenAI has unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot  that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.

A bipartisan group of senators released a long-awaited legislative plan for A.I. , calling for billions in funding to propel U.S. leadership in the technology while offering few details on regulations.

The Age of A.I.

A new program, backed by Cornell Tech, M.I.T. and U.C.L.A., helps prepare lower-income, Latina and Black female computing majors  for A.I. careers.

Publishers have long worried that A.I.-generated answers on Google would drive readers away from their sites. They’re about to find out if those fears are warranted, our tech columnist writes .

A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I.  But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s hope for Meta’s A.I. assistant to be the smartest , it struggles with facts, numbers and web search.

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