Humans are not always the most literal of fauna . We make sense of the world through metaphors : The worldly concern is a stage . Love is a battlefield . Machines , however , are very literal . But what if we could teach automaton how to create metaphors ?
That ’s the musical theme behindPoetry for Robots , a quislingism between digital design agencyNeologic Labs , the conferenceWebVisions , andArizona State University ’s Center for Science and the Imagination . It ’s not just a flight of whimsy , though the idea of robot - churned poesy is moderately neat . ( And , in the shell of someTwitter bots , not that far from reality already . )
Anyone who has searched through a stock trope archive for an nonfigurative notion like “ freedom ” or “ sadness ” could benefit . If automaton could sift through metaphor , drawing connections and patterns between two abstract ideas like masses do , it could make lookup railway locomotive more useful . Image searches could incorporate vulgar metaphor . Searching for “ clock time ” might bring up gumption , for case .
Poetry for Robots has a literary inspiration . In alecture at Harvardin the tardy 1960s , the Argentine literary ikon Jorge Louis Borges argued that the kitchen range of potential metaphors in the world is n’t needs infinite . Writers tend to retort to the same themes of metaphor , connecting the same ideas over and over again . Jorge Borges use the example of wizard being like eyes — like stars looking down upon us . Jorge Borges may have been a little ahead of his meter , but now algorithmic rule can try out his melodic theme .
First , the enquiry team will crowdsource verse written in response to 120 persona . The site features parentage imaging of things like falls , corn fields at sunset , soaring birds , and train stations , designed to get users inspired to indite a quick poesy . This database of poesy connected to images will hopefully then teach machine how to connect nonfigurative ideas . finally , reckoner might even be able to write the verse themselves .
The labor is still in the midst of collecting data , so unfortunately , there are no instance of automatonlike poetry just yet . But go ahead and place in your own poetic musingshere .
[ h / t : MotherboardviaOpen Culture ]
