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Kurzweil Gets A Patent For Poetic Software

Posted by timothy on from the rhymin'-and-stealin' dept.

theodp writes "Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the Kurzweil Reading Machine for the blind, has developed what he calls a cybernetic poet, software that allows a computer to create poetry by imitating but not plagiarizing the styles and vocabularies of human poets. A sample: 'Sashay down the page...through the lioness...nestled in my soul.' Impressed? The USPTO, who sponsored the Independent Inventors Conference Mr. Kurzweil spoke at on Nov. 17, seems to be. On Nov. 11, Ray Kurzweil received U.S. Patent No. 6,647,395 for Poet Personalities."

8 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe by IANAL(BIAILS) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe that's why those darned Vogons are so intent on building that hyperspace bypass here...

  2. Link to program by benna · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is a link to the site where you can download this program.

    --
    "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
  3. Re:There isn't enough classic poetry out there? by bersl2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    /usr/games/fortune -o limerick

  4. Now that the program has been patented... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...I keep getting the same poem.

    A patent has been granted
    Giving backing to my lines,
    So if you write some similar code
    You'll face some hefty fines.

  5. thats wonderful by Grydon · · Score: 5, Funny

    And the best part is it only takes 556 gigs of reference material to do something along the lines of "the cat is fat".

  6. After looking at this closer... by clifgriffin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm unimpressed.

    It's AI seems only capable of duplicating style...but it turns out peoms that make no sense. It seems to have no concept of word relationships, outside of simple grammar and organization.

    Like I said, gimme Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson...who needs this?

    Clif

    --
    clifgriffin > blog
  7. Re:Not convincing by belmolis · · Score: 5, Informative
    None of the haikus under the "More Poetry" link have the correct number of syllables.

    Properly speaking, that is, in Japanese, haiku are not specified in terms of syllables. They're specified in terms of moras (Japanese onsetsu), the things of which a light syllable has one and a heavy syllable has two (or occasionally three). For example, here's a well known classic haiku:

    na ra na na e
    shi chi doo ga ran
    ya e za ku ra

    I've broken it down into syllables. As you can see, there are five in each line. The reason this is well-formed is that the syllable doo counts as two moras since it has a long vowel and the syllable ran counts as two moras since it has a closing consonant. So the second line contains seven moras even though it only contains five syllables. In sum, a haiku is a poem whose lines contain 5, 7, and 5 moras. How this should translate into English I don't know. Personally, I think English "haiku" sound funny and favor sticking to Japanese.

  8. We don't need a machine to do this... by lhpineapple · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should just take already existing poems, have them translated into Japanese, and then have the Japanese translate it back into English. Put it all together and voila!:

    All your base are belong to us.