Computational linguistics is the study of language using computers. My particular interest is the gap between the ability of humans, and the ability of machines, to use language to generate literature.
Great debate rages, as to whether computers will ever be capable of thought. One of the supreme tests of thinking is the ability to compose literature. Before the main question can be reasonably argued, we have to clarify our definitions as to what constitutes "thought" and what consititutes "literature".
With this in mind, I have written a computer program which generates many different types of literature in the English languages: limericks, sonnets, poems of arbitrary length and rhyme scheme, haikus, and plays. I am writing the program to better understand the problems involved in Artifical Intelligence, not making any claims therein. However, I think that if a "work of literature", such as those so humbly generated by my program, were to be mistaken for a truly human-written program, I would be thrilled. By passing the famous Turing Test, the computer would, at least in this case, become "intelligent".
The current program, called ZOLA42, has a vocabulary of 780 adjectives, 1452 nouns, 90 prepositions, and 900-some verbs.
It generates a series of valid English sentences (though sometimes stilted ones) to accomodate the required length of the work in question. The work is then tested to assure that no examples of improper line length, meter, or rhyme occur. If they do occur, the work is rejected, and a new one begun. Works which pass all validation tests are saved.
This is a notoriously inefficient method for generating literature, and the current version of the program employs several slick features to increase efficiency. When a rhyme is required (at the end of a line), and the first selected word is not a rhyme, additional words of the proper "part of speech" are tested until a satisfactory substitute is found. If it is found, it is inserted and the program continues; if not, the work is immediately abandoned, and a new poem, etc., is begun.
The most effective algorithms utilized are still proprietary until my manuscript is accepted for publication.
by the Computer of Lawrence T. Sein, Ph.D. (Lawrence has the Ph.D., not the computer.....)
Written on the evening of Sunday, the 24th of August, 2003...
His nine impractical additions, whose
austere frontiers are dashing, do not call.
His ten clad brakes apart from faithful news
do clot to countermand my wry, freight fall.
There is this. Base, freight hoot, which may not be
supporting wheat, important clog, transmits
ten wide, bald fixes as for sloppy sea.
I will undress. I hocked the hair, cream bits
or was not riling him. A spry, irate,
good nerd has written. Dark, obtuse, surreal
Nantuket countermands a blond, zinc date
so had not flicked the difficult, trite eel.
A Dieu! The furious, bare span does see,
that I would be his. That was gluing me.
I torture us. I am not picking tight,
unprincipled tort. There is a dream, zinc balm.
Hello! That twiggy growl elected, right,
lit ration is deciding. Mean, key palm
reverses peach, unmentionable clang
or brands these. Who will plot its? Claggy knee
has onward joked, "Freight, uncanny gang
constricts his four unseemly grills". The key,
unique, imperative addition, which
unlocks the vertical, mint roasts, has paid
our early larch. I should accept, that itch
surprises yours to check out. Yank my suede,
front blot. I spurn my key, car spot. The cod,
folk view has lamed big, sedate, front prod.
There was mine. I am entering a night,
dual brim. The lonely peace ahead of him
has not abandoned its spry, night light
to pull out. Unwed busts far from the dim,
cab glitches mar the ashy cork. The tea,
imperative, titanium brigade
defeats this frank, untold, stag spoke near key,
shlock blocks. All eight fir ores embrace that. Suede,
straw horns evade the deaf, ascetic rube.
A Dieu! I stopped plain, dread capture. Pant.
There is the tense, aquamarine, brine boob
to dare. There were all affluent, key rant.
The purple sons have tooted nothing of
the rad, folk car. This pocked the dire, tin dove.
Your nine aforesaid traces, whose stiff brutes
could not describe that, sink her. Wild grate
is bending this to beg her three near toots
behind its zinc, omnipotent, shrewd date.
I might attain this haughty lab. Four nice,
mean bluffs do sigh, that there were funny clowns.
I am not flushing furious, brute ice
itself so used to hype the milky crowns.
The wheat, austere, omnipotent giraffe
proclaims each ham, diverse, rose turn between
a buff, imperative, bone crank. Which half,
awry, svelte nerve oppresses bumpy bean?
I ought to rave. His brave, black church round this
so inside quaggy liver would not greet
the lame, cheap plow to stay. I did not kiss
the crepe, oak jerk to stay the sweet, brave fleet.
The artificial fever may obey
the rose, ulterior, brief detail. He
did snooze. There were three blind, peer answers. Play,
organic son is not abstaining. See.
The useful liar, till whose frustration vain,
male squalls should grow up, tans her rude, perverse,
untidy hype beyond the pea, bland drain
to interrupt the infamous, wool curse.
There was the wet, black quill before his. Trite,
immoral index pins the mint, untold,
imperial moustache. Hello! Three right,
agape, benign excuses have been gold.
One ill or equal laugh might
not recall, that we
stabbed the rich or slang land.
The muggy gear, whose widespread
daze does not dare, taxed
these. Ow! I will not be theirs.
When am I not spurning the
easy ale toward the
unsteady and fake fraction?
I will doubt, that the claggy
but impure village
beyond the class vat does crawl.
There is nothing else, because
the beautiful smoke
passes zero pert gutters.
Her ascetic tax used to
mock the stout and blank
cane outside of no one else.
My dispersed bluff dresses
the cork can. A brute
will ban one untold belief.
Damn few jeeps can not chat. I
do sense, that that was
not sinking. Quiet the balm.
Each dual bird is not boasting,
that everything is
not handling the locale.
Flouting a whole quill, the worse
knife misses his with
a depraved bacterium.
She has not concerned that extremely
lax wire. Countermand her. This knocked, three
motels supersede
an upstairs, fond breed.
The side, fowl, just woe ought to play me.
That was not prefering the peachy,
impulsive, class flute. I could not be
the breech, crab, mall bleach.
Advise our grain beech.
The round, night, dread fly should offend me.
I suffer. The dirty, unready,
crack purr did approach. They are ill, tea,
unfair rationale.
A loose, subtle gal
must not be abstaining. Affect me..
A cruel, clad, perverted Nantuket
used to intercede, that he packed it
to trade each bone mast.
The fluffy, May fast
must not be defering. Survive it.
I do not surmise, that the shabby,
trace pram reassured the real, key,
titanium ma'am.
I treat each worst spam.
There was the wood plumbing. Entice me.
NOTE: Please do not steal these poems, bad though they are, written by a lowly Pentium II computer. My computer is terribly vain and litigious, and will sue at the drop of a hat (or a floppy disk). Furthermore, what could be more embarassing that being convicted of plagiarism for a computer-generated poem?
© 2003-2010 by Lawrence T. Sein. All rights reserved.
Send questions to:lseinjr@hotmail.com