Microsoft's poetry bot gets more powerful and now you can try it out yourself

Microsoft has been working on an AI bot that can caption pictures for some time now, and have recently moved on to a greater challenge – writing actual poetry based on the content of the picture.

Called Image2Poem, the system works by extracting a description of the elements in a picture, using that as the inspiration for poetry-writing AI and then measuring the performance of the output using another AI, which then either approves it or sends it back for revision.

Called Generative Adversarial Networks, this technique which uses two AIs to compete to fool each other has been at the heart of the best creative AI tools developed over recent years.

An example can be seen above, and with a more poetic subject, it is easier to appreciate the creativity of the tool.

Wings hold rocks and water lightly

in the loneliness

Stroll the empty

The land becomes soft

A product of Microsoft’s STCA AI Creation Team in Beijing, the tool is currently tuned for Chinese Poetry and can be tried at Microsoft’s site poem.msxiaobing.com here. Non-Chinese speakers will, of course, need to translate the site to use it, but it is remarkably usable without too much effort. Microsoft has also renounced any copyright to the output, meaning you can use Xiao Bing as inspiration for your next Creative Writing homework assignment if you feel the need.

Have our readers tried the tool? Post your best efforts below.

Via TWN