Ray Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet:
FEATURES

The free Cybernetic Poet includes the following tools:

1.  The Poet’s Assistant
2.  The Cybernetic Poet Screen Saver

The Poet’s Assistant provides a simple word processor ("poem processor") in which you write your poem or song lyrics. Besides providing standard text editing features, the Poet’s Assistant monitors your "poem-in-progress," and provides a wide range of helpful suggestions as you type. These suggestions are based on the poetry of other poets. RKCP comes complete with extensive files of poetry from 36 poets, including both classical and contemporary poets (you’ll also enjoy just reading these included poems). Each suggestion is based on a "poet personality" that you select. Each poet personality is based on either one of the analyzed poets, or a combination of poets. The standard version of RKCP includes 50 poet personalities. The types of suggestions include:

1. Rhymes and half rhymes
2. Alliterations
3. Ideas for the next word of your poem
4. Ideas for turns of phrase to finish the current line of your poem
5. "Rest of Poem": RKCP suggests how to finish your poem based on the selected poet personality (you don’t necessarily use the entire suggestion, but you are likely to find stimulating ideas for words and turns of phrase that you can use)

For example, the Poet’s Assistant can provide rhymes (words that rhyme with one of your words) or half-rhymes that were used by Robert Frost; alliterations used by Yeats; a set of "next words" used by Shelley; and entire lines (or stanzas) of poetry that are based on (but which were not actually written by) Emily Dickinson (or based on a combination of contemporary poets). From these lines and/or stanzas, you can find ideas for words and turns of phrase.

RKCP uses advanced language modeling techniques to actually write original poetry based on the poems of other authors that it has "read." While sharing in language and style with the analyzed poems, the RKCP poetry is completely original. It often comes up with intriguing and unexpected turns of phrase, and it is this capability that is exploited in the Poet’s Assistant authoring tool. See Ray Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet: HOW IT WORKS for a brief description of the techniques used by RKCP.

The Cybernetic Poet Screen Saver displays original poems and lines of poetry written by the Cybernetic Poet, and interesting ideas for alliterations, rhymes and half-rhymes.

Unlike other screen savers that display the same thing over and over, this screen saver is always displaying something new and original.

Who knows – it may display a brilliant new poem while you’re not looking.

The Basic Edition described above is free, fully featured, and does not time out.

There is also a Premium Version of Ray Kurzweil’s Cybernetic Poet, which includes the Poet Creator and the Poet Analyzer. With the Poet Analyzer, you can analyze your own poems and then have the Cybernetic Poet write original poems based on a language model of your poems. With the Poet Creator, you can define additional poet personalities. The Premium Version also includes 50 additional built-in poet personalities, including useful poet combinations such as "all poets," "all contemporary poets," and "all classical poets." , The Premium Version of RKCP can be purchased for $29.95 plus any applicable sales tax. To upgrade to the Premium edition, visit http://www.kurzweilcyberart.com/poetry and select "Upgrade to Premium Edition."