In 1989, scholar Norman Cousins published a piece called The Poet and the Computer. Anticipating the computer revolution at his doorstep Cousins makes a plea: do not allow our machines to dehumanize us. And he offers a specific prescription against the potential malady - poetry. "The danger," he explains, is "not so much that man will be controlled by the computer as that he may imitate it.” Intimate and repeated communication with the robots may require us to too conform our minds to their limited logics and cold calculations. To preserve and reinforce humanness, Cousins hypothesizes that “…it might be fruitful to effect some sort of junction between the computer technologist and the poet.” And I agree. I propose we write poetry for the robots. What would happen if we created metaphorical metadata for an image bank? Would a search for ‘stars' return image of ‘eyes'? At Poetry4Robots.com, we’ve made the experiment live. This ‘digital humanities experiment’ is being conducted by Neologic Labs, Webvisions, and Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination. This talk is about how we may further turn to the arts and humanities to ensure human-centric UX.

1. Corey S. Pressman
@cspressman
@neologicpdx
www.neologic.co
corey@neologic.co

3. cornbreadapp.com

4. poetry4robots.com

5. poetry4robots.com

11. metonymy
metaphor

12. metonymy
metaphor

13. metonymy
metaphor

14. Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

15. heart

16. Anger Joy Fear

21. desire paths

22. desire paths

23. metadata now
metadatathen

24. digital possessions

25. poetry4robots.com

27. happy, hope, sea, silence

28. happy

29. sad & hopeful

30. sad & hopeful

31. sad & hopeful

32. alone, lonely, whispering, hope, eternal, nostalgia

33. beast

34. beast, music, burn, precision, Kerouac, toil, power

35. calm, gentle, unknown, death, oblivion

38. The Poet and the Robot

39. Famous
- Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

40. Corey S. Pressman
@cspressman
@neologicpdx
www.neologic.co
corey@neologic.co
fatsaltlove.com