Do you ever look at a redwood and think, “Wouldn’t it be great if this was poetry instead of a tree?” Joyce Kilmer didn’t either. The poems Camera, on the other hand, was created by Kelin Carolyn Zhang and Ryan Mather as a way to bring together AI technology and poems. Cutting-edge technology and creative vision come together in the open source device to make a work that pushes the limits of both.
At first glance, the Poetry Camera looks like just another digital device in a world that is always changing. But when you look more closely, it’s clear that this isn’t a normal camera. The Poetry Camera is a photography device that goes beyond just taking pictures. It creates thought-provoking poetry (or at least as thought-provoking as AI poetry can get) from the photos it sees.
Zhang and Mather, who came up with the idea for this project, have combined their skills in technology and art to make a gadget that is both technically impressive and aesthetically appealing.
Zhang and Mather developed the Poetry Camera as a personal project. They were interested in combining their love of technology and the arts, and the idea caught their attention. They spent a lot of time in the early stages of development fiddling with different parts and trying out different AI models to make their idea come to life.
“The project began when I was able to use GPT-3. Because I’m a nerd, the first thing that came to mind was to play Dungeons & Dragons with it. I thought, “That would be cool if this thing could play Dungeons & Dragons.” Yes, that did work. Back then, you had to do quick work. That’s why it took some work to make it work. “But I also thought about making a camera as a project,” Mather says. “What if you took a camera as a response to the way people use Instagram?” What if words instead of a picture shows up? … Just like everyone likes the book version more than the movie, it’s best to record events.
For as long as Zhang and Mather worked on their prototype, they showed it to family and friends at parties. What people said about them was nothing short of amazing. The idea of a camera that could turn what it saw into poems interested a lot of people. The gadget quickly became the talk of the town, with people talking passionately about it and being inspired by it.
These early responses gave Zhang and Mather a strong drive to keep improving their invention. They saw that the Poetry Camera could bring technology and art together in a way that people would find interesting. As word of the Poetry Camera spread, the two were flooded with questions from people who wanted to try it out for themselves. Because of this interest, they thought about making their idea into a possible commercial product that would let more people enjoy the magic of the Poetry Camera.
The Technology
At the heart of this cool new gadget is a Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer about the size of a credit card that is very powerful. This tiny but powerful part is the poems Camera’s brain. It lets the camera take pictures and talk to OpenAI’s GPT-4 to learn how to write poems.
A Raspberry Pi takes the picture, and then computer vision programs look at the visual data. The AI models then figure out what the picture means by finding important colors, patterns, feelings, and elements within the frame. This knowledge is what the process of making poetry is built on.
Zhang pointed our Zoom chat in the right direction:
A song then came out:
Within the square boundaries of pixel space, a man moves his eyes behind the lens.
When you zoom in on faces that live in virtual space, Long has long since left the rat race.
Light comes in through worn sheers,
Warm coffee steers in his hand.
Conversations flow across the virtual line,
The screen shows his reflection reflected.
On the shelf, books lean and talk in silence.
A healthy plant, the only live thing in the room.
Home turns into his calm batter with glasses on.
His world was all over the place inside these walls.
On this April morning in 2024,
A new normalcy that is worn out slowly.
A song written by @poetry.camera
Zhang thinks that “departed from the rat race” is used to talk about my Hawaiian shirt.
The people who made the Poetry Camera tell me that it can output in more than one format. Because the device is open source, users can pick from different types of poetry, like haiku, sonnets, or free verse, based on their tastes and their willingness and ability to work with the source code.
Zhang and Mather are looking for new ways to improve the Poetry Camera as it continues to change. They are always choosing and improving the AI models, adding more hints to the device, and trying out new advanced natural language processing methods. The goal is to make a gadget that can write poetry and have deep conversations with its users, bringing technology and the arts closer together.
The place where art and science meet
The Poetry Camera is a great example of how art and technology can work together to make amazing things. Zhang and Mather used AI and machine learning to make a device that not only records the beauty of the world around us but also explains it in ways that are sometimes very touching. It’s pretty basic tech, but I love how easy Poetry Camera makes things. It gets really simple to dream big and push the limits of what technology can do.
Screens are a big part of our daily lives, but the Poetry Camera is a nice change of pace. The gadget doesn’t use a digital screen to show off its poetic outputs; instead, it uses a more tactile and immersive way to connect. The poems that are created are printed on paper, making the artistic experience real. Poetry Camera takes the idea that art is only temporary a long way.
Not a single picture or word is saved on our computers. That’s because of a few things: For one, it’s easy. Two: your privacy. For the third reason, making poems like these temporary things gives them more value. Mather says, “If you lose it, it’s gone.” “Now that everyone has a cell phone with a camera, we wanted to do something very different.”
Products like Plaud and the Humane Ai Pin have given us new user interfaces, and this one is more of the same. It lets people disconnect from the steady stream of visual stimuli and interact with the Poetry Camera’s works in a more thoughtful and introspective way. While I don’t want to sound too much like an art student, having a printed poem in my hands makes me think about the words, enjoy the beauty of the language, and connect more deeply with the art.
The design theory affects more than just the device; it also affects how the user interacts with the whole system. Zhang and Mather carefully made the Poetry Camera to make people feel like they are discovering new things and being amazed. Taking a picture, waiting for the AI to come up with a poem, and then getting the printed result adds a sense of surprise and expectation, which makes the whole experience more interesting.
What the future holds for AI and personal computers
Zhang and Mather’s approach to designing the Poetry Camera shows how they see the future of AI and personal computers in general. They think that technology should be a natural part of our daily lives, making things better without being too much of a distraction. They are challenging the status quo and paving the way for a new era of technology by making a gadget that puts art and simplicity first.
“I believe writing cameras show what will happen in many fields when AI is used. Zhang laughs, “You never met someone who says, ‘Oh, I’m a poetry photographer for corporate events.'” Poetry cameras aren’t like other types of cameras. Photography and writing go hand in hand, and cameras are a part of both. It’s this strange new thing. The best thing about them is that watching people connect with them is fun: their playful persona makes people feel like kids again.
What will happen next?
As people continue to be amazed by and talk about the Poetry Camera, Zhang and Mather are carefully thinking about what will happen to their creative creation in the future. The device started out as a personal hobby project, but the overwhelming positive reaction has made them think about making it available to a wider audience in a more commercial way.
“After the first 100 times someone asked, we told them, ‘We’re not selling it,’ but after the 101st question, we started to think more about it and wonder if we should let people have it,” Zhang thinks. “But it’s also an art project, you know?” At first, we thought that business shouldn’t be involved.
Zhang and Mather are taking their time before going into mass production, though, because they want to be environmentally friendly and mindful consumers. They are instead taking a more measured approach, which could mean small drops in product that put quality over number. They want to make sure that every Poetry Camera is made with great care and meets their high standards for performance and sturdiness by closely monitoring the production process.
I gave the team a challenge: they had to buy some hardware. For example, phones have screens, cameras, and internet links. Wouldn’t it be better to use gear that already exists?
Zhang agrees, “Being green would mean not making anything at all.” “But we started this as an open source do-it-yourself project with all the instructions online. It’s just that it’s hard for people to find all the parts they need.” At first, we thought about making a plastic space for it. But I’ve seen that the finished look of it, like a Poké Ball, is part of what makes people love it and want to play with it. I believe that the Poetry Camera should have a finished look in order for it to fully come to life. It’s important to us that it’s sustainable, but I don’t know how to go about it.
Zhang and Mather can see the Poetry Camera becoming more than just a fun gadget in the future. They think it will change the way we use technology and art together. They want other people to be inspired to look into how these two fields can be combined to find new ways to express themselves and push the limits of what is possible.
As a passionate hobbyist, I love living in a world where art and technology meet, and this project fits right in with that.
“This is still art for me because it’s about expressing myself.” People will be able to play with this new technology, which is what we want the world to be like. AI is not all bad news. “And it’s not just AI copying humans in a deeper, faster, and worse way,” Zhang says in the end. The goal is to make something completely new with the new technology and bring out the child in you again. It’s not about making money with this project; it’s about bringing back that childlike joy.
TikTok seems to be the best place to get a better look at how the camera works.
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