Imagine RIT
Exhibit Highlight
RIT/NTID Student Uses Software and Laptop to “Get the Girl”
A self-described computer geek, Josh Allmann, 21, a computer science major at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, uses his passion for software and algorithms to help him score points with his girlfriend by creating poems in the style of her favorite poet.
The idea, which will be on display May 3 at RIT’s inaugural Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival, was born around Valentine’s Day, two years ago.
“I wanted to do something that was really nice,” Allmann says. “I thought it would be good to give her something from the heart. I don’t have a lyrical bone in me, so I decided the next best thing would be to write a program to write a poem.”
He took 10 different poems from her favorite author, entered them into his computer program and generated a new poem. The technique wasn’t new, but its application was rather unique.
The computer studies how many words are in a sequence and looks at the probability of a specific word appearing in the next sequence. “Ninety percent of the time, it makes no sense. But once in awhile, we have a few gems that really wow people,” Allmann says.
A couple of lines the computer randomly spat out read: “I also keep forming you, poking out your elbows…” After a few revisions, he presented his girlfriend at the time the computer-generated poem made just for her.
“At first, she didn’t understand it. I explained it to her and she was overwhelmed. ‘Oh, you wrote me a program?’ I guess she liked it.”
Allmann, from Irvine, Calif., says the upcoming festival was a good incentive for him to dig out his program and improve the algorithm. It can generate a poem of 10,000 words if needed.
“I want to feed it some philosophy,” he says. And he may use it in a creative writing class.
“I love language,” he says. “I’ve always been interested in the natural language process. That’s how I got started in computer science. I like to analyze things and I enjoy creative writing. But I think my creativity side is suppressed. I’m taking a lot of math-based courses.”
Allmann, who became deaf at age two when he had meningitis, plans to graduate from RIT in 2009. He’s already completed co-ops with companies including Microsoft and IBM.