--- title: "Here’s Why Google Built an AI-Powered Lion Statue That Spits out Poems" description: "The exhibit takes the form of a bright red lion statue. Feed it words, and it generates new lines of poetry that incorporate them." date: "2018-09-20" modified: "2018-09-20" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-lion-statue-spits-poems" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "es deslin" - "Google" - "google arts & culture" - "please feed the lions" - "poetry" - "the digest" - "United Kingdom" --- # Here’s Why Google Built an AI-Powered Lion Statue That Spits out Poems ![]() *\Image: Google\* ## AI POETRY *Your head is warm with thine* *And cannot fly* *Eclectic shadows that display the sky* *Listen to the wild rose of the old man's sight* This is the beginning of the first poem composed by a [new artificial intelligence](). Google teamed up with sculptor Es Devlin to collect words from passersby at the London Design Festival and use them to generate new lines of verse. It's an intriguing conceptual experiment about algorithms that [produce original works of art](), and the ways they can collaborate with humans. ## LION ON THE COLD HARD GROUND The statue is a bright red lion, placed next to the four bronze lion statues that have stood in Trafalgar Square since 1867. Unlike the existing lions, though, this one has a computer screen in its mouth. On a small kiosk in front of the lion statue, Trafalgar Square visitors can input a word. Then, using a machine learning algorithm trained on [tens of millions of words of 19th century poetry](), it spits out a new line incorporating the new word. At night, the evolving poem — it's pleasant, but reads a bit like a poetry Mad Lib, lacking that *je ne sais quoi* of a human author with, like, feelings — is projected onto the lion's body and the towering column behind it. ## AND/ROAR The exhibit, which will run until September 23, came about after Deslin visited Trafalgar Square last year started thinking about the history of the spot as a forum of protest and celebration. He started imagining ways that visitors could work together to create something. "I had this thought that what if these lions had absorbed all of this sound in celebration and in protest through their bronze skin," Deslin wrote in [a post]() about the origins of the project. "What if you could open one of their mouths and let it speak, what would it say?" **READ MORE:** [Please Feed The Lions]() \[*Google Arts & Culture*\] ***More on AI art: [Artificial Intelligence Is Already a Better Artist Than You Are]()*** ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()