SAPPORO – The development of artificial intelligence software that can write haiku based just on images is underway, with researchers hoping the project will improve how technology understands human emotion. A team of researchers and software developers led by Hidenori Kawamura, a 44-year-old professor at Hokkaido University's graduate school, is aiming to create AI that can analyze a vast amount of poetry to generate a haiku written about a subject or scene. The AI has been learning masterpieces composed by renowned Japanese poets such as Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) and Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), and analyzing pictures picked by volunteers that correspond to the poems. According to the team, the AI checks whether it is following structural rules and is using appropriate seasonal references. Haiku are defined by the use of a set number of syllables and traditionally use words that describe the season in which the work is set.