Can Google be taught poetry?

If computers and search engines could understand metaphor and symbolism, would it make them more human? A new project tests the theoryIn 1989, American author Norman Cousins wrote that poetry was the key to preventing computers from dehumanising us: “The company of poets may enable the men who tend the machines to see a larger panorama of possibilities than technology alone may inspire. Poets remind men of their uniqueness.”Twenty-six years later, researchers in the US are testing that idea,