Ottawa teen creates AI-powered poetry tool for local nursing home residents

Leonardo Chung of Ottawa is giving local nursing home residents a way to express themselves with his most recent project blending poetry and computer science.

Chung is a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy and already a published poet, and after taking computer science classes at school, he realized he could combine his passion for poetry and knowledge for computer science by developing an artificial intelligence-powered poetry tutor.

The program from OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, analyzes input from users to generate personalized poems.

“It was clear that they have a lot of emotions bottled up, and when I wrote poetry with them, I witnessed many tears shed during the process.”

—  Leonardo Chung, Ottawa resident

Chung started writing poetry at 13 and has maintained his passion ever since. He now has almost 50 publications in national and international journals and has earned awards for his work.

He compiled all of his published poems into a knowledge database and was able to have AI analyze them to become more attuned to creating poetry for other people.

From that, Chung recognized poetry could have therapeutic potential for certain populations and realized his project could help people who struggle to articulate their emotions and express themselves, particularly for seniors facing challenges such as dementia.

This project became the centerpiece of Chung’s initiative to engage with seniors in nursing homes around LaSalle County.

“I was just really interested in hearing the stories of these older people in nursing homes,” Chung said. “After visiting them, one thing I realized was that these nursing home residents have so many stories to tell, but there are so few people that actually listen to them.”

Chung said his time creating poetry with nursing home residents was “eye opening” and believed many of them were moved by the experience.

“It was clear that they had a lot of emotions bottled up,” Chung said. “And when I wrote poetry with them, I witnessed many tears shed during the process.”

Lori Stachowiak, activity director at the La Salle County Nursing Home, also said residents were deeply touched by Chung’s visit, as the poems created through his website rekindled good memories.

“They enjoyed it so much. It was just so meaningful,” Stachowiak said. “It was a very heartfelt moment for some of them and brought tears to their eyes.”

Chung said poetry has been shown to benefit not only seniors but also many other vulnerable groups, including troubled teens, people with intellectual disabilities and those dealing with past trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder.

By introducing his AI poetry tutor to nursing homes, Chung is hoping to open doors for other vulnerable groups to express their emotions and share their stories in this unique way.

Explore more on how his program works by visiting his website at lovingwords.ai.