Six years ago, I let Google (auto-)complete Dinosaur Comics’ handy template. Technology has advanced and now we have language models that are named like Star Wars droids. Enter GPT-2, made accessible by Adam King‘s talktotransformer.com.
It’s auto-completion skills are impressive. But is it funny?
Methodology / algorithm / rulebook
- Put in as much context as possible
- Try to extend context by appending the auto-completions
- If this fails, restart with sentence.
Result
Supplementary Data
Teh inputs, en detail – not reproducible, randomized… seed?
Anything before the orange/light blank texts is context that I intered into the prompt. Anything after is remaining, noteworthy generated text. Comments after em-dashes.
- THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE NATION
— The sequel to D. W. Griffith’s racist “classic”? - This is my will, suckers!
I am of three things.
— …mind and body. I’ve got three body problems, the mind ain’t one! - And I hereby leave all my worldly possessions to you in peace, O Christ, your Son, your Prince.” Then he said to her: “Do the same for him.
- With the exception of New York’s MTA bus, which must go to the center because they don’t operate all over my neighborhood, most of these services are readily accessible to those without transportation issues
— those with transportation issues are sh*t out of luck - Furthermore, the court must spend three hours in a haunted house, where the victims will be kept from … escape. It will hold the victims at an outdoor amphitheater with no running water, and with no privacy or doors.
— Sounds like U.S. border “detention centers” 🙁 - If they are the “bad guy,” they must be buried before they are brought out and it will be then that the accused will be found guilty.
— Still, neo-U.S. style justice 🙁 - If they are the “bad guy,” they will get to have my kids in school. I love what I’ve done here and they’ll still have me at their house.”
— For I am an their dad AND an interior decorator. - I want my funeral to be remembered as a place for healing, for peace and brotherly brotherhood. I want to be buried on his birthday with a prayer that reads as follows:
Prayers for My Brother’s Memory, Peace and Love From:
Evelyn S. Cone
— Evelyn S. Cone, Antonio Tony‘s estranged cousin. - I want my funeral to be remembered as a place for healing, for peace and brotherly brotherhood. EXTREMELY *********!
My husband and I were having dinner with all our family and friends in Florida when someone asked us what we were doing at the funeral. We responded, “We are trying to kill ourselves.” I was crying because this was my most important night to date, and I believed my husband.
— ********* = UNTRUEHERESTHEREALSTORY?
Less context alt:
EXTREMELY TONIGHT, WITH THE BOSTON EXPERIMENTAL BOSTON AIRPORT STATION.
— Extremely Tonight, 9pm CET on TruTV! - And if I died of natural causes that’s ____?”
“Nothin’ special, nothin’ magical, nothin’ super-special.”
“Ugh, that’s gross!”
“Not really gross. More like stupid.”
— Here’s one that was unusable. At this moment also realized that trailing spaces like to turn into blank-y underscores:
And if I died of natural causes that’s ____?, but if, as I suspect, I do die of the plague and there’s no cure but to bring a bunch of zombies around in my room all at once… would that make ____ so much worse than ___? Also, if I died of natural causes, would that make ____ more ____ than _____? - but if, as I suspect, does exist then the value will come from a function such as \x0d{\{\}$ is the variable holding all such values.
— Talk to Transformer, better at TeX than me. (you might be missing glyphs. See image.) - but if, as I suspect, is responsible then I insist they be into a separate channel so that it does not undermine the
— Here it went from TeX to Zalgo - but if, as I suspect, is responsible then I insist they be into a separate channel and blasted into oblivion by myself from a separate space […] I have not been on the internet in ten years so there might be some more on t he internet but t was not on t he internet i had to go with the gauntlet
— Transformer (2019) and Google (2013) agree that anything blasted into something has to be blasted into oblivion - Oh! And tell me, in the Name of God and Mohammed, you want to take on that kind of evil? What do you want to do?
Hilmi: But you’re not an evil person! You’re a good person! And the Prophet was a happy person. - They were way, way late.”
In their time in the U.S., they had also discovered a deep appreciation for craft and the art of the craft itself.
— Looove craft. - The were way, way late and my favourite part of their body was their lips
— :-*
Conclusion
“Brotherly brotherhood” was pretty funny, but the whole MTA bit was pretty lame. The court stuff was depressing. Please keep your pOliTicS out of my language models!!
Google in 2013 was dumber, but funnier. Just like me, I guess?
Here’s the classic version:
And check out the blog post.