Valentine’s Day is coming up next week, and you may be finding yourself scrambling for the right thing to say to your Valentine. Look no further; AI-generated candy heart sayings are here to save the day! Kind of.
Janelle Shane is a research scientist, and one of her areas of focus is artificial intelligence, otherwise known as neural networks. In order to test what they can do and to train them to work with data sets, Shane often uses humor as a tool. The results are often varied, and always hilarious. Recently, she decided to see what would happen if she made a data set out of standard candy heart messages like “LOVE YOU,” “BE MINE” or “CALL ME.”
The results of her experiment were, well. . . a little mixed.
There’s something off about these AI-generated hearts, but at least they’re earnest. pic.twitter.com/wUKGyNsWhK
— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) February 9, 2018
Some of the results were in line with the messages that tend to be on candy hearts. In Shane’s opinion, they could even be considered improvements. These included, “LOVE BOT,” “MY BEAR” and “LOVE BUN.” Cute and kinda cheesy, just like every other candy heart out there.
Then, the messages started to get a little bit strange. Shane says they “were in the same spirit, but perhaps not quite as effective.” Some of them read “YOU ARE BABE,” “HEART ME” and “SWEET PEAR.” I think being called a sweet pear would be a little odd, but I’d probably still be okay with it.
There were some that veered straight off track and started to go deep into weird territory. However, Shane still thinks “some of them might work on me” even though she’s not quite sure what they mean. A few of these weirder ones read, “TEAM BEAR,” “BOG LOVE” and “YOU’RE ME.” That last one isn’t so bad; it could be interpreted as some kind of soulmate comment, if you squint a little bit.
Many of the other messages went above and beyond the definition of straight-up nonsense. They’re entertaining, but you definitely shouldn’t be calling bae any of these things and expecting a positive response: “U HACK,” “STANK LOVE,” and “LOO GIN.” Just. . . no.
There was an additional category that was worth mention, but not featured in Shane’s post. And with good reason; the messages are all of the four-letter word variety, and none of them are at all appropriate. If you’re curious, though, you can fill out a form and she’ll send the list to you.
The same neural network also got creative with writing some pick-up lines, just in case you really need a helping hand this Valentine’s Day. Use most of them at your own risk.