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Google's neural network is now writing sappy poetry

It's only a matter of time before it starts smoking cloves after class.

After binge reading romance novels for the past few months, Google's neural network is suddenly turning into the kid from English Lit 101 class. The reading assignment was part of Google's plan to help the app sound more conversational, but the follow-up assignment to take what it learned and write some poetry turned out a little more sophomoric.

As Wired reports, Google's team "inspired" the poetry by giving the system two sentences from the books it had read and telling it to reproduce a new sentence based on the data set of 11,000 books it had just plowed through. The results:

i went to the store to buy some groceries.
i store to buy some groceries.
i were to buy any groceries.
horses are to buy any groceries.
horses are to buy any animal.
horses the favorite any animal.
horses the favorite favorite animal.
horses are my favorite animal.

--

no. he said.
"no," he said.
"no," i said.
"i know," she said.
"thank you," she said.
"come with me," she said.
"talk to me," she said.
"don't worry about it," she said.

While it might not win any Pulitzers at the moment, the neural network's writing homework could eventually lead to smarter, more human-seeming chatbots. Or it could even learn to do the job of countless Engadget writers. For now though: "don't worry about it."