想看哈利波特的續集?人工智能已經寫好了
JK Rowling must be thanking Dumbledore that she has her Cormoran Strike series to fall back on, after a predictive keyboard wrote a new Harry Potter story using her books and it became the funniest thing on the internet.
After the team fed the seven Harry Potter novels through their predictive text keyboard, it came up with a chapter from a new Harry Potter story: Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash. It is worth reading.
一個研究團隊研發了一種可預估文本輸入法，在他們輸入了七部《哈利·波特》系列之後，這個輸入法寫出了一章哈利·波特的新故事，《哈利·波特與一坨看起來像灰燼的東西的畫像》。它值得你去讀一讀。“Magic: it was something that Harry Potter thought was very good.” Well, that’s not wrong. And the following sounds plausibly Pottery: “Leathery sheets of rain lashed at Harry’s ghost as he walked across the grounds towards the castle. Ron was standing there and doing a kind of frenzied tap dance.”
“魔法，哈利一直認爲這是一種很好的東西。”好吧，這沒什麼錯。接下來這一段聽起來很有哈利的風格：“哈利的鬼魂穿過廣場走向城堡，皮料一般密佈的雨簾鞭打着他的鬼魂。榮恩站在那裏，發瘋似的跳着踢踏舞。”
So far, so Ron. But then:
目前爲止，這很榮恩。不過接着：“He saw Harry and immediately began to eat Hermione’s family. Ron’s Ron shirt was just as bad as Ron himself.“
他看到哈利，立刻開始吃赫敏的家人。榮恩的榮恩衫就像他自己一樣糟糕。”‘If you two can’t clump happily, I’m going to get aggressive,’ confessed the reasonable Hermione.”
“‘如果你們倆不能好好的結成一團，我會變得咄咄逼人。’赫敏這樣勸說道。”It continues in this vein: almost making sense, but mostly just gloriously bonkers, like: “To Harry, Ron was a loud, slow, and soft bird. Harry did not like to think about birds.” And my favourite: “They looked at the door, screaming about how closed it was and asking it to be replaced with a small orb. The password was ‘BEEF WOMEN,’ Hermione cried.”
這種風格繼續往下，大多數還算合情理，就是頗有些理直氣壯的瘋氣。例如：“對哈利來說，榮恩就是一隻吵鬧，遲緩而且軟弱的笑料。哈利不喜歡思考鳥類的事情。”還有我最喜歡的一段“他們看着那扇門，尖叫着抱怨它關得那麼緊，它們要把它變成一個小球。密碼是‘牛肉女人’，赫敏叫到。”Botnik describes itself as “a human-machine entertainment studio and writing community”, with members including former Clickhole head writer Jamie Brew, and former New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff. The predictive text keyboard is its first writing tool – it works, Botnik explains, by analysing a body of text “to find combinations of words likely to follow each other” based on the grammar and vocabulary used.
這家名爲Botnik的公司自詡爲一家“類人機器娛樂工作室與寫作社團。”其成員包括互聯網話題分享網站Clickhole前主筆Jamie Brew，《紐約客》雜誌編輯Bob Mankoff。這種可預估文本輸入法是這家公司研發的第一款寫作工具——該公司稱，它的工作原理是基於分析某一文本的語法和詞彙，“找到詞與詞之間組合的概率”。“We use computational tools to create strange new things,” says the company on its website. “We would like, selfishly, not to replace humanity with algorithms. instead, we want to find natural ways for people and machines to interact to create what neither would have created alone.”
“我們用計算工具創造怪異而新奇的事物，”這家公司在自己的網站上這樣說道，“自私地說，我們並不希望計算法則取代人性。我們想要找到讓人與機器和諧互動的自然方式，讓兩者創造出任何一方不能單獨完成的成果。”As well as the Potter chapter, Botnik has also created incredible TV scripts for Scrubs and Seinfeld (“Dating is the opposite of tuna, salmon is the opposite of everything else. I’m sure you know what I mean,” says Jerry). It’s tried romance(“Hot guy Jeff is devastatingly sexy and steamy. He’s got a really simple rule: be the ultimate playboy and get through one day without crying”), Halloween safety tips (“The Bible says that children love when we dress them like pumpkins and eat their regular clothes”) and teenage advice columns as well. All are fabulous.
除了哈利·波特的故事，Botnik公司還爲美國喜劇《宋飛正傳》寫出了精彩的劇本（“約會是金槍魚的反義詞，鮭魚是其他一切的反義詞。我相信你明白我的意思。”傑利說道。）其中有羅曼史（“型男傑夫性感無敵，非常惹火。他秉持着一條簡單的規則，做一個終極花花公子，堅持一整天不哭鼻子。”），還包括萬聖節安全指南，（《聖經》說孩子們喜歡我們把他們打扮成南瓜，然後吃掉他們平常的衣服。），還有青年規勸專欄。都寫得精彩極了。
