Computer generation is getting better and better. Thanks to advances in software—including neural networks that enable robot brains to learn—computers can write headlines[1], make music[2], paint pictures[3], and say they love you[4]. But maybe the best application is writing recipe. Gut-bustingly hilarious, gut-bustingly horrible recipes.
Behold:
Jamie Brew's mysterious "predictive text engine" isn't the only computer that's tried chewing on recipes and then writing its own. On Github, you can find a whole other collection of computer generated recipes[5] created by a neural network[6]. Some of those recipes are actually a little too coherent to be funny—while Brew's example is funny enough to make me slightly suspicious—but there are still nuggets of absurdity hidden inside.
For instance:
- 1 Beer, cut into cubes
- Drain on both sides of the refrigerator.
- YOWL THE COOKIE: ADD 1/2 cup of cheese.
- 1 1/2 tb Water; Cooked and seasoned
- 6 oz Mayonnaise peeled, finely chopped
Of course not all computer have had bad luck with the art of cooking. Watson— IBM's supercomputer that once trounced a bunch of humans at Jeopardy— actually managed to turn out some decent recipes using this technique[7]. Weird recipes, the kind few humans would imagine, but decent ones, and ones that don't call for a cup of cubed beer.
With that in mind, it seems possible that computers could eventually do pretty well at generating interesting things for us meatbags to eat; they just need to be very, very powerful in order to do it well. In the meantime, the best you can get without a professional-grade supercomputer on hand is GREASED CASSEROLE.
GIF via HowToBasic[8]
References
- ^ write headlines (www.popularmechanics.com)
- ^ make music (www.popularmechanics.com)
- ^ paint pictures (www.popularmechanics.com)
- ^ say they love you (www.popularmechanics.com)
- ^ a whole other collection of computer generated recipes (gist.github.com)
- ^ a neural network (karpathy.github.io)
- ^ actually managed to turn out some decent recipes using this technique (gizmodo.com)
- ^ HowToBasic (www.youtube.com)
