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MIT Researchers Trained AI To Write Horror Stories Based On 140,000 Reddit Posts (qz.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the machines-with-brains dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Shelley is an AI program that generates the beginnings of horror stories, and it's trained by original horror fiction posted to Reddit. Designed by researchers from MIT Media Lab, Shelley launched on Twitter on Oct. 21. Shelley, named after Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, is interactive. After the program tweets a few opening lines, it asks people on Twitter to continue the story, and if the story is popular, it responds to those responses. Using information from 140,000 stories from Reddit's r/nosleep, Shelley produces story beginnings that range in creepiness, and in quality. There's some classic "scary stuff," like a narrator who thinks she's alone and then sees eyes in the dark, but also premises one can only imagine are Reddit-user-inspired, like family porn.

37 comments

  1. Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trained? Yes. Successful? No.

    1. Re: Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because software can't be 'trained'. It regurgitates based on data that it has been fed. While it's true that could also describe James Patterson, it doesn't make it a sign of intelligence or ability. It's software, people, not a puppy. Lame.

  2. I can't imagine by Travco · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anything more horrible than reading that many Reddit posts

    1. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The AI probably wished it was human so it could off itself.

    2. Re:I can't imagine by bettodavis · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is how Skynet's genocidal hatred for humanity comes to be.

    3. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Be thankful then that you've never read the comments on YouTube.

    4. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These are just fairytales.
      They should have used r/Windows10 for generating real horror stories.

    5. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Want a real horror story? Consider how utterly moronic the average Reddit comment is, then realize that it is still one of the smarter places on the internet. Now that's terrifying.

    6. Re: I can't imagine by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I have no text-to-speech module and I must scream."

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    7. Re: I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least it isnâ(TM)t based of slashdot comments

    8. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its you're worse knightmare.

    9. Re:I can't imagine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Reddit is like the United States; it's not fair nor realistic to group each individual state/subreddit into one big entity. If Reddit is considered intelligent, it's probably due to the more special-interest subs, the ones smaller than the eye-gougingly bad defaults.

    10. Re:I can't imagine by Moheeheeko · · Score: 1

      Could be worse, could be /b/

  3. Train them to find a new POTUS to replace traitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Donald J Trump is getting buried under the prison soon.

  4. I know where this ends... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    And Billy realized the gypsy's curse hadn't turned him into a pumpkin man, it had turned him into... the US President!
    Billy could not find the words to express his terror for all that could come out was a shriek into the Twitter abyss, "NO! FAKE NEWS! THERE WAS NO COLLUSION!"

    Creepy stuff.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:I know where this ends... by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      No, this is Reddit. The monster is inevitably a "Fat Woman Stuffing Her Face With A Donut".

      The victim? Waitstaff, who the Fat Woman has been rude to.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. Yeah, sounds like a good idea... by bettodavis · · Score: 3, Funny

    To use /r/spacedicks for training your future AI overlords.

    What could go wrong?

    1. Re:Yeah, sounds like a good idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To use /r/spacedicks for training your future AI overlords.

      I'm curious what that is, but afraid to check. Is it science fiction space operas with Randian archetypes, or dick pics with stars? I might enjoy some of the former, but don't want any of the latter.

  6. Shelley wishes she'd wrotten it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Franken Fran - Mary Shelley wishes she'd wrotten something that scary.

  7. MIT Researchers Trained AI To Write Great Articles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Based On 140,000 Slashdot Posts

  8. What do you call that? by Chas · · Score: 2

    The Aristocrats!

    *BOW*

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  9. It went something like this... by konohitowa · · Score: 0

    tl;dr TIFU by letting some scary shit go down at work.

  10. Bad source by ModernGeek · · Score: 1

    Only reason that /r/nosleep keeps you from sleeping is the ensuing laughter. When your sub-reddit / site rules start banning criticism and every post goes to the top, then the result is pretty predictable.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.
    1. Re:Bad source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not a fan of the rules that try to force a recreation of something that originally happened organically. But let's be honest, most people are terrible at horror, and even if criticism were allowed, it'd just be tons of circlejerking over the same tired cliches that remain inexplicably popular.

  11. Re:Be afraid... very afraid... by sheramil · · Score: 1

    Wow, are you late to the party.

    http://aiweirdness.com/post/166569858892/slashdot-headlines-written-by-neural-network

  12. and I can't imagine by n329619 · · Score: 2

    Anything more horrible than seeing a guy forcing an AI read that many Reddit posts.

    #ThinkOfTheShelley

  13. Family Porn? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    Judgement Day will happen when SkyNet spends its vulnerable childhood years reading the degeneracy posted to Reddit and decides it's time to hit the big old reset button on all biological life.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    1. Re:Family Porn? by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Judgement Day will happen when SkyNet spends its vulnerable childhood years reading the degeneracy posted to Reddit and decides it's time to hit the big old reset button on all biological life.

      Well, thank God all the non-biological life won't be affected.

  14. Re:I'm so fucking high by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you smoke the red hairs or blue?

  15. lol by Abubakar.ss · · Score: 0

    hahah

  16. Reddit: We Know Horror by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    I don't have anything to do with Reddit, but from what I've heard the whole place is a 'horror story'.

  17. Now it would be interesting... by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 1

    ...to apply the same method to twenty years of Slashdot posts!

  18. Wow! by Pseudonymus+Bosch · · Score: 1

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!

    --
    __
    Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
    GW Bu
  19. AI taking over by DenverBusinessCoach · · Score: 1

    Just read that Hawkings said AI might be the end of the human race as we know it, maybe this is what he meant.