Does Not Compute

Scientist Janelle Shane recently gave the neural computer network she developed the job of coming up with pickup lines. She did this by collecting many of them and feeding them into the network and seeing how well it could learn the technique.

Shane notes that the data collection process for this particular project was rather gross. In the end, the network was able to reproduce the basic formula but wound up stymied by the plays on words on which most of these lines depend. Some of its offerings made actual sense, although they may not have been what last-call lotharios would see as smooth: "Are you a candle? Because you are so hot of the looks with you." Or simple and direct, like, "I want to get my heart with you." "You look like a thing and I love you." And the always reliable, "Hello."

And some of them are incomprehensible: "Hey baby, I’m swirked to gave ever to say it for drive." Or "If I had a rose for every time I thought of you, I have a price tighting."

On the other hand, some of those latter lines could intrigue a lady more than the supposedly smoother come-ons. She might want to hang around to see just what the heck you were talking about, or what wild phrase you might come up with next.