Oracle AI's Eurovision horror show: How bad can it be? Yep. Badder

An Oracle AI bot, in collaboration with poet and programmer Eran Hadas, has spewed out an alleged song based on dozens of Eurovision entries. Eurovision songs are already infamously awful so forcing the poor bot to listen to hundreds of previous entries might one day be seen as an act of real cruelty. Our future robotic …

[Dan 55]

El Reg is treading on thin ice

Oracle hauled Google to court over nine lines of text, this esteemed organ could be getting an e-mail off an Oracle Compliance Officer soon.

[Paul Herber]

Re: El Reg is treading on thin ice

I forsee a retrospective sue-ball from The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

[Paul Herber]

Re: El Reg is treading on thin ice

Compliant and complaint are anagrams. Coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: El Reg is treading on thin ice

"this esteemed organ could be getting an e-mail off an Oracle Compliance Officer soon."

And Oracle may find that they get tried in the Hague before they get the chance to even asks lawyers to speak to ElReg...

[Tigra 07]

Jeez. This is meant to be my haven away from this Eurovision crap El Reg!

[Captain Scarlet]

It includes "AI", we are all doomed to have "AI" suggest you listen to their "songs"

[Valeyard]

you're hired

Better than any UK entry for the past few decades

[Khaptain]

Re: you're hired

Better than any UK entry for the past few decades

[A.P. Veening]

Re: you're hired

Finland in 2006 was just as bad, neither better nor worse and Sweden in 2013 was better. The runner up in 2014 was even good, shame about the winner that year.

[Joe W]

Re: you're hired

C'mon, Lordi was great

This one's actually not too bad, as bad pop songs go. 12 points.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: you're hired

C'mon, Lordi was great

The show was (and still is) great, that song wasn't really. It just won because of novelty value.

A bit longer ago, but the 1974 winner wasn't bad either.

[Joe W]

Re: you're hired

Hm... Well... It's catchy. And this kind of music just works for me, you could play bingo with some of my playlists, words like: Steel, power, thunder, metal, 666, hammer, dark /darkness, glory...

[bombastic bob]

Re: you're hired

yeah, reminds me of the "70's disco hit" I wrote in 10 minutes. It repeated the same 2 measure riff with the constant 4 on the floor and "funky bass line" and "horn hits" over and over and over and over... (same chord, too).

And the words (not sung, but spoken, badly): "Yowza boogie down to my dance fever baby." I think I got all of the 70's disco words in there in one go.

I wrote it and completed the recording in around 10 minutes, maybe 15 at the most, no kidding. I was making a point. 70's disco was plastic formulaic CRAP, so I created some equivalent CRAP to lampoon it. But I did it in the 90's...

Apparently this AI thing went to a whole lot of trouble to do the same thing for the 'Eurovision' stuff, heh.

[bombastic bob]

Re: you're hired

well it makes the case that this style of music (like 70's disco, which was a WHOLE LOT WORSE) is "formulaic". You plug in the parameters to an AI and it *excretes* a "hit".

Without paying attention to lyrics the song would be mildly entertaining, as it DOES use familiar chord progressions in a way that's patterned after other "hit" songs. When you DO pay attention to the lyrics, it's like it was poorly translated from another language where it might've made sense. Even the worst bad-English embedded into southeast asian pop music is more sensible and congruent than THAT. (and I do like southeast asian pop music, which I consider to be better than most of what RIAA crams into our ears in order to market it to us until we like it).

Today i was working on a song of my own. yesterday I threw in a possible synth lead to it, but today it sounded like CRAP to me, not evoking a "cool!" reaction, and actually kinda lame (or perhaps formulaic), so I erased it, create a new song file without it. Strangely, _THIS_ song reminds me of what I threw away...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: you're hired

This is the thing it will do exactly. Like how vaporwave hits all the neurons for certain strongly tropey concepts but if you try to listen closely, it's just really fucked up and repetitive and hallucinatory like the mind filling in details by having to copy and paste and you suddenly noticing that. you can do that btw if you lay down in grass and focus on the point of one blade and sort of not let the reflex to saccade happen and then without looking away sort of try to *notice* what stuff around the blade you're focusing on is doing and oh gosh it's like, copied and pasted it and then if you're really good you can sort of imagine what they *might* look like if they changed a bit :O

[Doctor Syntax]

"the final is tomorrow (Saturday) night."

Final? If only.

[I ain't Spartacus]

We should take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Snowy]

AI

Produces string of random words, colour me surprised!

[-teacup ordinance]

Re: AI

"Colour me with rage, such a shame"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of my shoes...

"Because of my shoes I'm wearing today / One is called love / The other is pain."

Imagine being kicked in the balls with love.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Because of my shoes...

"Imagine being kicked in the balls with love."

They are certainly targeting a specialist niche in the market...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Because of my shoes...

"Imagine being kicked in the balls with love."

You seem to know my wife, care to explain?

[Paul Herber]

I think it's time I invented Eurovision Song Appreciation Chairs.

[Phil O'Sophical]

110v or 230v?

[Anonymous Coward]

"110v or 230v?"

Surely you mean "110A and 230V?"

Maybe a little over exuberant - you could get away with a few less amps.

[aks]

Keep it short and simple. What's few amps between friends (electodes)?

[Korev]

True, electricity Hertz

[Kubla Cant]

Bloody tears

I'm sorry happy to say it's been several decades since I watched a Eurovision Song Contest, and I'm aware that things have changed a bit since Puppet on a string. But even so, Blue jeans and bloody tears is a distinctly worrying, not to say icky, phrase.

The AI presumably worked with memes that it identified in the songs it was trained on. "Blue jeans" is an obvious one, but I'm surprised to find I've missed a sanguinary phase in Eurovision. Either the AI or its minders evidently thought the phrase so striking that they made it into the title, and kept on repeating it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bloody tears

Maybe a case of being over-optimistic with your skinny jeans selection ?

Either that or a nasty zip-related incident.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Bloody tears

That nasty zip-related incident is probably contamination from a movie (original Dutch title "Turks Fruit", which translates as "Turkish Delight").

[Mephistro]

Re: Bloody tears

There's also a similar incident in "There's something about Mary". This film is also famous for being the only comedy starred by Ben Stiller that actually MADE PEOPLE LAUGH!

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Bloody tears

There's also a similar incident in "There's something about Mary".

You are correct.

Turkish Delight: 1973

There's Something About Mary: 1998

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bloody tears

I hate getting tears in my blue jeans - it brings me to tears.

[Dog11]

Re: Bloody tears

Long ago, before Windows, I had a program that would accept two text file inputs and generate a new text in their style. Fed with Shakespeare and a geological tech report, it generated the immortal line "Wherefore art thou, Ridgeton Gravel Pit?" Surely such programs still exist, though a quick search failed to turn up anything similar ("text" seems now synonymous with "SMS"),

[aks]

Come back My Little Horse! What a wonderful Eurovison song that was!! Sooo well written.

[Neil 32]

That is disturbing on so many levels (including the obligatory observation on how it's better than any of our entries since 1997), but those key changes!

[tallenglish]

Better than the real thing

But then again it would have to try hard to be crapper than the real thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to hold you under / But honey you kept breathing

There's NOTHING disturbing in the above, I always run this test when I forget if my current wife's got lungs or gills!

[quxinot]

Re: I tried to hold you under / But honey you kept breathing

If I was being lewd, I'd suggest a much easier and more pleasurable test....

[Compuserve User]

Oldies but goodies

They need to get ABBA back.

[Tromos]

Re: Oldies but goodies

But ABBA back is the same as ABBA forwards!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oldies but goodies

What sounds the same whether its coming or going and appears in lots of travel programs?

A Michael PalinDrone

[GrapeBunch]

Re: Oldies but goodies

Which is the best way to travel to (jurisdiction withheld) so that I may legally take part in the same quasi-religious ritual?

Written from a French mapping on an English keyboard but luckily I remember Typewriter, mine is.

[John Savard]

Lyric

What,

Baby by myself the stain grows more obvious.

isn't an actual line from a Britney Spears song?

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be a slam-dunk for anarchy

The leather-clad bondage-synth-punk trio Hatari from Iceland will out-gross them all with their song "Hatrið mun sigra" ("Hate Will Prevail").

Oh how far the Vikings have fallen, and it's questionable whether they can ever recover from this.

[Korev]

Re: It will be a slam-dunk for anarchy

Good Lordi

[Anonymous Coward]

Eurovision

How did the new world manage to avoid this type of annual media dumpster fire?

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Eurovision

Have you seen fox news?

[GrapeBunch]

Re: Eurovision

Ah, but faux news pretendeth not musical to be.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a catchy song

I expect it will #1 in iTunes download chart by the end of the week.

[RegGuy1]

Another chance to remember this item

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/25/neil_armstrong_dies/

Neil Armstrong dies aged 82

'Nerdy engineer' who 'was just doing his job' departs this world for final time

From the comments there his family stated to the press:

"The next time you look up and see the Moon smiling down at you, give it a wink and think of Neil".

I often wink at the moon. :-)

[Muscleguy]

I object

That bot is a crime against baboons. Which don't have horns.

[Ptol]

The official campaign for Oracle to enter Eurovision 2020 is needed

Heck, calling Oracle a european country is not much more a stretch than including Australia

[Adam 1]

Re: The official campaign for Oracle to enter Eurovision 2020 is needed

As opposed to Azerbaijan or Georgia? (totally not North East of Iraq). I'm led to believe that even Israel competes.

[Allan George Dyer]

Still doesn't beat...

Richard Stilgoe's "Beef Steak", IMO.

[ForthIsNotDead]

Yohanna, in 2009, representing Iceland was the best Eurovision song in years. She came second. I was gutted. I'm still angry about it. That's why I voted Brexit.