back to article Roses are red, algorithms are blue, here's a poem I made a machine write for you

Valentine's Day could sour our romance with AI chatbots. February 14 may become that tipping point when large numbers of lazy Lotharios use machines to generate text expressing borrowed emotions about their (supposed) loved ones instead of searching their miserable, shrunken souls for a personal and original expression of …

  1. Rafael #872397
    WTF?

    Lesson learned: never trust a chatbot with your love life!

    Well, duh? It looks like you're not really thinking about putting any effort into your love life. Or thinking at all.

    1. CatWithChainsaw

      Re: Lesson learned: never trust a chatbot with your love life!

      Could probably be more generalized as not wanting to put effort into anything at all.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My favourite ..

    .. was Andy Parson's:

    Roses are red,

    Violets are blue.

    When you go down on me,

    please don't chew.

    I'm a simple man, I know :)

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: My favourite ..

      I'm a simple single man, I know :)

      Fixed it for you...

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: My favourite ..

      Violets are red.

      Roses are blue.

      Genetic engineering

      makes flowers for you.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: My favourite ..

        Sorry ... I could not resist, to make it scan better !!! :)

        Violets are red.

        Roses are blue.

        Genetic engineering

        made these flowers for you

        :)

        1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: My favourite ..

          Chatbots poem was read

          My loves heart turned blue

          Then through her tears,

          told me we were through.

      2. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: My favourite ..

        Violets are red,

        Roses are blue,

        So far as I can tell,

        But I'm colour blind,

        And unfamiliar with the norms of poetry.

        -A.

  3. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Truth bomb

    Here is a truth bomb for the OP.

    She was looking for a reason to dump you and chat bot made it easier. Now you earned time to improve yourself - use it wisely and in a couple of months, as a better version of yourself, try again with someone more fitting you.

    1. zuckzuckgo

      Re: Truth bomb

      > ...as a better version of yourself, try again with ...

      CdB-GPT* (Cyrano de Bergerac GPT-4) the chatbot for lovers. Trained only on love poems, romance novels and the Hallmark Channel. Coming to you in 2023.

      *Warning: Not recommended for inter-office memos or public press releases!

  4. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Love poem

    Oh broken windows, shattered glass

    A symbol of love that didn't last

    Yet still they hold a charm, it's true

    A reminder of what once was, too.

    And network cables, tangled knots

    A symbol of connections we've sought

    Yet still they run, they pulse, they flow

    A metaphor for love's afterglow.

    And Python, a language so bright

    A tool for coding day and night

    A symbol of logic, structure, and design

    A reminder of love's structure and line.

    Together these things, broken and bright

    A symbol of love's endless sight

    For even in ruin, there's still a spark

    A reminder of love's endless mark.

    So let us embrace these broken things

    For they are symbols of love that brings

    A hope for a future, a chance to start

    A new love story, written with heart.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Love poem

      Rhyming couplets

      Worked for bards in doublets

      and hose, but for you?

      A Clerihew.

      1. Bebu

        Re: Love poem

        Clever. It is (almost?) a Clerihew.

        Thank you for adding to my vocabulary.

        I would have thought if you were going to plagiarize a love poem you would raid the Bard's (Stratford not Alphabet) sonnets before accepting the tripe from AI offal out there. The are plenty of other Elizabethan poets in the same league. Although some of Donne's poety is a bit racey.

        The inamorata will recognize quality if not the poet - if she be an Elizabethan scholar she will chuffed that you raided a treasury rather than Smithfield shambles.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: (Stratford not Alphabet)

          Stratford-upon-Avon not Stratford.

          1. captain veg Silver badge

            Re: (Stratford not Alphabet)

            As opposed to Stratford-Under-Avon? Stratford-Next-To-Avon? Stratford-In-The-Vicinity-Of-Avon-But-Not-Right-Next-To-It? Bing-Bong-Avon-Calling?

            -A.

      2. Sanguma

        Re: Love poem

        Doncha mean, "rhyming cutlets?"

        as done by the Ameglian Major Cow, the Dish of the Day, at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

      3. Nifty

        Re: Love poem

        Bought the Mrs a rose. Well almost. A rose by any other name anyway.

      4. withQuietEyes

        Re: Love poem

        The comments section of an article on AI are an interesting place to learn new poetry vocabulary.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: And Python, a language so bright

      Ooooh, controversial.

  5. b0llchit Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Quantum fluctuations

    Positrons are red

    Electrons are blue

    When it says boom

    Please take the clue

  6. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    chatbot Valentine

    No idea is so bad that someone won't try it.

    1. withQuietEyes

      Re: chatbot Valentine

      Off the top of my head I can name four guys in my college class who would have tried it. (one of which would be my ex-boyfriend...)

  7. Howard Sway Silver badge

    I've been applying my organic intelligence to figure out if it is possible to drink at all 13

    You need Dijkstra's algorithm.

    And probably some sort of graph of time between bladder reliefs as number of drinks increases too.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: I've been applying my organic intelligence to figure out if it is possible to drink at all 13

      I don't think his problem is routing, it's bandwidth (and perhaps latency to a small extent).

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: I've been applying my organic intelligence to figure out if it is possible to drink at all 13

      You also need to define what "Single Trip" means, given a "walkabout" can last for months, I'm sure it is possible.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    won't increase your chances of keeping your relationship alive

    hold my beer...

    she LOVES IT! She thinks it's CUTE! She's... bought a... SUBSCRIPTION NOW?!

  9. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    Hmmm, I see an opportunity here. Set up a love poem writing service on fiverr, hand the legwork over to chatGPT, profit! Anyone daft enough to use the service isn't going to notice how crappy the poem is, and neither will anyone daft enough to date them.

  10. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Ale trail

    Holy shit. That shows actual creativity and thought and artistic work.

    From the local council.

    How the hell did that happen?

    I live in Titusville, near Cape Canaveral, and the best they can do is "um, we have them rocket things"

    They can't even keep a restaurant open past 3pm and they wonder why they don't get the tourist bucks.

    Yes, I am a bitter man. But I'm also happy with rum and whiskey.

    1. John H Woods

      Re: Ale trail

      Love Titusville. Does it still have that quirky space museum? Took my kids out of (UK) school in 2006 to see the last night time launch of the shuttle. Teachers weren't convinced it was that educational. First launch was scrubbed and we went in the museum, which was open even though it was pretty late at night. This amazing old chap came up and talked my kids through a reconstruction of the Mercury mission (I think) - they were entranced by him.

      On the way out I looked for him at the counter but he wasn't there. So I said "oh, will you thank the older gentleman, he seemed incredibly knowledgable" --- they fell about laughing. "You don't know who that was, do you? It's Bob Thompson, he was deputy director of the shuttle program, ex-astronaut, chief engineer for NASA. He was only here because he was talking to TV reporters outside a few minutes ago"

      Never forgot that amazing gentleman. Turned my kids into geeks in 10 mins. What an honour to meet him and what a lovely chap he was.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Ale trail

        You need to keep reminding your kids of that meeting, it will help them to keep the memory.

  11. jake Silver badge

    And yet ...

    ... Hallmark, and hundreds or thousands of imitators, will sell umpteen million cards pre-printed with the exact same insipid nonsense and nobody will blink an eyelid over it.

    "Me see a neon moon above / I searched for years I found no love

    I'm sure that love will never be / A product of plasticity" —Frank Zappa

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: And yet ...

      You can't blink an eyelid. That would be a wink. Blinking involves both eyelids, synchronised.

      -A.

  12. petef

    Roses are #FF0000

    Violets are #0000FF

    All my base

    Are belong to you

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      Roses are pink. In French.

      Violets are violet.

      But I can't be sure that you perceive them the same as me.

      -A.

      1. petef

        Lurve is colour blind.

        1. petef

          After some deeply unrepresentative search it turns out that roses are #e4011d and violets are #a24fd2. That might have complicated the rhyming but for 2 and you. Scansion then goes out of the window.

  13. Lil Endian
    Pint

    A Suitable Valentine's Day Activity

    13 watering holes on a single trip along the trail... Not a suitable Valentine's Day activity...

    I think Norm! would disagree :) Cheers!

  14. Danny 14

    I think the vogons said it best.

    Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

    Thy micturations are to me, (with big yawning)

    As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning

    On a lurgid bee,

    That mordiously hath blurted out,

    Its earted jurtles, grumbling

    Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.

  15. tiggity Silver badge

    Ryan Giggs

    No matter how dire "AI" poetry is, it cannot be more cringe worthy than the efforts of "Giggsy"

  16. nijam Silver badge

    > Little did I know, the poem ... was completely insincere.

    Draw your own conclusions.

  17. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Coat

    Hallmark

    'When she read the poem, she was hurt and upset. She said it lacked any genuine emotion and that it was just a generic, impersonal message.'

    How is that any different from a Hallmark card?

  18. Ideasource

    Valentine's Day is a Trigger Garden

    You set yourself up.

    Too many plays, movies and stories have glorified love poem plot expectation to unrealistic heights.

    Valentine's Day is a tightrope.

    And even if you do blow their mind, it just sets you up for a harder gauntlet next year , simultaneously hijacking your gesture by diluting it into the bin of general holiday expectation.

    Keep Valentine's Day chill with casual familier shows of loving sentiment to guard against culture-triggered insecurities.

    Deploy your super romance gestures on a holiday-forsaken day that otherwise would just be ordinary-tedium. Packs a bigger punch for the same payload without the social gauntlet readied against you from the start.

  19. captain veg Silver badge

    Reality is red,

    The virtual is blue,

    Choose the right pill,

    And you might get off with Carrie-Anne Moss.

  20. Sanguma

    I always thought

    it should read:

    Noses are red

    and violently blue.

    Some poems rhyme.

    This one doesn't.

    Nor does it make any sense.

    And certainly doesn't scan either.

    But you can't have it all!

  21. wimton@yahoo.com
    Coat

    Remember Stanislaw Lem's "electronic bard". Who was so good that it threatens to put all poets out of a job. To quell an uprising among the poets, the machine was evicted to a galaxy far far away.

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Haven't come across Stanislaw Lem's work, but did last year get to see John Clark's Latin Verse Machine.

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