Happenings

an archive of my work, and perhaps some of my thoughts

[realborisjohnson]

[dumptaker]

[thisisradioactive]

When you make a reference and someone actually gets it

[3dspenguin]

[unclefather]

“who ARE you” 

[homoz]

[amodernobject]

[mosslover65]

daily reminder eat Moss

[the-memedaddy]

[weirdmageddon]

psychic: *reads my mind* my mind:

[yet-tobe-titled]

Tina Schwarz Jon Gasca art collection

[theoldness]

[pochowek]

Went on a little rant today (:

[contemporary-art-blog]

[contemporary-art-blog]

Michel de Broin, Dissipation on a Turn, 2015

[aiweirdness]

Terrible Broadway musicals imagined by neural network

(Marquee graphic generated with RedKid.net’s sign generator)

Neural networks are a kind of machine learning program modeled very loosely after the human brain. By looking at a dataset and tuning the connections between their own virtual neurons, neural networks can learn to imitate the original dataset. Powerful neural networks can do impressive things, like translate languages, recognize faces, and even describe scenes in words.

The neural networks I use, however, have the approximate processing power of an earthworm.

Granted, it’s an earthworm that has put its entire tiny brain to the sole task of learning the dataset: I’ve taught neural networks to invent cookbook recipes, name cats and guinea pigs, and even write Harry Potter fan fiction, all with some degree of success.

What would a neural network make of Broadway musicals? Thanks to lyricist Robby Sandler, we have a chance to find out. Robby pulled a list of over 10,000 Broadway plays and musicals (names, starting dates, closing dates, and total number of performances from the Internet Broadway Database, and I gave them to the open-source char-rnn framework written by Andrej Karpathy.

The first thing I noticed was the time travel.

Mh Radpor Play, Comedy

Opening: Aep 00, 1969 Closing: Ser 30, 1917 Closing: May 11, 1922 Performance Count: 15

Santen Sos     Play

Opening: Nov 19, 1906 Closing: Cov 19, 1907 Closing: May 29, 1923 Closing: Fec 24, 1929 Closing: Jat 19, 1927 Closing: May 1935 Performance Count: 14 

Apparently, the plays produced by the neural network in its early stages were so bad that multiple teams of time travelers (or perhaps one very, very determined traveler) had to travel back in time to close them not only decades before they opened, but also retroactively in multiple alternate timelines.

One play called “The Gore” was so powerful that even closing the play 17 times over at least three timelines still resulted in 24 performances.

The Gore     Play, Comedy

Opening: May 19, 1919 Closing: Jay 19, 1920 Closing: May 19, 1922 Closing: May 19, 1924 Closing: May 19, 1932 Closing: May 19, 1919 Closing: Nov 19, 1922 Closing: May 19, 1919 Closing: Nov 19, 1927 Closing: May 19, 1925 Closing: May 19, 1927 Closing: May 19, 1922 Closing: May 19, 1917 Closing: May 19, 1932 Closing: May 19, 1925 Closing: May 19, 1925 Closing: May 19, 1921 Performance Count: 24

As the neural network progressed in its learning, the situation got less dire, but causality remained highly optional. The plays now only close once, but remain still really weird, and probably quite bad.

The Girls of Hurk     Play, Comedy Opening: Mar 17, 1991 Closing: May 05, 1980 Performance Count: 151

Meatlick     Musical, Comedy Opening: Mar 28, 1928 Closing: Nov 02, 1929 Performance Count: 133

The Wither Bean     Musical, Comedy Opening: Sep 11, 1920 Closing: Jan 1936 Performance Count: 25

Mep and the .     Musical, Revue Opening: Jan 04, 1906 Closing: Apr 25, 1901 Performance Count: 58 Worms and Ram     Play Opening: Nov 24, 1918 Closing: Feb 1919 Performance Count: 12  Is a Boot     Play, Melodrama Opening: Feb 03, 1900 Closing: Feb 1900 Performance Count: 22 Hot Stans     Play Opening: Feb 17, 1943 Closing: Mar 20, 1945 Performance Count: 1 

The Burking Ding of 190 Bour Dadige     Play, Comedy Opening: Sep 24, 1929 Closing: Jan 1938 Performance Count: 55

The neural network also seemed, for mysterious reasons, to zero in on butt-related plays.

Butt     Play, Comedy Opening: Jun 09, 1899 Closing: Nov 1906 Performance Count: 1

Bum     Play, Play with music Opening: Feb 12, 1930 Closing: Mar 1922 Performance Count: 1

Fart     Play Opening: Oct 13, 1923 Closing: Apr 03, 1927 Performance Count: 23

Buttosty     Play, Comedy Opening: May 14, 1907 Closing: Apr 1908 Performance Count: 12

Bun Life     Play Opening: Mar 06, 1995 Closing: Apr 22, 1999 Performance Count: 175

The Old Farting     Play, Melodrama Opening: May 24, 1927 Closing: Mar 01, 1926 Performance Count: 48

And, in addition to a continuing disregard for causality, there emerged a last category of plays and musicals that seemed strangely significant. 

The Siri     Play Opening: Nov 14, 1932 Closing: Sep 1914 Performance Count: 12

Bot Five     Play, Comedy Opening: Oct 25, 1958 Closing: Sep 02, 1959 Performance Count: 256

The Romance of the Bot     Play Opening: May 14, 1923 Closing: Jun 1924 Performance Count: 109

Perhaps “bot” is simply a highly-probable English word. Perhaps “butt” is, too. Or perhaps the neural network has examined the total creative output of 100+ years of Broadway, and is letting us know what it likes best.

[recentgooglesearches]

am i gay if i’ve never eaten a pear

[notationnotes]

Tube Map Radio :: Yuri Suzuki

[sacred-portal]