When artificial intelligence names cookies, you’re in for a real treat.
Janelle Shane
Ever wondered what would happen if you sent recipes for 1,228 types of cookies to a neural network, then asked it to give the cookies better names?
Researcher Janelle Shane did just that. In her latest experiment with artificial intelligence, she trained a machine-learning system to create new names for cookies.
“One neural network I use, called textgenrnn, tries its best to imitate any kind of text you give it,” Shane explained in her blog on Dec. 7. “The problem is that it doesn’t know what any of these words mean — it’s just picking letter combinations that seem likely to it.”
Her neural network looked at the recipes it was fed, then renamed the cookies. The result was a list of bizarre-sounding creations perfect for a challenge on the Great British Baking Show.
“This is what human cookies sound like to a neural network,” Shane added in her blog.
Some of the new cookie names include Merry Hunga Poppers, Quitterbread Bars, Grandma’s Spritches and Apricot Dream Moles.
In addition to new cookie names, Shane previously trained her machine-learning system to generate new phrases for Valentine’s Day candy hearts and create new Dungeons and Dragons creatures.