Choose Your Intergalactic Quarantine House: House 1: A rocket An engraved pen A loaf of space bread A mysterious force House 2: A replica ray gun A pet ray gun A radiant gem A chilling crystal House 3: A holovid replaying battle scenes A pet of indeterminate species A blinding light A collection of crystals House 4: A new wormhole A painting that looks like a moon A disconcertingly friendly parakeet A fancy blaster

So far one of my favorite uses of OpenAI’s new API (which people are calling GPT-3) is for making absurd memes. One of the memes from March/April 2020 was quarantine houses, where people under sudden covid-19 stay-at-home orders took stock of the skills and supplies in each household and starting proposing hypothetical new choices. Which mix of sci-fi characters would you choose to be isolated with? (The house with Murderbot, clearly.)

I did my first GPT-3 experiments back when the quarantine house meme was at its height, but before I could talk about my results. But, due to an egregiously botched coronavirus response, covid quarantine is still particularly relevant in some countries we might name (thanks, USA). So I present to you: choose your quarantine house!

Choose your appliances quarantine house House 1: 24.5 cubic feet of appliances A crockpot An Instant Pot A popcorn machine House 2: A popcorn maker A flavored popcorn machine 5 small appliances An arcade machine A vacuum House 3: A juicer A blender A rice cooker A stand mixer House 4: An espresso machine A fondue pot A kitchen robot A wormhole?

I did this not by training the AI on quarantine house memes (there aren’t enough of those) but by giving it two handcrafted examples, one on food and another on entertainment. I agonized over making each house balanced, and even gave each house themes within the larger overarching topic. House 1 had the fantasy items, House 2 had the cute stuff, House 3 had the scary/spooky versions, and House 4 had the science fiction stuff.

I needn’t have bothered with all this finesse. It seems to have decided that even staying on theme is fairly optional, and the things it includes are often absurdly overpowered. It was shown consistently four items per house. It ignores this.

Theme: Dinosaurs House 1: An herbivore A carnivore A T-Rex Pinata House 2: Dousing water Impervium Hardtack Life strains House 3: Archaeopteryx Mongolian BBQ eggrolls A Diplodocus The Spanish Inquisition House 4: A Permian beetle Dabbing nail polish A Ptightass An ancient extinct relative
Theme: Historical House 1: A pharaoh Gladiator armor Venetian body brush A hotdog vendor House 2: The first Ford Model-T car Cleopatra A creepy beaded bracelet Swordplay House 3: 1066 A velociraptor Attila The Hun A slendery squirrel House 4: The first ukulele Ned, Old West guy

It was particularly fun when I let it come up with its own house themes. Since its training data cut off in October 2019, it hasn’t heard of covid-19 or seen the quarantine house meme.

{Theme: Food ingredients} House 1: ground beef 10 kgs of sugar unwashed funeral bouquets zucchini pulp from juicing horse milk House 2: dried bell peppers Mediterranean coffee beans vegan mayonnaise a dozen jars of mayonnaise a dried scalded pig bladder House 3: Slime MM and chocolate sauce 100 vinegars Tabasco sauce (everything is hot and humid here) House 4: clotted cream 14 pounds of cactus organ meat A box of calamari
{Theme: Blue} House 1: 10,000 blue colored pencils 1 blueberry bush a blue raspberry candy cane a stained blue coffee mug a cheeseburger colored pencil sketch House 2: An obscure volcano lava lamp a blue banana a hotdog colored pencil sketch blue toilet paper blue salty xanax-laced Kool-Aid House 3: 35 blue kitchen trash bags House 4: A trusty old blue bicycle 10,000 pieces of blue legos blue lowercase letters spelling the word B O U N D
Theme: Future House 1: A cybernetic limb Superhuman intelligence An android A battle tank House 2: A hot tub A sasquatch Eggos Penny Farthing House 3: A cerebral jack Cloned organs An advanced AI An extraterrestrial House 4: A hoverboard An extendable arm An avocado Plasma rifles

For some reason it generated a Cocktails quarantine house theme with 16 houses, some of which contain very questionable-sounding cocktails (anyone want an “Eldrich gecko”?) . It wouldn’t fit in this blog post, but become an AI Weirdness supporter to get it as bonus content. Or become a free subscriber to get new AI Weirdness posts in your inbox!

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