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Future Robot Overlord Pens Surprisingly Tender ‘Modern Love’

Photo-Illustration: Getty Images

Picture this: You’re at an intimate bar in Brooklyn, celebrating your 31st birthday in your favorite black slip, when you lock eyes with a sexy man, smirking at you from across the room. Well, it’s official: This is the man you’re going to marry. The night progresses swimmingly. Following some prolonged, sensual eye contact, you find him at your side, where he stays until last call. When you leave together and walk out to his car, he does have some crushing news to deliver: That he is, unfortunately, married — but, of course, he’ll call you. And sure enough, the next day, he rings, inviting you out to lunch.

The rest is history: You spend your lives together, going out for dinner and then drinks and then dinner again and then back to drinks and then even more dinner — and on and on for eternity.

Excluding the casual infidelity, this fictitious meet-cute and ensuing relationship sound pretty romantic and fulfilling, right? It may surprise and distress you to learn, then, that it was conceived of by an artificial-intelligence language system named GPT-3, which (who?) the New York Times challenged to write submissions for its beloved “Modern Love” column. Here’s what the AI produced in full:

I was a single mother when I first met Dean, and he was a married man. We met at a bar in Brooklyn, where I was celebrating my 31st birthday with friends. I spotted him across the room, and he was looking at me, too. I was wearing a black dress, and I remember thinking, “This is the one I’m going to marry.”


He was with a group of his friends, and he came over to say hello. I told him I was a writer, and he told me he was a writer, too. We got along immediately. I asked if he would read something I’d written, and he said, “Sure, I’ll read anything you want.”


We talked until the bar closed. I walked him to his car and asked for his phone number.


He said, “I’m married.”


“I’m married, too,” I said.


“I’ll call you,” he said.


“I’ll wait,” I said.


We went out for lunch. We went out for dinner. We went out for drinks. We went out for dinner again. We went out for drinks again. We went out for dinner and drinks again. We went out for dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and dinner and drinks and

A beautiful modernist ending to a short story about falling in love, which accurately distills the trajectory of many successful relationships: A passionate starts leads to an endless, blissful cycle of going out to dinner and grabbing beers.

The submission is so tender it almost makes you forget that it was written by literal artificial intelligence, technology that could one day render many human jobs obsolete, or, you know, pose an existential threat to humanity itself (at least according to Elon Musk). Anyhow, the pacing of that story was nice, eh?

Future Robot Overlord Pens Surprisingly Tender ‘Modern Love’