A new Harry Potter story hit the Web last week but it was not written by J. K. Rowling.
New York-based entertainment group Botnick Studios, a company that uses algorithms to train computers to behave in certain ways, has released a wild and wonderful tale generated entirely with artificial intelligence.
The group used two themed predictive keyboards - one for narration, the other for dialogue - to ghostwrite a hilarious chapter ‘The Handsome One’, from the book ‘Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash’.
While a computer can certainly mimic elements of the famous series, though, it can hardly capture J. K. Rowling’s magic - which is why the result, called ‘Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash’, is so strange and funny that fans are begging for more, Daily Mail reported.
The book can be considered the unofficial eighth volume in Rowling’s popular series.
Botnik Studios specializes in ‘augmented content creation’; in the past, it has used algorithms to help dream up original scripts for the series Scrubs and X-files. In both cases, the scripts sort of captured the shows that inspired them, but slightly missed the mark in very comical ways.
Hilarious Story
Their most recent project, an excerpt from a new Harry Potter book, has particularly won over the Internet.
To make the new story, the company taught a computer to learn patterns from the existing seven Harry Potter books. It then produced a ‘predictive keyboard,’ a program that offers suggestions for what the next word in a sentence should be based on the last words written.
The somewhat disjointed story follows Harry, Ron, and Hermione walking the Hogwarts castle grounds. Ron tap-dances and begins eating Hermione’s family, which garners a very mild reaction from Hermione herself.
Harry then encounters Voldemort, and reacts by tearing his own eyes from his head and throwing them into the forest. He calls Voldemort a ‘very bad and mean wizard’ and then dips Hermione in hot sauce.
“This is the funniest and most accurate fan fiction I’ve ever read,” wrote one fan.
“This might be one of my favorite things ever. I can’t breathe. I want to read this entire book,” wrote another.
Just four pages long, the very short chapter is filled to the brim with odd, confusing, and hilarious lines that Twitter users are quoting, finding it hard to pick a favorite.
The closing line of the chapter also earned laughs: ‘”I’m Harry Potter,” Harry began yelling. “The dark arts better be worried, oh boy!”’
Though the story is certainly strange, some commenters were surprised by how coherent it is.
