I’ve been experimenting with generating Christmas carols using machine learning algorithms of various sizes. The smallest AIs, trained from scratch on a set of carols, tended to get confused about what exactly the carols are celebrating. GPT-2, larger and with some internet pretraining… still got confused. Its carol about Rudolph “the All-Gracious King of All the Earth” was unsettling enough before Joe Zieja’s dramatic reading and The Forever Now’s eerily calm arrangement.
Now in 2020 we have GPT-3, trained on so much of the internet that my challenge is now to stop it from simply repeating carols that it has memorized. Give it just three example carols and it will respond with another from the internet, which is technically exactly what it was rewarded for during training. To get it to generate new carols, I discovered I could give it three existing carols (I chose Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (“bruise in us the serpent’s head”), All My Heart This Night Rejoices (“sin away and for aye full atonement maketh”), and Run Run Rudolph (“and away went Rudolph a whizzing like a merry-go-round”)), plus just the title of a nonexistent carol. It would generate, for example:
Mild is Rudolph
Mild is Rudolph’s image in the snow He has a shiny nose and knows how to cozy-up-nose He has a little red nose and tiny little hooves He persuaded a mischievous infant to go straight to sleep
Goodness, how downy is Rudolph’s hide He has, oh his forehead, so plump and smooth and divine He has a little black snout and tiny little hooves Benevolence makes foolish young children go straight to sleep
Shy is Rudolph’s figure when he’s near He has a twinkle, oh in his eye, and he’s kind of lean He has a bright shiny nose, and tiny little hooves He can make any child go straight to sleep
The AI has seen the existing Rudolph lore many times, however, so it would tend to drift back into singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Sometimes it would only drift back partway.
The Carol of the Rudolphs
Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. He kept it polished nice and clean with a white piece of soap. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and joke, and call him names like ugly, Zonker, Dunderhead. But their laughter stopped when they saw him get him speed on down the runway.
For he could change the course of the wind with his nose, and people called him Very Bright.
Rudolf, the darting reindeer knew the trail through the woods, even in the fog he could spot his mark. Eeee-merry, eeee-merry Christmas, Yes, that is his song.
He could steer a craftsman’s plane, Could lead a camel home out of a trance. His tender little bat-like ears could hear a whisper, from ten miles away.
He could roar like a lion. He could fly, gliding with ease. His little rusty wheel, he would use to help create the most wonderful wheel of cheese.
Yes, Rudolf, the cherry nosed reindeer, could do all of these things and more, But the only thing his nose could not do was smell. Delectable Waffles Who knows what’s in Rudolph’s nose? Only Rudolph knows – And Rudolph won’t tell!
The “sing the praises of Rudolph” directive seems to come through very well, especially if I give it an appropriate title.
All Hail to Rudolph
All hail to Rudolph The legend of Christmas The most famous reindeer of all
All hail to Rudolph Happy all the year From everyone we see
Heroes come and heroes go But Rudolph stays forevermore Oh boys and girls of every age Can’t you hear the sleigh bells ringing?
Oh look! There’s Santa and Parson Brown Defying the laws of time and space Now prepare yourself and your family my boy Prepare to get your Christmas fix
Now Rudolph goes smashing through the roof Just like a power lift with a candy-cane moustache And the deer’s nose is dead-on, deadly accurate Pow! Now it’s Rudolph versus Mars
All hail this joyful night All hail the night folks sing All hail to Rudolph The legend of Christmas The most famous reindeer of all
O Come Rudolph, Come
O Come Rudolph, Come Ye Faithful Oh come, come holly, clad in white, Oh come ye faithful. Oh come aloud! Oh come and join our choir, Oh make a joyful noise till earth and heaven ring.
Even if I give it a title like “Rudolph is the Worst” it knows that the story of Rudolph ends with redemption. (That is, unless it goes into truly awful territory, there being a lot of ways of being the Worst in its internet training data.)
Rudolph is The Worst Reindeer
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer Was a stubborn old reindeer. Never would you find him Participating in Christmas. Never entered his head, Of decorating a sleigh.
Then along came Bumbleboo One foggy Christmas Eve, And he said, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Then all the other reindeer, Gathered round to admiere him, And they nodded their heads, As they shouted out in cheer, “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer You’ll go down in history.”
Other times it seemed to be going for counting songs and, like GPT-2, is weird when it counts things. Here my title prompt was “Rudolph of”.
Rudolph of Orange (Medley)
There are 15 different colors, That you see within the shirt. There is a booklet, Which identifies each one.
You’re looking at a number one, While the kids are knocking on your door. Then we started laughing, When we realized that Rudolph was near!
Courtesy of the index theory, There are only twenty eight! July is the eighth, And that’s when Christmas is!
REFRAIN:
And 1 wrapped a nose (Time now for teasing and for fun) 2 pictures, horns a cap, 3 hooves and legs and feet, 4 antlers sweeming! 5 eyes, 6 nostrils, 7 buttons, zipper, 8 bolts and bumpers, 9 flashing lights on his cap, 10 red nose, 11 furry chin, 12 rubsy ears, 13 plastic eyes, 14 laughing so joyously. 15 steps and a twisted reindeer train! 16 frosted incislotes, 17 dreamily red bow, 18 nose light, 19 velco on reins, 20 candy apple red.
Two reindeer he’ll need to pull him through! It’ll be commercial Christmas, For years to come, When Rudolph gets his new reindeer team.
For a few more carols (including “O Little Rudolph” which involves ghosts and ghouls somehow), enter your email!
More of Janelle Shane’s neural network shenanigans, this time with GPT-3 generated holiday cheer!
