Future Tense

What Would You Say on Facebook If You Were a Bot?

"What Would I Say?" autogenerates Facebook status updates based on your past posts.

“What Would I Say?” autogenerates Facebook status updates based on your past posts.

Screenshot / what-would-i-say.appspot.com

If someone took all your Facebook posts and tossed them into one big word salad, what kind of salad would it be?

No need to speculate: Just go to a fun little hacked-together website called What Would I Say?, log into Facebook, and hit “Generate Status.” Out will come a computer-generated status update based on past updates from your own timeline. How does it do that? No, the site isn’t secretly run by humans, like the famous Horse_eBooks Twitter feed. Rather, in the words of the site’s creators, “Technically speaking, it trains a Markov Bot based on mixture model of bigram and unigram probabilities derived from your past post history.” Which I’m pretty sure is just a fancier way of saying word salad.

In any case, the bot’s posts tend toward semi-coherence, questionable grammar, and lackadaisical punctuation. Then again, don’t we all.

On the Media’s P.J. Vogt gave it a spin and came out with some amusing morsels. My favorites:

  • yes message me wolf blizter at burning man
  • Does anybody want a free pair of my research

I tried it too. Here’s what WillBot had to offer:

  • This is either that, or this is dead.
  • Makers Mark defends decision to water down its comments section, saying it’s vacation when you die.
  • This is making nachos and running around the world Trade Center
  • Tesla’s Model S and instantly feel like the baby meerkats best
  • But can the buffaloes withstand a great argument…
  • We asked readers to leave Cleveland. Right, I’m scheduled to be on MSNBC Live coverage of a Muppet’s
  • Driverless planes should be fun nonetheless.
  • I’m thinking of people using social media privacy.

In case you too are thinking of people using social media privacy, don’t worry: The app’s creators promise not to store your information. Now, leave Cleveland! Preferably on a driverless plane.