--- title: "This AI Came Up With Hilarious Pie Names Based on Harry Potter" description: "Just in time for the holiday season, AI researcher Janelle Shane taught an AI around 2,000 existing names of pies and some juicy Harry Potter fan fiction." date: "2019-11-27" modified: "2019-11-27" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-pie-names-harry-potter" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "artificial intelligence" - "neural network" - "the digest" --- # This AI Came Up With Hilarious Pie Names Based on Harry Potter ![Just in time for the holiday season, AI researcher Janelle Shane taught an AI around 2,000 existing names of pies and some juicy Harry Potter fan fiction.]() *\Image: CloW/Victor Tangermann\* ## Harry Potter Pies Just in time for the holiday season, AI researcher Janelle Shane fed an AI around 2,000 existing names of real-life pies — and some juicy Harry Potter fan fiction. The result: some hysterical names for pies you could only find inside Hogwarts' Great Hall. On her blog "AI Weirdness," Shane [details]() some of the choice names her AI came up with. A couple standouts: "Voldemort Crumble Pie, Tweezers, Olives," "Seafood Apple Pie," "Bedtime Oil Tart," and "Frozen Custard Pie with Three Glorious Chilies." ## Weird Sisters Shane was able to adjust her AI to dial up or down the weirdness. "I have ways of messing with the neural net, however," Shane wrote. "One thing I can do is increase the chaos level of the text it’s generating (in this case, called the 'temperature'), forcing it to go with its less-likely guesses." ## Terrible Names In previous projects, Shane has used a neural network came up with some [hellish and disconcerting cat names]() for a Philadelphia animal refuge, [crappy valentine's day candy heart messages](), and even [lousy names]() for other AIs. "They don’t sound exactly delicious to me, but maybe this advanced artificial intelligence knows something we don’t," Shane concluded in her blog post. "After all, it read most of the internet, including the cooking blogs." **READ MORE:** [AI makes up pie names using Harry Potter fan fiction]() \[*CNET*\] **More on AI weirdness:** *[According to a Neural Network, Luke Skywalker Is a Surfing Baseball Player]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()