Olive Garden commercials are known for being absurdly optimistic. The actors look around the chain restaurant with smiles plastered on their faces and feign amazement when a waiter brings a dish out. Everyone orders more breadsticks. The commercials have been parodied for a while, including on this SNL sketch from last year:
Writer and comedian Keaton Patti wrote his own parody of an Olive Garden commercial, which he posted on Twitter Wednesday. The tweet has received more than 65,000 retweets. Patti’s parody is in the form of the first page of a script for an Olive Garden commercial—if it was written by a bot. Some highlights: “Gluten Classico,” “Her mouth is full of secret,” and “I should eat Italian citizens.” Check out the whole script here:
I forced a bot to watch over 1,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials and then asked it to write an Olive Garden commercial of its own. Here is the first page. pic.twitter.com/CKiDQTmLeH
— Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) June 13, 2018
Although Patti wrote in the tweet that he “forced a bot to watch 1,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials” to produce the script, he didn’t appear to actually use a bot. Patti has employed this joke format several times, including for a Saw movie script in March:
I forced a bot to watch over 1,000 hours of the Saw movies and then asked it to write a Saw movie of its own. Here is the first page. pic.twitter.com/peXPgjC1JY
— Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) March 1, 2018
As research scientist Janelle Shane explains, even if you forced a bot to watch Olive Garden commercials, you wouldn’t end up with a script like Patti’s.
These "I forced a bot to watch X" posts are almost certainly 100% human-written with no bot involved. Here's how you can tell. 1/12 https://t.co/4wVxfraqZS
— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) June 14, 2018
First of all, neural nets learn by example. If you show it 1,000 hours of video (assuming 120,000 unique 30-sec Olive Garden commercials exist), you’ll get video out, not a script with stage directions. 2/12
— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) June 14, 2018
She tweeted that she wished “people wouldn’t present these fakes as bot-written. Actual AI-written text isn’t that coherent.”
I wish people wouldn’t present these fakes as bot-written. Actual AI-written text just isn’t that coherent. 12/12
— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) June 14, 2018
Although Patti’s joke format could be misleading to someone who doesn’t realize that he’s actually writing the scripts, his Olive Garden parody is spot-on. And if the company liked what he wrote, Patti is more than willing to let it use the script.
Hey @olivegarden, let me know if you want to use this.
— Keaton Patti (@KeatonPatti) June 14, 2018