The neural network can be trained to write recipes, invent Pokemon, and invent superhero names. But can it learn to tell a joke?

@researchbuzz generously provided me with a list of 200 knock-knock jokes - brief and highly formulaic, they seemed to be the form of joke best-suited for a neural network to reproduce. I figured it would quickly learn the formula, but would never, never manage to tell an actual joke.

It proved me wrong. 

Very early on, the network figured out that question marks were important somehow, as were the words “Knock” and “who” in some mysterious way:

Koo k ano? ? Khnck Knock oae?t rA  noc? Knock Woock Whecr lwhot h o nwoe hio

In very short order, it learned to begin a knock-knock joke, and almost never got that part wrong again. But the rest of the formula took quite a while to figure out, and the algorithm frequently devolved into playing a game of telephone with itself:

Knock Knock Who’s There? Iane Aatar who? Aaane who? Aan who? Anac who? Iobe who? Irata who?

Next it figured out the formula, but no actual, you know, words:

Knock Knock Who’s There? Bool Hane who? Scheres are then the there

Then it learned the joke about the cow with no lips which became its Favorite Thing Ever, even if it didn’t know how to properly tell it. The punchline to Every Single Joke was ooo ooooo ooo…

Knock Knock Who’s There? Alec Anic who? Wow co poo the tho tho door to the soout oo ooo oooo ooo oo oo oo oo ooo oo oo oo ooo ooo oooo ooo ooo oo oo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo oo oo ooo ooo ooo ooo oo oo oo ooo ooo ooo ooo…

It made it past this stage, but still had problems that were remarkably similar to two people telling knock-knock jokes over a very bad phone connection, and maybe forgetting who was telling the actual joke:

Knock Knock Who’s There? Alther Water who? Water who who? Who who? Arton and out on the moor?

At last it figured out the basic formula and proceeded to make jokes that, while technically correct, didn’t make all that much sense. Many of them were partially plagiarized from jokes in the training dataset.

Knock Knock Who’s There? Hiwl Howlowwhowhow

Knock Knock Who’s There? Ireland Ireland who? Ireland you money, butt.

And then.

It produced. An actual joke. I checked, and this one most definitely wasn’t in the dataset. There was one about Alec, but the pun was “Alec-tricity”. There was one about knock-knock jokes themselves, but it was “Irish I knew more knock-knock jokes”. And it didn’t produce this just once, but over and over again. I give you possibly the freakiest thing the neural network has done to date:

Just some things I’ve learned that when I share some people don’t seem to know yet! 

CATCH DUPLICATES. Catch them and then return them to prof willow. You can do this by clicking on the pokemon’s stats, scrolling down and hitting transfer. You get pokecandy for this which you can use to evolve/power up your original! 

Make sure you compare and contrast CPs of your duplicates. One pikachu might be 10cp and the other 56cp. Keep the higher one, transfer the other. 

That being said DONT waste your time evolving/powering your pokemon just yet. You might work hard to power your eevee to 100cp only to catch one at 150cp the next day. WAIT. In fact, I started only powering up my highest evolved pokemon. (ninetails, fearow, etc)

Pokestops refresh every 5 minutes. You can visit them for an unlimited amount of time. I live right on top of one and check back in whenever I remember to. 

Leveling up will give you LURES, INCENSE AND INCUBATORS. So don’t think you NEED to buy these from the shop. 

If your wary about spending money for coins, you can GET COINS by having pokemon in gyms. This is the ‘defender bonus’ Theres a shield icon in the shop section that you can refresh every 21 hours. You can have up to 10 pokemon in 10 diff gyms for a total of 100 pokecoins and 5000 stardust a day.(10 Pokecoins and 500 stardust per pokemon)

Your gym alliance makes it so that ANY GYM you fight of your own alliance, your pokemon WILL NOT FAINT.  Their hp will reduce to 1 and they will need healing, but they won’t faint. You also gain gym prestige this way which helps strengthen your alliance territory. Any rival gyms however will faint your pokemon and they will need a REVIVE to keep being used. You can also transform them into candy at this point if you are a heartless monster. :( 

A gym has a max of 3 pokemon traners/defenders. If you find a gym of your alliance with only 1 or 2 pokemon in it, you can ADD YOUR POKEMON WITHOUT FIGHTING YOUR FELLOW TEAM. Just drop a pokemon in there and keep walking! Free defender bonus. (Do this by clicking the bottom left icon of ‘add pokemon’)

More than one trainer can fight one gym leader at a time. Getting a friend to fight with you is the best way to beat the gym!! You attack at the same time.

ITS NOT TURN BASED ATTACKS. Its real time! Click once for a basic attack, swipe to dodge, and hold down a click for a SPECIAL ATTACK!

My best method is not to dodge at all but just click forever. So long as I have a bigger CP I usually win lol. 

Do NOT put your best pokemon into a gym. Your second or third only. You cannot recall your pokemon once its in a gym and you will need it to fight other gyms.  (they get returned to you after they are beaten)

Everyone gets one free incubator that lasts forever. Any extras you find or receive from leveling up only last 3 hatches before breaking.

TRACKING POKEMON! Sparkling grass doesn’t guarantee a pokemon showing up. The ‘nearby’ tab is the actual tracker. The highest on the list is the closest. Selecting a pokemon in it will make the tracker pulse when you get nearer to it. 3 footsteps away mean THREE RINGS away (or more). 2 footsteps means TWO RINGS, one footstep means one ring and NO RINGS MEANS YOU CAN CLICK ON THAT POKEMON AND IT WILL APPEAR IN 10 SECONDS.

Battery saver mode, found in settings, works as follows: Once clicked on, if you drop your phone to your side as you walk, with the top of your phone facing the ground, the screen will dim so only the pokemon logo shows. It still tracks your steps for your eggs and it will vibrate and beep when a pokemon shows up. As soon as you lift your phone to your face (right side up) the screen will appear again as normal!

The higher level you get, the more rare pokemon you come across.