Slopfest #26 · Autumn 1952 · Vienna
You Are My Avid Fellow Feeling
The first computer-generated love letters were signed 'M.U.C.' Ours were signed 'the committee'.
Museum status: Listed as "priceless" (nobody would name a price).
- Venue
- Café Prückel, the table by the window
- Attendance
- 266
- Guest of honour
- Christopher Strachey (read the machine's love letters aloud in perfect deadpan)
- Fun fact
- 266 letters sent, 4 engagements, 0 refunds
What happened
Every guest received a love letter assembled at random from a list of adjectives. 'Darling Chickpea, my wistful ardour yearns for your anxious bureau.' Christopher Strachey, guest of honor, read the best ones aloud in a flawless deadpan. Four couples got engaged. Two of them later said it was the best thing anyone had ever written to them.
“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything.”
Elsewhere in 1952
Christopher Strachey programs a Manchester University computer to write love letters, among the first computer-generated texts.
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