--- title: Meet The Robot Writing New 'Friends' Scripts description: "It can generate stuff within minutes, but it’s barely English." canonical: https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-21T16:19:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:29:01.868Z og:title: Meet the Robot Writing New 'Friends' Scripts og:description: "It can generate stuff within minutes, but it’s barely English" og:url: https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Robot Writing New 'Friends' Scripts twitter:description: "It can generate stuff within minutes, but it’s barely English" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Meet the Robot Writing New _Friends_ Scripts by [Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune Jan 21, 2016 4:19 PM UTC by [Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune Jan 21, 2016 4:19 PM UTC A software developer has created a computer program that is writing its own wild and wacky _Friends_ scripts. Andy Herd, a cartoonist and software extraordinaire, has fed all the scripts of the popular ’90s sitcom into a database. Then, using what’s called a “recurrent neural —i.e. a form of machine learning—it is now outputting scripts for new episodes of the sitcom, [reported the ](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/20/meet-the-robot-writing-friends-sequels.html)[_Daily Beast_](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/20/meet-the-robot-writing-friends-sequels.html)_._ It works by scanning the hundreds of thousands of words in the existing scripts to then predict the next letter after a string of other letters to create dialogue. “It can generate stuff within minutes, but it’s barely English,” Herd told the _Daily Beast._ However, every so often little nuggets of comedic gold pop out of the program, leading to lines like these: --- > “” --- Herd tweeted about the new project Monday, sharing lines from his program. The initial Tweet has generated over 4,500 retweets and 5.200 likes. > [](https://twitter.com/%5FPandy/status/689209034143084547) He also joked on Twitter that he could sell an improved version to a network, and “all I’d have to do is push a button and BAM, top quality sitcom fodder ready to go.” Herd used Google’s machine learning library TensorFlow, which went open source in November, to help make his project a reality. Programs like these aren’t all new (though its use to create _Friends_ episodes is amusingly fresh). It’s much like [cognitive computing](http://fortune.com/2016/01/13/big-data-mainstream/?iid=leftrail), and IBM’s Watson computer, which uses a much more powerful system to win _Jeopardy!_ or help doctors better find rare diagnoses. Cognitive computing systems are able to simulate human thinking patterns to recognize speech or identify items in pictures or even develop[ all new recipes](http://fortune.com/2015/11/25/this-is-ibm-watsons-favorite-turkey-recipe/?iid=leftrail) for chefs, for example. _This_ [_article_](http://fortune.com/2016/01/21/robot-friends-sequel/) _originally appeared on_ [_Fortune.com_](http://fortune.com) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/"},"headline":"Meet the Robot Writing New Friends Scripts","datePublished":"2016-01-21T16:19:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:29:01.868Z","description":"\"It can generate stuff within minutes, but it’s barely English\"","url":"https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","viral","entertainment","Friends","Robot","Funny","writing"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Lorenzetti / Fortune"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4188685/robot-friends-scripts/","name":"Meet the Robot Writing New Friends Scripts"}}]}] ```