The World’s First Computer-Generated Writing Program Was a Love Letter Generator

In the early 1950s, Alan Turing and Christopher Strachey created the world’s first computer-generated writing program, which generated peculiar love letters that allowed the two gay men to express affection vicariously when doing so publicly was criminal.

Key Takeaways:

• Turing and Strachey, who had been friendly since the 1930s, collaborated on several AI experiments in the 1950s, including a computer that could sing songs, one of the world’s first computer games, and an algorithm to write gender-neutral love letters.
• The love letter generator used a template that randomly selected words from a word bank to create original, if quirky, expressions of longing and desire.
• For Turing and Strachey, writing love letters was a benchmark of machine intelligence, as they sought to create something truly original that no human ever would.

Personal Context and Implications: The love letter generator had a deeply personal dimension for Turing and Strachey, who were gay men living in an era when homosexuality was criminalized in England:

• The computer-generated love letters allowed them to express coded queer desire at a time when they couldn’t openly express their sexuality.
• In 1952, the same year Strachey created the love letter program, Turing was prosecuted for “gross indecency” and agreed to chemical castration to avoid prison.
• Pressed further into the closet by anti-gay laws, Turing and Strachey turned to a computer to express desire for them.

Broader Context:

• Turing and Strachey were part of an extensive queer community in the history of computing that also included Robin Gandy, Norman Routledge, and Peter Landin.
• The love letter generator foreshadowed modern AI writing tools like ChatGPT by decades, hinting at a future where computers could create original prose.

While a pioneering achievement, the love letter generator was ultimately a simple program that assembled pre-written phrases to mimic human writing. Its true significance lies in the personal story behind it – how two gay men, oppressed by the laws and mores of their time, found a creative outlet to express their desires through technology. Their program, and the very human motivations behind it, offer a poignant reminder that behind every breakthrough in artificial intelligence are the very real longings, fears and dreams of its creators.