Those who were moved by love letters from their boyfriends or
girlfriends on Wednesday might not have received the letters from
their lovers, as many beautiful lines are now being coined by
computer software.
Many people criticized the software as a worrisome sign of a
lack of honesty in relationships, the Shenzhen Special Zone
Daily said.
A young lady surnamed Wu felt suspicious when she received a
three-page love letter from her boyfriend who was on a business
trip outside Shenzhen on Tuesday, a day before Valentine's Day. The
boyfriend later acknowledged in a phone call that he "wrote" the
letter using love-letter software downloaded free from the Net.
Such software is abundant on the Net, the Daily report
said, offering paragraphs in various styles as proof.
"My sadness is sour, my heart is empty. When I am distracted
from a busy life, I suddenly realize that I am missing you so
much," one paragraph reads.
Some software borrowed from movie lines, some tried to be
humorous, and some even offered love letters in an ancient formal
Chinese style.
An IT engineer said the software is not complicated to develop,
although collecting material for the database needs time and
effort. "I developed one kind of software, and found all the raw
materials from online forums, shared by other netizens," said the
engineer surnamed Zhu.
"The software only collects and puts the materials together, not
much a creative job."
Although the machine-created love letters can be long, they are
often not logical in sequence and may read like empty lies, since
no software will recall a moving moment between two people.
"While love letters can be written by software, should I find a
robot lover?" one netizen asked.
(Shenzhen Daily February 16, 2007)