Epic Fail or Brilliance: Gibberish Paper Written by iOS Autocomplete Accepted by Conference

Normally, autocomplete strays far from a user's intended meanings. However, one scientist used iOS autocomplete to craft a nonsensical academic paper on nuclear physics that has been accepted for a conference.

[Image Courtesy of Wikimedia]

Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck from the Human Interface Technology Laboratory of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand got an email inviting him to present his findings at the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics in November.

“Since I have practically no knowledge of nuclear physics I resorted to iOS autocomplete function to help me writing the paper. I started a sentence with ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear’ and then randomly hit the autocomplete suggestions. The text really does not make any sense.” he wrote on his blog.

The above video shows how Bartneck managed to pull off the feat, despite having absolutely no knowledge of nuclear physics.

One sample sentence says:

“The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids.”

[Image Courtesy of Christoph Bartneck]

The last sentence of the paper should've been a dead giveaway:

"Power is not a great place for a good time."

As with any scientific paper, it included images. However, Bartneck put about as much energy into images as he did with the rest of the paper. The images come from the Wikipedia page on nuclear physics.

[Image Courtesy of Christoph Bartneck]

Bartneck didn't submit the paper under his real name. He chose the pen name Iris Pear of the United States. Bartneck outlined his nom de plume's identity using contradictory gender pronouns.

The entire load of crazy was accepted by the conference only three hours after Bartneck submitted it. He received an email asking for an "oral presentation" of his findings.

[Image Courtesy of CERN]

“I know that iOS is a pretty good software, but reaching tenure has never been this close,” Bartneck commented in the blog post.

The conference letter did require him to register for the event at $1,099 USD as an academic speaker. However, that got Bartneck to stop his incredibly well-done joke.

“I did not complete this step since my university would certainly object to me wasting money this way,” Bartneck told Guardian. “... My impression is that this is not a particularly good conference.”

[Image Courtesy of CERN]

And yes, the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics looks just as unreadable as Bartneck's paper. The conference's call for abstracts is:

“Nuclear and sub-atomic material science it the investigation of the properties, flow and collaborations of the essential (however not major) building pieces of matter.”

Bartneck said he had fun while it lasted.

Via Christoph Bartneck, Guardian

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