I trained a “document classifier” to guess facts about encyclopedia articles, using: that links 4.7 million Wikipedia articles to 18.58 million facts from a new dataset from Google WikiData Facebook’s speedy text classification tool FastText Then I ran it over articles from , the biggest Lord of the Rings wiki, and got surprising results. Let’s dive in! Tolkien Gateway First off, what do I mean by facts from WikiData? is like Wikipedia, but with the knowledge structured in such a way that can use it well. Here’s an example: WikiData computers Here’s a more controversial one that clearly needed a reference: A few months ago Google did the dirty work of wrangling the data from Wikipedia and WikiData into one place, and put it in a massive zip file , and released about trying to use it to guess facts about Wikipedia articles. You can read about if you’re in the mood. on the internet a paper my initial exploration of it Meanwhile, Facebook have a tool called FastText that can learn associations between the phrases in a document and facts about said document. So in the above example, it can notice that the article about Shigeru Miyamoto uses the word “he” a lot more than it uses the word “it”, and contains the phrase “was born” instead of “was constructed”. So the next time it sees an article with those features, it might guess that the article is talking about a human instead of a bowling alley. (It also does this quicker than a lot of other methods, which is useful for people like me who don’t have access to Google’s supercomputers.) Once I was getting good results guessing facts about unseen Wikipedia articles, I decided to try it out on articles from Tolkien Gateway, my go-to resource for resolving arguments about whether Isildur’s dad is named or . Elendil Eärendil Arguments plural. People seem to really like Gandalf: So let’s start there. Gandalf What did FastText say were the most likely facts about Gandalf? instance_of= =maleoccupation= =United_Kingdommanner_of_death= =murdermovement= =blessedreligion= =World_War_IIposition_played_on_team___speciality===defender humansex_or_gender judgecountry_of_citizenship natural_causesconvicted_of Baroquecanonization_status Catholic_Churchconflict On the fact of it, these might seem a little silly. But keep in mind: Tolkien was a British man who fought in a World War, who was deeply Catholic. Maybe Gandalf is a subconscious ? self-insertion Re. the canonisation, Gandalf is one of the , which Tolkien Gateway describes as “angelic beings” Ainur Gandalf totally murdered a Balrog If anyone’s looking for a PhD topic, “ ” is a surefire winner. Gandalf as Goalkeeper, Sauron as Ronaldo: Post-Colonialism in Middle-Earth Baroque, eh? Did you know that the Lord of the Rings is partly based on ? an opera Legolas Rare holiday snap of Orlando Bloom sex_or_gender= =humaninstance_of= =Ancient_Romemanner_of_death= =Roman_Republicoccupation= =Ancient_Roman_senatorcanonization_status= =Islaminstance_of===Eunuch maleinstance_of mythical_charactercountry_of_citizenship capital_punishmentperiod militaryposition_held saintreligion Let’s go: Legolas is years old ( ). The Roman Senate was first founded years ago. Coincidence? 2931 disputed, see here 2771 He never had children, and had a fair singing voice. Is he a eunuch? . You tell me The Islam thing is left as an extremely difficult exercise for the reader. I’m not touching that. The Shire Describe by Tolkien as “more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of [Queen Victoria’s] Diamond Jubilee” in 1897” country= =former_countryheritage_status= =Tolkien_s_legendariumdescribed_by_source= =UTC______IUCN_conservation_status===vulnerable United_Kingdominstance_of scheduled_monumentfrom_fictional_universe Nordisk_familjeboklocated_in_time_zone If you accept the theory that Middle-Earth is just our world a long time ago, then the Shire is definitely a former country inside the UK The Shire is a bastion of natural beauty, peace and elevensies, . It would’ve been desecrated ages ago if it wasn’t defended by star player Gandalf (and decades later by King Aragorn). It definitely deserves conservation status. under siege by greedy men The One Ring The next target for Google Translate conflict= =British_Armydescribed_by_source= =United_Kingdomsport= =midfieldermanner_of_death= =_____Summer_Olympics World_War_IImilitary_branch Dictionary_of_National_Biographycountry_of_citizenship association_footballposition_played_on_team___speciality natural_causesparticipant_of While The Ring was obviously a participant in the most important conflict of Middle-Earth, he was on the opposite side to Gandalf and co. But can we really blame my nascent AI for being fooled? Even Boromir son of Denethor got confused in the end about which side it was playing on. Little is known about The Ring’s career at the summer games, except that it bent all five Olypmic Rings to its will. Sam Cropped from a Gondor’s most wanted poster sex_or_gender= =fictional_characterinstance_of= =United_States_of_Americafrom_fictional_universe= =drug_traffickerconvicted_of= =natural_causesmember_of_political_party===Democratic_Party maleinstance_of humancountry_of_origin Marvel_Universeoccupation murdermanner_of_death I find it fascinating that Sam is one of the only people labelled as American in the whole legendarium (Éowyn being another). Please tell me your theories. As for the drug trafficker thing: The Ring is super addictive. Remember Bilbo’s face when he sees it again at Rivendell? Sam helps sneaks it across international borders in a dangerous manner He’s a gardener with herb lore and a fondness for the finest weed in the South Farthing extensive Éowyn instance_of= =fictional_charactersex_or_gender= =Marvel_Universecountry_of_citizenship= =sovereignoccupation= =Republican_Party humaninstance_of femalefrom_fictional_universe United_States_of_Americaoccupation lady_in_waitingmember_of_political_party My kingdom to anyone who can come up with a convincing theory for why Éowyn is a Republican while Sam is a Democrat, and why they’re the only two American mutants. Gimli instance_of= =malecountry_of_citizenship= =Australian_rules_footballercause_of_death= =mutantnative_language===French humansex_or_gender Japanoccupation heart_attackinstance_of I give up. Conclusion Further study is needed. (If you want to try reproducing my results, let me know, and I’ll put the FastText model up in a torrent for you.)
