I recently was introduced to a rhyming game for two or more players. Somebody provides the first line, for example “I have a friend, her name is Kim.”

Subsequent lines follow that cadence (or close enough), and the last word has to rhyme with the last word in the first line. “Her boyfriend’s nice, his name is Jim.”

Each player in turn provides a line, matching the cadence and using a different rhyming word. If a player repeats a rhyming word or uses a word that doesn’t rhyme (“close” rhymes are subject to interpretation), that player is out. The winner is the last player standing.

Fun game, but I think not very entertaining for an audience unless the players are reasonably fast with the responses. We can’t wait 10 seconds for somebody to come up with their line.

So I need to practice. But how when there’s nobody to practice with?

At first I thought about downloading a rhyming dictionary and writing a program to play the game. I could get something working in a day or two, but it wouldn’t be very good. And then it hit me. What are chatbots good at? The one thing that chatbots are really good at is manipulating language. Time to experiment.

Following is my brief interaction with Meta AI

Me: Let’s play a game.
Meta AI: What type of game are you in the mood for? Word game, trivia, 20 Questions, or something else?
Me: This is a rhyming game. I will type a sentence. For example, “I have a friend, her name is Kim.” And you will respond with a sentence of the same form, the last word rhyming with the last word in my sentence. For example, “Her boyfriend’s nice, his name is Jim.”
Meta AI: I get it now. That sounds like a fun game. I’m ready, let’s play. What’s the first sentence?
Me: First sentence: “Cover your plants, it’s going to freeze.”
Meta AI: “Get out the ice cream, if you please.”
Me: But don’t raise dust, or else I’ll sneeze.
Meta AI: “Breathe easy now, the pollen’s on its knees.”

Yeah, that’s a definite success.

Next task: set things up so we can play verbally rather than typing. Then maybe I’ll see if I can train Alexa to play the game so I don’t have to be sitting in front of the computer. Ultimately, I’d like to get set up so I can play while I’m driving. Will have to see how to access Google’s Gemini from Android Auto.

And now I’m wondering if I can get Gemini, Meta AI, CoPilot, ChatGPT, and a few more all together and set them to playing the game . . . That would be entertaining.