It’s Sunday afternoon in the heart of Ohio Amish country, and after driving their horse and buggy home from church, the Wengerd family is teasing Dad about the time Mom caught him using an AI chatbot to write her a Valentine.
We’re all sitting in their farmhouse’s living room, which contains zero TVs but lots of comfortable chairs. Valentine’s Day was weeks ago, yet Mary Ellen Wengerd is still tickled about the love note her husband, Daniel, co-authored with generative AI. “ It was so eloquently written,” she says, biting back a grin. “Reading this, I was like, This is so not my husband.”
Mary Ellen wears a white bonnetlike cap over her hair and the ankle-length dress she’d put on for church. She’s curled into an overstuffed armchair alongside the youngest of their six children, Jethro, 7, who’s parked his feet on her lap. “And I was like, ‘Did you write this?’” Mary Ellen says, looking at Daniel. “‘Or did you ask ChatGPT to put a little love letter together?’ And he was like, ‘Ummm —’”
“I actually did!” Daniel says as laughter erupts in the room. “But I made a couple changes!” We seem to be on well-trod comedic ground. Daniel’s blushing on the couch opposite Mary Ellen, stroking his wavy gray beard. Daniel points at me, the writer visiting from New York, in the corner. “Read it to him,” he says, “and then tell him what doesn’t sound like me.”
As Mary Ellen reads aloud and ribs Daniel about the fancy phrasing, she still sounds touched by the note.
