Apr. 22nd, 2008 04:43 pm
Dis-content Makers
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klwardI understood this to be theoretically possible, but I had no idea some professor at a Business School in the US had actually done it. And was actually selling the results!
Automaton author writes up a storm
I remember reading a Clifford E. Simak story (the title of which escapes me) concerning a future where the human facility for creating fiction had become its bookmark, as it were, within the galactic community. But of course, with writing now so vital to the economy, the process had been completely mechanised with writing "by hand" considered a kind of unsavory anachronism. The impetus behind the piece was clearly the author's distrust of word processors, but I think the basic principle can be extrapolated to the present case. Which was, basically, only a writer can write and farming out so much as grammar- or spell-checking to a machine just isn't going to help.
Yes, I know that Mr Parker has as yet only applied his algorithms to non-fiction (poetry doesn't count: automatic or mechanical poetry by far predates computers). He states that his newly patented process can replace human authorship only when the work involved is "mundane" or to involve a person would be "uneconomical". He states that his next challenge is to produce romance novels - or at least his algorithm does, which apparently produced the responses to the interview (why am I flashing back to Videodrome and Dr Brian O'Blivion?)
I'm not going to get all alarmist. I do wish to note that the idea that information exists in "units" and can be handled as "data" no matter what the content actually is, is one I have a big problem with. It's a idea with incredibly broad currency these days, because it is at heart an economic model. The corporation doesn't care what it sells or even what it produces. The decision on the future production and sale of product can be made by comparing things as different as peas and apples because the only criteria is their profitability in the open market. I see Parker as playing with this idea, with these niche-market "books" that can be produced on demand. But a book isn't an apple, it is a nexus of meaning. Who is taking the responsibility for the way the data is organised and the overall meaning that results? What is the agenda of the algorithm? In what context shall the reader fix the meaning of the work? Because there is no such thing as pure information.
And when does a topic become so mundane that there is no one with an expertise in the area, who knows the field and understands what kind of work is needed? And just when does having a human author become uneconomical anyway? When they insist on being paid? I for one contextualise this article within the ongoing debate about the ownership of intellectual property.
Griffin Mill: I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here.
- The Player, Michael Tolkin, 1992
Automaton author writes up a storm
I remember reading a Clifford E. Simak story (the title of which escapes me) concerning a future where the human facility for creating fiction had become its bookmark, as it were, within the galactic community. But of course, with writing now so vital to the economy, the process had been completely mechanised with writing "by hand" considered a kind of unsavory anachronism. The impetus behind the piece was clearly the author's distrust of word processors, but I think the basic principle can be extrapolated to the present case. Which was, basically, only a writer can write and farming out so much as grammar- or spell-checking to a machine just isn't going to help.
Yes, I know that Mr Parker has as yet only applied his algorithms to non-fiction (poetry doesn't count: automatic or mechanical poetry by far predates computers). He states that his newly patented process can replace human authorship only when the work involved is "mundane" or to involve a person would be "uneconomical". He states that his next challenge is to produce romance novels - or at least his algorithm does, which apparently produced the responses to the interview (why am I flashing back to Videodrome and Dr Brian O'Blivion?)
I'm not going to get all alarmist. I do wish to note that the idea that information exists in "units" and can be handled as "data" no matter what the content actually is, is one I have a big problem with. It's a idea with incredibly broad currency these days, because it is at heart an economic model. The corporation doesn't care what it sells or even what it produces. The decision on the future production and sale of product can be made by comparing things as different as peas and apples because the only criteria is their profitability in the open market. I see Parker as playing with this idea, with these niche-market "books" that can be produced on demand. But a book isn't an apple, it is a nexus of meaning. Who is taking the responsibility for the way the data is organised and the overall meaning that results? What is the agenda of the algorithm? In what context shall the reader fix the meaning of the work? Because there is no such thing as pure information.
And when does a topic become so mundane that there is no one with an expertise in the area, who knows the field and understands what kind of work is needed? And just when does having a human author become uneconomical anyway? When they insist on being paid? I for one contextualise this article within the ongoing debate about the ownership of intellectual property.
Griffin Mill: I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here.
- The Player, Michael Tolkin, 1992
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I don't know the Simak story, but see also Fritz Leiber's The Silver Eggheads, in which authors only have to create the crudest outline of a story which they then feed into giant "wordmills" which do all the rest of the writing and leave the authors to lead lives of over-the-top celebrity. Until of course the writers get too full of themselves, decide they can do without the wordmills, riot and smash them and then realise they have no idea how to write without them. After that things start getting a bit weird.
no subject
Actually, I suspect that the finished book 'magically' appearing is a fantasy of most authors.
no subject
I could see stories in such a very limited, stereotyped genre as "Romance" novels (such as Mills & Boone) being successfully pastiched by such software. By definition you'd never get anything outstanding or paradigm-breaking, of course.
Clifford D Simak ?
I couldn't find the name of that story, although there's quite a lot from that era about fears of automation taking over. Working at a place where half the staff were replaced by a pathetically stupid AI (it's cheap tho!), I can certainly relate.
I think that he did the book about self-replicating machines where he pointed out evolution applies to any replicator, and a machine you can't turn off is the most likely result.
There is actually a self-replicator being designed now ... c.f. http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome for a crude prototype.
Brett Caton.