The New York Times > Books > An Essay: Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite!
Little did I know my computer was secretly one-upping me yet again. While I pound away on the keyboard each day, typing out a living creating the web, my computer – aware of the many insults I have slung its way – has been secretly plotting to set out on its own as a cut-rate paperback writer. (Key Beatles hit.)
So maybe we are years away from a computer creating anything of real worth, but if the current trend towards self-help-psychology-for-dummies-that-are-complete-idiots publishing power is any indication, it shouldn’t be too long before we see an enterprising young corporation try to pawn off computer generated fungibility to the world.
Let’s see a computer try and give birth to a sentence that portrays the flexibility and depth of the human language. Ah, but now I’ve done it. Once Google has indexed this page and shared it with hundreds (I would say thousands, but I shouldn’t kid myself) of its fellow computers, I will surely reap a quick and demonstrative punishment not unlike a hegemony upon a oil-rich nation-state.
Or perhaps, I will simply be allowed to languish in anonymity.
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