It was inevitable that someone would invent a program that, for better or worse (and we like to err on the side of worse), writes fiction. Oh, not that plotting software you purchase to waste more time…actual software that generates prose. It completely changes the relationship between writer and computer.
Occasionally you hear of a Luddite novelist who shuns computers, but the truth is that most of us would be lost without them. If I rail and curse at mine, it is partly out of resentment at our miserable co-dependence. Imagine, then, the blow to my scribbler’s vanity when I discovered a while back that computers might get along just fine without writers.
Apparently, unhampered by things like life and self-doubt, computers can merrily write without a care in the world. Until someone pulls their plug — humans can function without electricity, at least until our cell phone batteries die. Something tells us that reading fiction generated by a computer would have all the charm and voice of the Word help screens. And, quite possibly, the same incomprehensible logic…
- Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite! (Note: Registration required)
