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the fiction programs.
The main problem with both Ryan's and Meehan's viewpoint and with experiments such
as TALE-SPIN and Mystery is that their underlying view ofliterature is a rather reductive,
a-historical and mechanistic one and is furthermore inevitably text-centred, i.e. based on
the belief that literary characteristics are a) inherent in texts and can be extracted from
them and that b) a computer can be used to then imitate human literary production.
Projects like this fail both practically and theoretically; practically because they are based
on the imitation ofhuman language processes, but disappoint because they fail to achieve
a similar degree ofsophistication. To compare the creative literary output ofthe computer
with that of a human author, is, however, not a fair comparison, as Hartman has pointed
out, since "[tjhe imitation game is hard to play on human turf, language'?'. But rather than
seeing this as a victory, as a triumph of the human mind over the machine, this insight
should be used as an incentive to shift the goal post and move away from imitation and
from a text-centred approach of early text-generating programs towards one that is more
interested in the reader.
Imitation alms at a reproduction of known literary forms and a confirmation of
expectations and reading habits. The theoretical implications of computer-generated
writing can however be more insightful and far-reaching if the computer is encouraged to
produce text which is different from traditional human output and challenges forms,
expectations and habits. Putting the emphasis on the reaction to and the perception of
this output then forces readers to reflect on the processes through which literature and
literary meaning is constructed and allows for a more contextual, historical approach to
the question of"What is Literature?".
Moreover, the results of such imitative pursuits will not be very interesting to read as
works of literature since "The more accurately the computer mimics
human speech, the more ordinary it becomes" argues Hartman", The litmus test of
imitative computer-generative writing is how well it manages to reproduce any given
II Hartman, VirtualMuse, P.72.
U Hartman, Virtual Muse, P.94.
Chapter 5 - page 185