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(the existence ofwhich he does not deny but rather deem unimportant for his argument).
By applying notions of the authorless text too literally, arguments such as Ledstetter's
undermine not only their own rationale, since an "author" in form of a programmer can
still be identified, albeit with a different set of skills and intentions, but also undermine
the power and importance of postmodemist deconstructions of traditional notions of
authorship, authority and meaning.
5.3: The Computeras Collaborator
One can observe a long fascination ofhumans with the idea ofmachines that can not only
help humans but imitate them and maybe dominate or replace them; the mythical Golem
figure, the Sorcerer's apprentice, the Romantic fascination with automata and numerous
science fiction stories about usually malign computer systems are only some of a great
number of possible examples. Especially the computer frequently has human
characteristics attributed to it - one speaks of the computer's "brain", "viruses" and
artificial "intelligence" - which are at the same time both useful metaphors, as the try to
explain very complex and abstract processes and give them an everyday context, and
indicative of the anxiety and the perceived threat of this everyday but still mostly alien
technology.
To attempt an imitation ofa human activity such as the writing and reading ofliterature,
and even the assumption that such an imitation is possible, presents not only an
underestimation of the complexity ofnatural language, but also ofliterature and especially
of sense making processes both on the side of the author and of the reader. And while
Racter moves away from a goal ofpure imitation and aims to instead shock and surprise by
overtly stressing the computer's idiosyncrasies and reader's incapability to react to the
Racter text with their traditional set ofassumptions and familiar reaction processes, Racter
swings to the opposite extreme to programs such as TALE-SPIN in that it does not, like
TALE-SPIN want to hide the computer origin ofits work, but on the contrary the human
input behind its 'authorless' text.
It is more helpful, both for the general evaluation ofcomputer technology and for its uses
for the creation of literary texts to see the machine not so much as a contender for or
Chapter 5 - page 192