Umberto Eco Formulates The AI Novel In 2011

I formulated the real recipe for writing a computer-made bestseller:

First of all you need a computer, obviously, which is an intelligent machine that thinks for you. This would be a definite advantage for many people. All you need is a program of a few lines; even a child could do it. Then one feeds into the computer the content of a hundred or so novels, scientific works, the Bible, the Koran, and a bunch of telephone directories (very useful for characters’ names). Say, something like 120,000 pages. After this, using another program, you randomize; in other words, you mix all those texts together, making some adjustments – for instance, eliminating all the e’s – in order to have not only a novel but a Perec-like lipogram. At this point, you click on “Print,” and, since you have eliminated all the e’s, what comes out is something less than 120,000 pages.

After you have read them carefully several times, underlining the most significant passages, you take them to an incinerator.

Then you simply sit under a tree, with a piece of charcoal and good-quality drawing paper in hand, and, allowing your mind to wander, you write down two lines – for instance: “The moon is high in the sky /The wood rustles.” Maybe what emerges initially is not a novel, but rather a Japanese haiku.

Nevertheless, the important thing is to get started.

CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG NOVELIST, Umberto Eco (Amazon)

Previously – Filtered for: Umberto Eco