NEWS: Automating Fiction: Who needs authors?

I was listening to a podcast recently about geeky stuff technology and someone mentioned the Amazon Turk site. This is where you outsource small, repetitive tasks to workers all over the globe - tagging photos, searching webpages for email addresses - stuff a computer can't do well and needs a human brain. Wow, I thought. I wonder if anyone has tried to write a story with it?

It's the internet, so of course they have. Mike Subelsky tasked Turk workers with coming up with the opening line of a horror story. He picked one, and asked other workers to add a sentence, paying them 10 cents a sentence. And the result he got? Not bad...

A lump rose in Andy's throat and he brushed away tears as he reread the chilling message taped to his dorm room door. This can't be happening he thought, How could someone do this to me? Andy carefully took the note off of the door, and entered his room. He sat at the edge of his bed, thoughts racing through his head as he stared at the paper in his hand. He tore it furiously.

Read the rest.  

So if you can produce a decent story without the need for an author, why is no one doing so? Or are they already making robot-writers which churn out tomes in no time? In fact, how do I know I'm not one of those robots?


image: Michael Mandiberg http://www.flickr.com/photos/theredproject/ (under creative commons)