Having harbored a great fondness for books and their authors since my childhood, I found this New Youk Times story to be highly provocative. It seems that a professor has developed computer algorithms that can collect publicly available information on a subject and (using 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers) turn it into books that can be printed on demand, or even delivered digitally.
Philip M. Parker, the chaired professor of management science at a business school with campuses in France and Singapore, has generated more than 200,000 different books. That makes him, in his own words, “the most published author in the history of the planet.” He actually seems to be making money doing it.
Confirming my impression of the depth of plot inherent to the genre, he is now working on new algorithms with the ability to generate romance novels. “I’ve already set it up,” Parker said. “There are only so many body parts.” (Read more)
April 14th, 2008 at 2:54 PM
Remember, I told you that we could do romance novels back when we have the vic 20.