Suppose you wrote a computer program that would analyze the books of Hemingway, and determine the use of words, expressions, and sentence tsructure. Could you then have the program write themes upon certain topics, and have them come out as if Ernest Hemingway actually wrote them?
My idea would be to have old Ernest (whatever of him still exists) author new stories, which could be published and sold.
Sort of improved “ghostwriting”.
Has this everbeen attaempted?
Writing is about creativity. Analyzing style and word choice is not creative, it is imitative.
Many, many writing programs have been tried. As a fad its time is long gone because people realized we don’t know anything solid about how creativity works. If you can’t even figure it out in humans, you can’t program it into a computer.
Will this ever be possible? Who knows?
Maybe, but it sure couldn’t fuck the ladies like him…
Something like this, you mean?
Doesn’t contribute anything to the question, I just like to dredge up one of my favorite threads.
Years ago, when I was in college, there was a professor on campus, Selmer Bringsjord, who was working on making computers write stories. The two links (both pdf) near the bottom of his page deal with this research, but I can’t really find anything post-1999. He seems to have moved on to other pursuits, or I’m just not looking hard enough.
If the stories were upon topics, then that would make them instantly distinguishable from genuine Hemingway.
It is an interesting question, but I think that Hemingway was an extremely reactive writer. He found situations and put himself in them. It seems basic but often Hemingway’s reactions were surprising and inconsistent with what might be considered norms. The question would revolve around could the programer feed the situations into the program and allow the program to create in a somewhat inconsistent manner. I tend to say no.
Well, there’s the Kant Generator.