Death of the Author – Will ‘AI’ Writing Generators Destroy Literature?

Users can input a sentence, such as a newspaper headline or an essay question, and the AI will produce a surprisingly convincing continuation.

For instance, when the first half of Jane Austen’s famous opening line for Pride and Prejudice (1813) is entered—“It is a truth universally acknowledged …”—the AI continues “…that when a nation is in a condition of civilization, that it is in great measure the business of its leaders to encourage the habits of virtue, and of industry, and of good order”. ¹

The system’s continuation might not have the sparkle and concision of Austen’s original, but it does display a striking coherence, reading more like a slightly dull essay than the product of an algorithm. While it appears that that lab withheld the system primarily due to worries about unleashing a tsunami of fake news, another important question the system raises is: how might such a writing machine change literature?

Interestingly, this is a question that several writers have already explored. In his short story “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” (1954), Roald Dahl imagines a frustrated writer named Adolph Knipe inventing a machine that can mass produce short stories and novels. Knipe reasons: “Carpets…chairs…shoes…bricks…crockery…anything you like to mention—they’re all made by machinery now…And stories—well —they’re just another product”.

Within the first year of the machine’s operation, the Great Automatic Grammatizator produces at least half of all the novels and stories published in English. Knipe is careful to leave major literary writers untouched, but buys off most other real-life writers, forcing the rest into penury.

If Dahl’s vision is accurate, an AI system would exaggerate existing trends, creating a tiny global elite of writing superstars and undercutting and impoverishing the vast majority. As Knipe reflects: “The quality may be inferior, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the cost of production that counts.” ²