The Artificial Writer

There is a 9 minute video (see below), where Philip M. Parker explains how he wrote his 85,891 books and became the most prolific writer in history. What happened, in truth, is that Parker wrote a series of computer programs that work in a network and do the job for him. The video shows how the software searches, after inputting a few data, for information in public open websites and creates a 300 page book that he then sells through Amazon for 285 US dollars. The books can be catalogued in three or four categories: books about product sales projections in specific markets around the world (A perspective on flavoured water in Japan 2007-2012), manuals about the most diverse illnesses, bilingual dictionaries, and crossword puzzles with instructions in a specific language -i.e. quechua- with results in English. It takes 20 minutes to 2 hours to produce a book and is printed on demand. “I only deconstructed the process an editor goes through to publish a book that reaches the reader, to automate each small step,” he explained in a resent New York Times interview. Parker was born in the United States. He studied economics, mathematics and biology. He obtained a PhD in business economics from Wharton School and is a professor at Fontainbleu, France, and also in Singapore. He also wrote six “real” books about the relationship between the physical laws and economic behaviours. The YouTube video shows scripts of interactive games and reports, generated by the same software, that runs on 65 computers and is the result of six programmer’s work. His other project, the on-line Webster dictionary, presents short videos generated with the same technique. Parker threatens to use his patented invention to write poems as well. When asked if one of those poems could be attributed to Shakespeare, he answered: “No, but because I haven’t yet written any sonnets.”

See: http://www.youtube.com/user/PhilipMParker and http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/

~ by bloggsurfer on July 15, 2008.