According to the New York Times, “a shocking amount of what we’re reading is created not by humans, but by computer algorithms.”
Really? I had no idea.
I understand that spam bots generate a lot of web content that ends up going into filters and never sees the light of day. But I was surprised by the amount of real, quality writing that’s actually generated by computers and their fancy algorithms.
Here’s an example from a quiz on the Times’ site:
“Kitty couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. Her nerves were strained as two tight strings, and even a glass of hot wine, that Vronsky made her drink, did not help her. Lying in bed she kept going over and over that monstrous scene at the meadow.”
That excerpt is part of the Russian novel True Love, which was written by a computer in St. Petersburg in 72 hours. A computer wrote a novel!
This brings a question to mind–if a piece of web content doesn’t have a byline, can you trust it? In the coming years, will a lot of uncredited content come from computer algorithms?
Go take a look at some examples at the New York Times. What do you think?
