Could A.I. write a novel like Hemingway?

Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in a short time. So at what point will it be able to emulate the great artists and writers of our time?

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and writer, author of ten novels including Midnight’s Children (Booker Prize, 1981), Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and The Golden House. The publication of his fourth novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1988 led to violent protests in the Muslim world for its depiction of the prophet Mohammad. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a death fatwa against Rushdie, which sent him into hiding for nearly a decade. Rushdie weathered countless death threats and many assassination attempts.

17 December, 2017

Salman Rushdie: You know, I never say never. I mean I remember... I mean I’m sort of an amateur chess player—that’s what I’m interested in: chess, and I remember back in the day when computers were first being taught to play chess that people said that they would never be able to beat the real great, the grandmasters and the world champions. And for a long time that was true—that the world champion players and the great grandmasters were able to overcome the computer. 

Uh, not true anymore. It’s not true anymore. Computers are certainly as good if not better as any human player. As computer memory and sophistication has increased, it has outstripped human memory and sophistication. 

So I don’t know, it seems to me the thing that makes a writer a good writer is not just the technical skill with language, not even being able to find and tell a good story, it seems to me that first of all there’s a relationship with language that the best writers have, which is very much their relationship. 

If we read to Hemingway we would know it’s Hemingway because he has a particular relationship with the language; if we read James Joyce or William Faulkner we know it’s them, and if we read Garcia Marquez same thing. 

So that’s the first thing, is when I’m looking at work I’m trying to see what is the relationship with language.

And the second things are how you see the world—like do you have a good ear? Are you good at listening to how people really speak? Do you have a good eye? Are you good at seeing the world in an interesting way? 

And then finally the greatest writers, the best writers have a vision of the world that is personal to themselves, they have a kind of take on reality which is theirs and out of which their whole sensibility proceeds. 

Now to have all of that in the form of artificial intelligence—I don’t think we’re anywhere near that yet. 

But what is true I think is there’s beginning to be some sense of AI as developing a moral stance, developing an ability to make good and evil choices, right and wrong choices, and that’s a step on the way towards being what one would call human. 

So I’m not saying never, I’m just saying I don’t see that we’re there yet.

Author and public intellectual Salman Rushdie knows his way around a good word or two. It's made him one of the most celebrated and widely-read authors of the last 50 years. But he has an open mind that one day a machine might be able to emulate him. He remembers an era not too long ago where people were deriding computer chess programs, saying that they would never beat grandmaster human players. It only took a couple of decades until those that chided the chess AI had to eat crow, Salman posits, so why should writing be any different? Salman Rushdie's latest book is The Golden House.

writing writers hemingway artificial intelligence ai ai writing salman rushdie art creation creativity what makes a good writer good writing videos
Badge
PARTNERSHIPS
PARTNERSHIPS

‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create

How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.

Surprising Science
  • A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
  • It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
  • While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Keep reading Show less
science technology future books literature genetics bioethics children crispr

These are the world’s greatest threats in 2021

We look back at a year ravaged by a global pandemic, economic downturn, political turmoil and the ever-worsening climate crisis.

Luis Ascui/Getty Images
Politics & Current Affairs

Billions are at risk of missing out on the digital leap forward, as growing disparities challenge the social fabric.

Keep reading Show less
climate change disease health happiness war global issues

Columbia study finds new way to extract energy from black holes

A new study explains how a chaotic region just outside a black hole's event horizon might provide a virtually endless supply of energy.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Surprising Science
  • In 1969, the physicist Roger Penrose first proposed a way in which it might be possible to extract energy from a black hole.
  • A new study builds upon similar ideas to describe how chaotic magnetic activity in the ergosphere of a black hole may produce vast amounts of energy, which could potentially be harvested.
  • The findings suggest that, in the very distant future, it may be possible for a civilization to survive by harnessing the energy of a black hole rather than a star.
Keep reading Show less
science physics space

Massive 'Darth Vader' isopod found lurking in the Indian Ocean

The father of all giant sea bugs was recently discovered off the coast of Java.

SJADE 2018
Surprising Science
  • A new species of isopod with a resemblance to a certain Sith lord was just discovered.
  • It is the first known giant isopod from the Indian Ocean.
  • The finding extends the list of giant isopods even further.
Keep reading Show less
oceans science fiction animals crustaceans isopod

A psychiatric diagnosis can be more than an unkind ‘label’

A popular and longstanding wave of thought in psychology and psychotherapy is that diagnosis is not relevant for practitioners in those fields.

Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images for Sotheby's
Mind & Brain
When I was training as a clinical psychologist, I had a rotation in a low-cost psychotherapy clinic.
Keep reading Show less
mental health mind brain personality self psychology
Quantcast