Wordsmith vs. Word Processor

It’s me vs. Brutus.1, and only one of us is worried.

Brutus.1 is a computer system that writes fiction and is billed as “the world’s most advanced story generator” by its creators.

I am billed as a “Times staff writer” but am thinking of adding “.1” after my name to imply that a better and faster version of myself is forthcoming.

Here’s the challenge: If Brutus.1 and I each wrote a short story, could readers figure out who wrote which? Or let’s cut to the chase (and my very marrow): Can a computer out-write me?

I can live with a computer that speeds a spacecraft to a comet’s tail, that shows a depth of logic beyond my grasp. What I can’t live with is the idea of a computer as a creative writer, one that can capture--nay, illuminate--the human condition in prose.

Show me a machine that can write, “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” . . . and then show me the door.

Not that I’m freaking out the way Garry Kasparov did when IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat him at chess in 1997. Kasparov stormed from the table after his loss, thenlashed out at IBM for programming a computer specifically to beat him: “It was nothing to do with science. . .it was zeal to beat Garry Kasparov.”

In a way, Brutus.1’s co-creator agrees. Deep Blue’s victory tells us nothing about the future of artificial intelligence, says Selmer Bringsjord of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

“Chess,” he says, “is too easy.”

Bringsjord, 41, a professor of logic and cognitive science, says he wants a more creative test of mind vs. machine. He directs Rensselaer’s Minds & Machines Laboratory. The name scares me.

In 1990, Bringsjord, along with David A. Ferrucci, a senior scientist at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, began developing a Brutus.1 prototype to answer the questions: Can computers be creative? Can a machine hold its own against a “literarily creative” human.

In one test, the answer was yes.

Recently, on https://www.instantnovelist.com, a short story by Brutus.1 was posted with fiction by four finalists chosen for the site’s Computer vs. Human Writing Contest. Only 25% of more than 4,000 votes cast were able to identify the computer-generated story. Egads.

Still, Bringsjord acknowledges, Brutus.1’s creative writing skills are limited. (Frankly, so are mine--and I’m a trained fiction writer).

“Brutus imitates,” says Bringsjord, who wrote some fiction in his mid-20s, “and picks up on a style we have given it.”

They were able to program a surprising number of literary devices into the computer, not the least of which were plot structure, sentence flow and point of view. Brutus.1 has written only four stories within a narrow framework: 500 words maximum, from a male point of view, in a university setting and on the theme of betrayal.

Bringsjord and Ferrucci picked betrayal because it appealed to what they call their “dark side.” They studied famous works on betrayal (including “Julius Caesar”: “Et tu, Brute!”; hence Brutus.1’s name) and came up with a mathematical definition of the theme involving Xs and Ys and alarming algorithms.

But could a computer really create a story or will it simply regurgitate a programmer’s words and ideas in the framework of fiction?

“Of course computers can be creative,” says Benjamin Kuipers, chairman of the computer science department at the University of Texas at Austin, “because people can be creative.”

Research in the rarified field of computers and creativity is still at an early stage, says Kuipers, an artificial intelligence expert. And scientists don’t know yet how technology is going to make up for a machine’s lack of soul or life experience, he points out.

Bringsjord and Ferrucci began their work with a $300,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. To date, with grants and other contributions from corporations including IBM and Apple Computer Inc., the researchers have spent about $1 million on the project, which the virtual games industry is tracking. In one practical use, Brutus.1 might be used to spin real-time stories for online games to meet the demand for new plot trajectories in high-speed, shoot-’em-up virtual competitions, Bringsjord says.

For now, the test is to see if Brutus.1 can build on what its creators know--and surprise them with either a story that they can’t anticipate or at least a bit of prose that sounds as if it comes from a heart. That hasn’t happened yet, they admit in their book, “Artificial Intelligence and Literary Creativity: Inside the Mind of Brutus, a Storytelling Machine” (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999).

Well, how about a little love story then? Brutus.1 and I, mano a mano, on the theme of love?

No go. Turns out the idea of betrayal was a lot easier to put into math.

“We didn’t even try to work out pure love,” Bringsjord says. “Pure love is very intimidating.”

Oh, and a mighty Storytelling Machine isn’t?

We are not unalike, Brutus.1 and I. We both write for a living. We are both familiar with the works of Shakespeare. And neither one of us can whip up a decent tiramisu.

Self- Betrayal I

Marcus was 7 when he first saw the key. His grandfather kept it hidden in a tobacco box, looped to a bit of twine that had splintered from the tug of antique brass.

The key had stayed with his grandfather, who was redlined out of the university’s rare books budget by a new curator who collected Kerouac. On Sunday evenings, Marcus and grandfather would sneak into the classics reading room, and by flashlight held high--”gently, gently”--illuminate a leaf from a medieval manuscript. Look, his grandfather would whisper, this vellum did not give in to time’s claim on its letters of gold. And he would chant the Latin over and over--”Gloria in altissimis Deo . . .”--until Marcus could join in, and the verse became his first nature.

After his grandfather’s death, Marcus hooted at the Latin texts assigned by classics professors who had never run a finger along a swirl of lettre batarde. The books on their reading lists were his bedtime stories, and he had no more interest in revisiting Cicero than he did Mother Goose.

On his 21st birthday, the key was his.

*

Marcus stopped going to class, and spent late nights in the rare books room. His advisor called him in and tried a Hail Mary pass--”What would your grandfather think?”--but Marcus was out the door before he could finish.

Marcus started to run but stopped short. On the classics bulletin board, a torn headline from the campus newspaper screamed in 60-point Gothic (and he did not appreciate the irony): “University Debt Doubles: Creditors demand action; curator offers to auction off illuminated manuscripts.”

That night, Marcus unlocked the door to the rare books room and propped it open with “The Aeneid.” A blinding star guided him to the banks of the river, where he sank to his knees. Gently, gently, he let the waters wash away the key, and locked into his memory the pungency of Kentucky tobacco leaves.

Marcus brushed the dirt off his pants before creeping back into the room that his grandfather had ceded to him. He sang: “ . . . es quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.” . . . and unto dust shalt thou return.

Then he lit the match.

Self- Betrayal II

Dave Striver loved the university--at least most of the time. Every now and then, without warning, a wave of, well, it was true: a wave of hatred rose up and flowed like molten blood through every cell in his body. This hatred would be directed at the ghostly gatekeepers. But most of the time Striver loved--the ivy-covered clock towers, the ancient and sturdy brick, the sun-splashed verdant greens, the eager youth who learned alongside him. He also loved the fact that the university is free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world--only this isn’t a fact: Academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: To earn the PhD, to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one’s dissertation.

Dave wanted desperately to be a doctor. He had been working toward this end through six years of graduate school. In the end, he needed the signatures of three people on the first page of his dissertation, the priceless inscriptions which, together, would certify that he had passed his defense. One of the signatures had to come from Professor Hart.

Well before the defense, Striver gave Hart a penultimate copy of his thesis. Hart read it and told Striver that it was absolutely first-rate, and that he would gladly sign it at the defense. They shook hands in Hart’s book-lined office. Hart’s eyes were bright and trustful, and his bearing paternal.

“See you at 3 p.m. on the tenth, then, Dave!” Hart said.

At the defense, Dave eloquently summarized Chapter 3 of his dissertation. His plan had been to do the same for Chapter 4, and then wrap things up, but now he wasn’t sure. The pallid faces before him seemed suddenly nauseating. What was he doing?

One of these pallid automata had an arm raised.

“What?” Striver snapped.

Striver watched ghosts look at each other. A pause.

Then Professor Teer spoke: “I’m puzzled as to why you prefer not to use the well-known alpha-beta minimax algorithm for your search?”

Why had he thought so earnestly about inane questions like this in the past? Stiver said nothing. His nausea grew. Contempt, fiery and uncontrollable, rose up.

“Dave?” Professor Hart prodded, softly.

God, they were pitiful. Pitiful, pallid, and puny.

“Dave, did you hear the question?”

Later, Striver sat alone in his apartment. What in God’s name had he done?

*

Bringsjord’s Web site is https://www.rpi.edu/~brings.

* Reach Renee Tawa at renee.tawa@latimes.com.

Who Wrote the Stories on Page 2?

Renee Tawa wrote “Self-Betrayal I.” Brutus.1, the computer program, wrote “Self-Betrayal II.”