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"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
 |
| Electronic Bard | ||
| A computing machine that is able to write original poetry. |
In his inimitable way, Trurl does his best to bring his new machine up to scratch as a poet. He "bypassed half the logic circuits and made the emotive more electromotive," "intensified the semantic fields and attached a strength of character component," "installed a philosophical throttle," "jacked the semanticity up all the way, plugged in an alternating ryhme generator," and finally, in a burst of inspiration, he tossed out all the logic circuits and replaced them with "self-regulating egocentripital narcissistors."
| Trurl let the machine warm up first, kept the power low, ran up the metal stairs several times to take readings ) the machine was like the engine of a giant steamer, galleried, with rows of rivets, dials and valves on every tier) - till, finally satisfied all the decimal places were where they ought to be, he said yes, it was ready now...
Now that the potentiometers indicated the machine's lyrical capacitance was charged to the maximum, and Trurl, so nerous his hands were shaking, threw the master switch. A voice, slightly husky but remarkably vibrant and bewitching, said: "Phlogisticosh. Rhomothriglyph. Floof." "Am I missing something?" said Klapaucius, calmly watching a panic-stricken Trurl struggling at the controls... Trurl stuck his head out of a trapdoor on the third story and yelled, "Now try it!" The electronic bard shuddered from stem to stern... |
| Technovelgy from The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age,
by Stanislaw Lem. Published by Harcourt Brace in 1965 Additional resources -
|
An interesting take on this idea was done in video in Racconti fantastici di Primo Levi "Il Versificatore" (1971):
For more on this topic, take a look at the entry for the verse transcriber from J.G. Ballard's short story collection The Vermillion Sands.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age
More Ideas
and Technology by Stanislaw Lem
Tech news articles related to The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age
Tech news articles related to works by Stanislaw Lem
Electronic Bard-related
news articles:
- 'STANDUP' Computer Comedian
- The Poet Is A Computer
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