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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| 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
resources:
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
| AI Note-Taking From Google Meet |
| Seeing Faces On Grains Of Sand (AI Pareidolia) |
| Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity |
| WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls |
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'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'
'... underneath they consisted of networks of cooling tubes against the skin.'
'My cars talk to one another. I have no doubt about it...'
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.'
