A report on Cnet news says that an artificial intelligence program called Sheherazade is able to create interactive choose-your-own adventure fiction.
It's not quite ready to kick us out of our chairs yet. According to a paper published by the program's creators, "At this point, human-authored narrative still remains the most cost-effective means of generating an interactive narrative experience."
Sure, because cost-effectiveness is how to judge fiction. Actually, given how little most writers earn, it's hard to imagine anything being more cost-effective.
Still, we can't be complacent. Here's how the paper sees the future:
"Open interactive narrative shows promise in reducing authorial burden in the near future."
Authorial burden? I didn't even realize that writing was a burden...
It goes on, "Sheherazade-IF and the lessons we learned in creating and evaluating it serve as a first step in creating human-quality interactive narrative with almost no human authoring required."
What will we writers do with all that free time once AI has freed us from the heavy lifting involved in making up stories? Perhaps join a conspiracy to destroy the robots?
