In Story Machines, two pioneers of creative artificial intelligence explore the design and impact of AI story generators. The book covers three themes: language generators that compose coherent text, storyworlds with believable characters, and AI models of human storytellers.
* Fascinating cross-disciplinary work encompassing, AI, cognitive science, learning science, creative writing and thinking skills
* Explores the role of the next wave of AI in creativity, education, literature and literacy
* Written by experts in computing, education and creative writing
* Explores the cutting edge and the limits of simulations of human creativity
A masterful and highly accessible overview of exciting developments in computer-generated literature by two experts in the field.
Arthur I. Miller, author of The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity
Story Machines is a lot of fun to read. It's a fascinating cultural and technological history of the centuries-long attempt to automate creative writing. It is also an exploration of what makes writing good: interesting characters; intriguing relationships; surprising events and plots; and aesthetically pleasing prose. Ultimately, Story Machines is about human creativity.
Keith Sawyer, author of Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation
Software that writes stories? A fascinating insight into how computers are learning to replicate the power of human imagination. Sharples and Perez y Perez are experts in the field of computational creativity. Their insights into language, story structure and the replication of human creativity map a journey in which computers could create future stories that change behaviours and beliefs. The ethics of how these are enabled, engaged and deployed will be a debated for years to come.
Vikki Kirby, Chief Storyteller, Vibrato Consulting
Stories have been computer-generated for decades by a curious assortment of programmers, artists, and authors. Mike Sharples and Rafael Perez y Perez tell their stories, providing a rich, broad history that will interest and inform anyone interested in the future of literary art.
Nick Montfort, author/programmer of Golem
Mike Sharples is Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK. He is the author of How We Write: Writing as Creative Design. His other works include Computers and Thought: A Practical Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and over 300 books and papers on artificial intelligence, computers and writing and educational technology.
Rafael Perez y Perez is a full Professor at Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana at Cuajimalpa, Mexico City. He specializes in computational creativity, particularly models for narrative generation, and has led the Association for Computational Creativity. His works include MEXICA: 20 Years - 20 Stories, Creatividad Computacional and diverse papers on artificial intelligence and computational creativity. His website is www.rafaelperezyperez.com.
Preface, Chapter 1. Can a computer write a story?, Chapter 2. Human story machines, Chapter 3. Artificial versifying, Chapter 4. Automatic novel writers, Chapter 5. The shape of a story, Chapter 6. The program that swallowed the internet, Chapter 7. Storyworlds, Chapter 8. Being creative, Chapter 9. Modelling the mind of a writer, Chapter 10. Build your own story generator, Chapter 11. Capacity for empathy, Notes, Further reading