Stochastic Texts () is a poetry generator written in 1959 by the German computer scientist . It is one of the earliest examples of electronic literature.
About the work
In 1959 the German computer scientist Theo Lutz wrote Stochastic Texts, which "for many years was considered the first digital literary text." Stochastic Texts was a program written for a Z22 computer that "produced random short sentences based on a corpus of chapter titles and subjects from Franz Kafka's novel The Castle.
Nick Montfort has reimplemented the work in Python, with words translated into English by Helen MacCormack, and the work can be viewed in a web browser. Each line combines words differently, for example as follows:
Reception Lutz's work has been discussed both as a very early work of electronic literature and as an important precursor to current AI-generated literature. The German philosopher and media scholar writes that Stochastic Texts is an example of the "sequential paradigm" in generative literature, in opposition to newer examples of a "connectionist paradigm": "Instead of hoping to recreate intuition, genius, or expression, the logic of the machine itself – that is, the logic of deterministically executed rule steps – becomes aesthetically normative in Stochastische Texte."
References
External links
Facsimile of printed output from Stochastic Texts at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Entry for Stochastische Texte in Adel database