What is the Point of Compulit?

A review article of Littérature et informatique. La littérature générée par ordinateur, eds. Alain Vuillemin and Michel Lenoble (Artois Press Université, 1995). (Literature and Informatics. Computer-generated Literature). The discussion of the contributions gathered in this anthology leads to a taxonomy of computer-generated texts based on three main categories: utilitarian (the automated production of texts [such as news summaries] to save human time); cognitive (story-generation conceived as an exploration of creative mechanisms [James Meehan's Tale-Spin]) and aesthetic-experimental (the attempt to produce new literary genres). The experimental category is divided into texts meant to be printed, and texts that exist exclusively in the electronic medium: games, hypertexts, and animated texts ("cyberpoetry"). All of these texts are produced in a collaboration human-machine in which, as Espen Aarseth observes, the computer can play three roles: pre-processor (plot-outline generation), co-processor (dialogue computer-user, such as the ELIZA program), or post-processor (staging and manipulation of texts written by a human). (Source: Author's website)