From Literature To Biterature

Valentina ori
University of Novi Sad

January 2016
Peter Swirski
McGills-Queen University Press
London 2013
REVIEW OF FROM LITERATURE TO BITERATURE BY PETER SWIRSKI

In his book From Literature to Biterature, Peter Swirski, a Canadian author and literary
critic, talks about a new technologies and computers in the context of literary works, but also
reflecting upon other aspects of human existence. The entire title of the book is From Literature
to Biterature: Lem, Turing, Darwin, and Explorations in Computer Literature, Philosophy of
Mind, and Cultural Evolution which enables us to see the topics which will be covered and one
of the main figures are Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, and Stanislaw Lem which are pioneer
scholars of artificial intelligences. This book represents a mixture of interdisciplinary studies,
blending issues of science, mind philosophy and society. According to the author, it is not a
scientific book, but instead, it should primarily resemble an old-fashioned book of discovery or a
modern adventure story. In this way, he calls into question traditional ways of thinking and forces
us readers to put our thinking caps on and dive into the future. This book covers a wide variety of
topics related to artificial intelligence and takes us on a ride into the future combining science
and wit.
The central topic of From Literature to Biterature is that in the near future, computerauthors, or computhors, will write literary works and will become capable of creating original
works of literature. The very term biterature denotes literary works that are written by machines.
In this context, author wants to answer many questions that are related to that concept, such as:
Under which conditions would machines become capable of creative writing? Given that
computer evolution will exceed the speed of natural evolution, how will it affect art, culture and
our way of life in general? Ranging from Stanislaw Lem to the "Turing test" to the evolutionary
trends of culture and machines, Swirski's covers all topics which include literary futurology,
evolutionary cognition, and philosophy of the future. The book consists of three parts and eleven
chapters divided evenly for ease of reading, all organized in a cumulative way. The first part of
the book discusses the issues of computorship and possibility of literary creativity and originality
of the computers, second part more focusses on the issues of thinking, consciousness and variety
of test for determining thinking of the machines and the third part focuses on futuristic
predictions concerning usage of robots in our everyday life.
Valentina ori
January 2016
Peter Swirski
London 2013
As a central topic of the book, author explores Stanislaw Lems speculations on the future
of computhorship. He also clarifies the role of a computhor being a machine which creates an
original work of art. Swirski also discusses an idea of authorship in the case of computhors and
in which way the royalties would be paid and to whom. There is also a question of indirect
authors who modify the work of the computer. If theres a person behind a program, how can a
computer be said to create a piece of writing? This idea is expressed in a clear way with a
number of examples, which gives us a complete picture of the problem, especially if we compare
it with todays machines for literary production. Today, we have bots and softwares, but in both
cases machines are only able to manipulate data and generate information, but these are not
creative acts; the accumulation of data is not equivalent to thinking. In the future, computers will
create works not only focusing on syntax like today, but will also incorporate semantic
understanding of the text.
One of the most important concepts is also the concept of biterature, which is an original
piece of literature created by machines. Author claims that acknowledging biterature as a type of
literature will involve adopting the same range of attitudes to computer authors as to human
ones. Biterature will call into question traditional ways of thinking about art, genius, creativity,
and imagination. The questions that are the most interesting are that the category of literature
will have to be revised because computhors will produce billions of texts every minute and the
critics will be just another outdated technology, according to Swirski. In this part of the book,
Swirski askes a lot of questions and leads us from the one topic to another in a quick way.
Author playfully uses variety of arguments from cognitive sciences, the evolutionary
sciences, and psychology to describe the future state of artificial intelligence. In the near future,
we can expect computer authors to evolve in a way which is similar to a natural evolution, except
millions of times faster. These computhors will not be limited in any way like humans are and it
is just a matter of time when this kind of (r)evolution will happen. Swirski takes us on a make
belief journey and explores what conditions would machines have to have in order to become
capable of creative writing, what would be the literary, cultural, and social consequences of these
capacities. This is very interesting to me because he constantly makes a comparison between
Valentina ori
January 2016
Peter Swirski
London 2013
computers and human beings and even questions his humanity, at the same time considering
humanity of the artificial intelligence.
The main topic for discussion is whether or not a machine can think. Swirski moves into
a second section on artificial intelligence and the guiding figure here is Alan Turing. For Swirski,
a computhor needs to do more than pass the Turing test a test developed by the enigma-codecracking computer genius Alan Turing designed to compare a computers intelligence to the
human mind. The basic Turing test follows this plan: an interrogator speaks to a human being
and to a computer, all three separated and anonymous, and if the interlocutor cannot distinguish
answers between the person and the machine, then the machine has passed the thinking test.
Only learning computers can pass the test, all others fail to do so.
However, he finds fallacy in this type of test on many levels, one being that even some
humans with problems with intelligence or other impairments cannot pass the test. Turing
suggests is to have artificial intelligence engineers fashion computers as social beings in
advance of subjecting them to the test, since in large part the elements of the test are about
sociality. Nevertheless, Swirski feels confident that, in time, computers will be integrated
culturally and so would have the context to guess intentions. This is why there is the need to
revise Turning test. He comes up with his own test, called the Ultimatest, which he says could
be used to test the human-like abilities.
The most interesting part of the book to me was the discussion of evolution of computers.
Despite the fact that from this chronological standpoint we cannot comprehend this notion, it
seems very appealing and similar to the situation in the motion picture Her. Swirski thinks that a
computer will develop naturally its own software and hardware in its own process of evolution.
Swirski recalls, there were programs that with a little success attempted the computers ability to
learn, which can be an instinctual response. The accumulation of data is not equivalent to
thinking, and he bemoans the fact that in spite of decades and billions of dollars of research we
have yet not developed a computer capable of thinking. Such thinking computer would be a
machine which could evolve, adapt, think, and create. The problem is that we believe computers
should think the way of humans and he thinks we have to redefine our notion of thinking.
Valentina ori
January 2016
Peter Swirski
London 2013
Thought and volition are deeply intertwined. Do computers want anything? If not, can they be
made to want?
The last part of the book discusses the future of war, according to Swirski, includes
computers able to go to battle, Terminator-style, and recharge by eating any available biomass.
Thats after we create computers that use a DNA sequence to run themselves, instead of silicon
chips. Like technologies that have come before us, war machinery precedes cultural usefulness.
Toward the end of his book Swirski explores robotic wars, specially made DNA bombs to target
an individual, bacteria that could biocompute, microbiotic armies of autonomous learning
agents (181), and micro-bots in the form of dust that can evaluate any given environment (182).
But Swirskis conclusion is that the future belongs to artificial intelligence (204), thinking and
brilliantly creative computers.
In the end, Swirski wants us to realize that his approach is not only from scientific
standpoint, but more an imaginative adventure story for everyone. Swirski finds a middle place
between academic theory and oversimplified approach common in pop nonfiction. Erudite and
sophisticated, elegantly written and witty, the book offers insight into the history and future of
artificial intelligence. Ideas and arguments surface in quick rotation and disappear again, which
creates an experience uncomfortably similar to surfing around the internet. In summary,
Swirskis book is about creativity and patterns in nature, in human nature, and in computing and
artificial intelligence and the book is an interesting reading not only for people interested in
computers, but for everyone who wants to speculate about the future of technology in a witty
way.

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Valentina ori

University of Novi Sad

REVIEW OF FROM LITERATURE TO BITERATURE BY PETER SWIRSKI

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