Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953-2023

An anthology of seven decades of English-language outputs from computer generation systems, chronicling the vast history of machine-written texts created long before ChatGPT.

The discussion of computer-generated text has recently reached a fever pitch but largely omits the long history of work in this area--text generation, as it happens, was not invented yesterday in Silicon Valley. This anthology, Output, thoughtfully selected, introduced, and edited by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort, aims to correct that omission by gathering seven decades of English-language texts produced by generation systems and software. The outputs span many different types of creative writing and include text generated by research systems, along with reports and utilitarian texts, representing many general advances and experiments in text generation.

Output is first and foremost a collection of outputs to be encountered by readers. In addition to an overall introduction, each of the excerpts is introduced individually and organized by fine-grain genre including conversations, humor, letters, poetry, prose, and sentences. Bibliographic references allow readers to learn more about outputs and systems that intrigue them. Although Output could serve as a reference book, it is designed to be readable and to be read. Purposefully excluded are human-computer collaborations that were conceptually defined but not implemented as a computer system.

Copublished by Counterpath Press

Nick Montfort is Professor of Digital Media at MIT. He is the author of Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction and The Future and the coauthor of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and 10 PRINT CHR＄(205.5+RND(1)); GOTO 10; and the coeditor of The New Media Reader (all published by the MIT Press).