Tribe's Response to Camel Tail

Robot!

     A bot, short for robot, is a computer program that continuously generates text online. The text could be ongoing poems that never stop, or it could be responsive text to human input. The bots can generate the text on the internet and social media networks. Bots are a unique form of computer software. They often take on a human persona, talking like they are one of us. They write the text in response to us and/or for us to read.

     Although bots are cool and fun to interact with, many questions arise with bots that generate text. It makes you wonder who the real author is of the produced text. Is it the individual who wrote the code? Is it the author that used their words for the bot? Is it the bot that should get credit for putting together the piece of electronic literature? Thinking about who should be credited for the final piece is a little mind boggling.

Metallica

     Camel Tail is one example of a bot that generates text continuously. The author of this piece of electronic literature is Sonny Rae Tempest, and the code was created by Nick Montfort. Sonny used the code that Montfort wrote to make a continuous poem from Metallica lyrics. Montfort made it possible for others to use this code in any way they want as long as they include the text that says it is Montfort’s work and that he gives them permission.

Nick Montfort

     It is pretty cool to see the “underground” Metallica songs that come from Camel Tail. It causes an almost what if situation. Granted not all of the lines that the code makes actually work, but others make it hard to tell the difference between the random lines the code makes and actual lyrics that Metallica could make. This could be a huge tool in the songwriting business. Have the computer write random lines and then compile the best ones into
a song.