the "automatic prose generator" technology out there leaves a lot of other interesting ideas. an ingenious software engineer with a flair for writing could create some pretty sophisticated grammars that automatically generate text yet are impossible to detect over perhaps even dozens of messages output by them. they could even have their own personalities and writing styles, if the software engineer were creative and devious enough. ... Consider, however, that when computers match humans in the ability to generate coherent sentences, they might have something useful to say. Even now, search, engine designers are fighting with "web spam" artists who fill

At 03:29 PM 11/5/96 -0800, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: ... thier pages with various "key" words or statements to ensnare hapless browsers. These designers are developing filtering systems to combat this, and these filters could conceivably be ported to the e-mail community to filter machine generated text. There should be a point where the prose spun by asimov's "positronic brains" and that woven by a humans own "natural" brain would be indistingushable. At this point, we might want to hear their opinions, for they should be as valid as any other.