Who needs writers? Here’s a glimpse of our near-term future, wherein software takes responsibility for writing the stories we read. Now imagine not too far into the future* wherein a complex, macabre circle jerk editorial process consists of computer-written stories being ingested by other software, assessed, cataloged, re-written, and re-published back into the news stream.

Maybe we don’t need readers either, now that I think on it. The computers can just talk amongst themselves. I’d love to see a simulation of how that would play out, where we pour in today’s news and take a glimpse 5 years later at what they’ve been spewing out. There’s the seeds of a novel there for someone like Gibson or Stephenson.

*(by which, of course, I mean now)