of the section is completely and precisely specified. Thus the composer is
often surprised, and pleasantly surpnsed, at the details of the realization of
his ideas. To this extent only is the computer composing. We call the process
algorithmic composition, but we immediately fe-emphasize that the al-
gorithms are transparently simple.^13This is Mathews' answer to a question which he would rather "unask".
Despite his disclaimer, however, many people find it easier to say simply
that the piece was "composed by a computer". I believe this phrase mis-
represents the situation totally. The program contained no structures
analogous to the brain's "symbols", and could not be said in any sense to be
"thinking" about what it was doing. To attribute the composition of such a
piece of music to the computer would be like attributing the authorship of
this book to the computerized automatically (often incorrectly) hyphenat-
ing phototypesetting machine with which it was set.
This brings up a questIOn which is a slight digression from AI, but
actually not a huge one. It is this: When you see the word "I" or "me" in a
text, what do you take it to be referring to? For instance, think of the
phrase "WASH ME" which appears occasionally on the back of dirty trucks.
Who is this "me"? Is this an outcry of some forlorn child who, in despera-
tion to have a bath, scribbled the words on the nearest surface? Or is the
truck requesting a wash? Or, perhaps, does the sentence itself wish to be
given a shower? Or, is it that the filthy English language is asking to be
cleansed? One could go on and on in this game. In this case, the phrase is a
joke, and one is supposed to pretend, on some level, that the truck itself
wrote the phrase and is requesting a wash. On another level, one clearly
recognizes the writing as that of a child, and enjoys the humor of the
misdirection. Here, in fact, is a game based on reading the "me" at the
wrong level.
Precisely this kind of ambiguity has arisen in this book, first in the
Contracrostipunctus, and later in the discussions of Godel's string G (and its
relatives). The interpretation given for unplayable records was "I Cannot
Be Played on Record Player X", and that for unprovable statements was, "I
Cannot Be Proven in Formal System X". Let us take the latter sentence. On
what other occasions, if any, have you encountered a sentence containing
the pronoun "I" where you automatically understood that the reference
was not to the speaker of the sentence, but rather to the sentence itself?
Very few, I would guess. The word "I", when it appears in a Shakespeare
sonnet, is referring not to a fourteen-line form of poetry printed on a page,
but to a flesh-and-blood creature behind the scenes, somewhere off stage.
How far back do we ordinarily trace the "I" in a sentence? The answer,
it seems to me, is that we look for a sentient being to attach the authorship
to. But what is a sentient being? Something onto which we can map
ourselves comfortably. In Weizenbaum's "Doctor" program, is there a
personality? If so, whose is it? A small debate over this very question
recently raged in the pages of Science magazine.
This brings us back to the issue of the "who" who composes computer
music. In most circumstances, the driving force behind such pieces is a
608 Artificial I ntelIigence: Retrospects