Introducing the Robo–Raconteur Artificial Writer Or: Can a Computer Demonstrate Creativity?

This article invites readers to participate in a survey on computational creativity. It asks: (a) Can computers be creative? and (b) Can algorithmic computational creativity teach us about human creativity? The standard definition of creativity is adopted. The article is in two parts. Part One introduces a new interactive artificial–writer computer program, an Excel workbook containing six functional sub–modules, namely: 1) A Top 20 RoI Movie Pitch Combiner; 2) A Bottom 20 RoI Movie Pitch Element Combiner; 3) A Random Movie Pitcher; 4) A Movie Pitch Selector which judges, scores, and ranks generated pitches in evolutionary survival tournaments; 5) An Ironic Character Generator; and finally, 6) A Random Transmedia Story Universe Pitch Generator. Readers are invited to play–test The Robo–Raconteur and complete a short (5–minute) online survey: Was the artificial writer creative? Part Two explains the Evolutionary Systems Theory of Creativity that underpins the software.