MIT students program computer to write nonsense scientific paper accepted for presentation at WMSCI conference

STUFF : WORLD NEWS - STORY : Science conference falls for gibberish prank:
"Jeremy Stribling said today that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams."

Congratulations to Mr. Stribling and his colleagues. As one who participated in his share of intellectual pranks in his younger days, I heartily applaud their effort to show up what they regarded as the pretensious World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Information.

This is also another example of the way in which some scientific or technical tasks can be performed by computer. It reminds me a bit of the conspiracy theory generator that I stumbled upon once on the web - you select the conspirators and the object of their conspiracy and the program generated a paragraph on the subject that sounded a lot like "serious" conspiracy theories being discussed on the web and in books and movies. Another example would be computer programs designed to deliver the benefits of Rogerian psychotherapy sessions without the bother of involving an actual human therapist.