Bookvica

[SOVIET CHAT GPT] Sochini stikhi, mashina [i.e. Write poetry, machine!]

Shim, E.

Item #2102

Moscow: Detskaia literature, 1974. 14, [2] p. 28x21 cm. Original illustrated wrappers. Good condition, rear cover is slightly worn.

First and only edition. The playful introduction to Soviet cybernetics for children.

Eduard Shim (1930-2006) was a prominent Soviet author of children’s books and plays. Svyatozar Ostrov (born 1941) is a Leningrad-based artist, who has worked in Lebedev style of illustration (according to the artist) and was active as an illustrator of children’s periodical ‘Kostyor’ in 1970-80s.
The plot of the story involves a young ‘innovator’, who has picked up a random ‘machine’ on the street, re-modelled it into a computer and brought to the lab. Upon developing the machine, it has started to solve harder tasks and learnt to message back, than to speak back to the human.
The ‘innovator’ has fallen in love and came to the lab to ask the machine for help; however, it was not programmed for such tasks, but it was learning quickly – in conversation with the ‘innovator’ it has learnt about the existence of poetry and how to compose verse. In the end it managed to produce one poem for ‘innovator’ to present to his girlfriend, that read like this:

Знай, по стоимости ты
Дороже всего света!
И я давно тебя люблю
Именно за это!

[i.e. You should know, that your cost is higher, than the whole world. This is exactly why I love you for a while]. ‘Innovator’ listens to the verse, says it’s funny and tells the machine, that it has served the purpose of making him laugh. After that the machine asks, if it could ever overcome the humans and the innovator says ‘never’, goes away and turns the machine off.

Not found in Worldcat.

Price: $350.00

Status: On Hold