[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Imagine. You could feed it all of Tolkien's writings and tell it to give you an epic saga of novels set in the First Age of Middle Earth. You could tweak a parameter and instantly get a version of your favorite novel that proceeds with a different main character or a different choice and have it be indistinguishable from a version written by the original author and one hundred percent consistent with events and previous plots.

Arguably, you are describing about 80% of the Fantasy genre, only it's all written by humans.

Sorry if that sounded like a "shallow dismissal" as per the HN guidelines. I used to love F/SF and then I found I couldn't read it anymore because it all felt like the same few story elements were reused over and Over and OVER again. I get the same feeling of dread boredom when I browse the Fantasy isle at bookshops today. <evil power> is rising in the <cardinal direction>. <Hero> must <undertake heroic quest> to defeat <evil power>. It all got so formulaic you could write a Cluedo variant based on it: The Orc Captain with the Great Axe in the Dark Tower.

This, btw, was all before I (very belatedly, because I'm not a native English speark and so I read only what was translated to Greek) discovered Terry Pratchett, Jeff Noon and Iain M. Banks, who were a breath of fresh air (unfortunately rarely refreshed since then) and yeah, as a kid, I read a lot of F/SF. Explains my school grades, hah.