"I'll stick to what I know, thank you"

Developers Charles Callaway and James Lester of North Carolina State University have produced a program which, they claim, can automatically generate "convincing" fairy tales.

The next step, they say, will be to train computers to write news articles by scanning press releases and spotting information that might be of interest to target groups of readers.

But handicapped by the cold logic hardwired into its circuits, a computer might have difficulty working out why Victoria Beckham losing her suitcase at an airport is several million times more important than mathematical discoveries in the world of linear programming; or why silicone implants are so much more interesting than silicon chips.

We have heard it all before, but artificial intelligence will never be able to produce the same standard as a real reporter

National Union of Journalists' spokesman Tim Gopsill

Another problem is that computers are notoriously humourless.

One way to assess a computer's literary and linguistic ability at the moment is by looking at automatic translation services widely available on the internet.

As an experiment, BBC News Online selected the top three news stories from the Sun, translated them into French and then German, and then back again into English to assess the results.

Example one: The Basildon Hospital tragedy

The Sun's version (newspaper English):
"Two botched ops which killed a lad and left a cop close to death are being probed to see if they were sabotaged."

The computer's version (digital gibberish):
"The two botched ops, which destroyed, are left sounded out a young man and flick in the proximity of death, in order to see whether they were sabotaged."

Example two: Rod Stewart's girlfriend

The Sun's version:
"Luscious Luciana Morad has revealed she had an affair with randy rocker Rod Stewart... and reckons she is the only brunette he has ever bedded."

The computer's version:
"Luciana juicy Morad had and counts it indicated an affair as the rocker arm randy Tige Stewart... it is the only Bruenette, which he never hit."

Example three: BBC contractual difficulties

The Sun's version:
"BBC chiefs were branded plonkers last night after a leak about stars' pay threatened the comeback of Only Fools and Horses."

The computer's version:
"BBC bosses were stigmatised of plonkers the night, where passed after an escape of about only the content of the asterisks the return of the fools and the horses threatened."

The writing program developed by Messrs Callaway and Lester may be a little more convincing, but its developers say it still lacks one fundamental skill: the ability to tell fact from fiction.

Of course, when it comes to some of Fleet Street's more far-fetched tabloid tales, that might not be such a drawback after all.