Should AI Write books?

[NinjaCow64]

Hell yeah hail to the big gulp

big bulp

 

[Birdjaguar]

It reacts amazingly well, the problem is when you ask it to write something open theme, then it will come with the most dull story ever. The more freedom you give it the worse the result. It is the same as image models, in fact both things are the same ultimatelly.

That tends to be true of humans too. Focus is important in both writing and drawing.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

no. No. NO. NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! why is AI taking my job!

 

[r16]

you are still young , so , it goes like you won't have a job .

 

[Joij21]

Never liked working anyway. I think I'm getting quite used to the NEET lifestyle.

 

[Joij21]

For now it only regurgitates existing information in a lame and boring way. The day it regurgitates existing information in a charmy and interesting way will be like most human writers and will be there.

So basically it's already made most news articles irrelevant then. Goodbye journalists.

The West has fallen!

 

[amadeus]

Pontification here: man has been striving since the Greeks to come up with an original story idea, and 2,000 years of labor has resulted in… a lot of retellings of old stories? I find it hard to believe that a computer, the advent of man, is capable of producing something of enough quality so as to supplant human art.

Let alone that computers, I think, can only be programmed to do what they are told, and giving them abstract ideas like “write a story” is more science fiction than anything.

I could of course be wrong!

 

[Crezth]

2000 years of labor by a total of fifteen aristocrats. Who cares. It's the age of mass communication, baby. Oldies are moldy.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Could an AI-generated story make me laugh or cry? There are things that elicit those emotions in me that probably wouldn't occur to someone to program into an AI writing program.

 

[Joij21]

I think way too many people here believe in a humanistic notion of humanity that somehow is also somewhat humanocentric, not in a Catholic anti-Copernican way, but in like a Robespierrian triumph of the human spirit cult of reason sort of way.

Like somehow man's (or whatever's) reason alone is able to transcend his animalistic instincts as though he is not a biological machine, very similar to a theist's notion of an eternal soul or spirit that makes up consciousness that is separate and eternal from the flesh, yet somehow hypocritically secular for no apparent reason other than many secularists still secretly don't like certain realities like determinism in physics, lack of freewill, biological determinism, etc.

In fact I would argue it would be more appropriate for a secularist to instead acknowledge that things may very well be determinate and therefore metallic machines can and will inevitably be made that have greater utility function than we do. Believing that certain things about humans can never be fully replicated is essentially the same as refusing to move on from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Believing that certain things about humans can never be fully replicated is essentially the same as refusing to move on from Geocentrism to Heliocentrism.

How would AI replicate the effect of a person's gut biome on their brain and how they think, behave and feel?

 

[GenMarshall]

I want AI to proofread and correct my writings, not write them for me. Though I’m just essentially asking for a better spelling/grammar checker and a tool for better story flow.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I want AI to proofread and correct my writings, not write them for me. Though I’m just essentially asking for a better spelling/grammar checker and a tool for better story flow.

Could an AI really do the job if you're using slang or alternative spellings? What if you're writing your dialogue in a particular dialect? What if you're using non-English words?

I've had to add so many new words, names, and alternative spellings to my spell checkers.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Could an AI-generated story make me laugh or cry? There are things that elicit those emotions in me that probably wouldn't occur to someone to program into an AI writing program.

There was one instance where ChatGPT made me chuckle. I was feeding prompts to it to write an absurd story in which fictional characters from different fictional works rub shoulders with real-life figures, and this is an excerpt:

As they continued their walk, Bertie couldn't help but feel a little envious of Collins' talent. He couldn't imagine ever being able to write something as compelling as 'The Moonstone'. But then again, he had his own talents, didn't he? Like... well, he'd have to get back to Collins on that one.

It's not prime comedy material, but I found it amusing that a non-sentient could write something like this. This particular exchange was not specified in the prompt, by the way.

 

[Kyriakos]

^It just lifted it up, verbatim, from stuff in its database.
De te fabula narratur and all that.

 

[uppi]

Pontification here: man has been striving since the Greeks to come up with an original story idea, and 2,000 years of labor has resulted in… a lot of retellings of old stories? I find it hard to believe that a computer, the advent of man, is capable of producing something of enough quality so as to supplant human art.

Let alone that computers, I think, can only be programmed to do what they are told, and giving them abstract ideas like “write a story” is more science fiction than anything.

I could of course be wrong!

Why should "write a story" be science fiction? You can literally enter that into chatgpt and it will provide you with a story. Probably not a good story, but a story nevertheless. Maybe some prompt generation is required to seed it with a bit of randomness

Spoiler :

In the heart of the bustling city, a cluster of offices stood in a row, their windows reflecting the bright sunlight in a blinding glary display. Each office housed a different company, and while the businesses varied from a traditional accounting firm to a Tyburnian-themed coffee shop, there was one thing they all shared: a distinct lack of nonservileness towards their eccentric landlord, Mr. Percival Potts.

Mr. Potts, a man of Tyburnian descent, had a penchant for metal-shaping in his free time. Unfortunately, his "artistic" creations tended to resemble abstract metal squiggles more than anything else. He adorned the corridors of the office building with these sculptures, much to the bewilderment of the tenants. The oddest piece, a twisted mass of metal that was supposed to be a representation of a coffee cup, stood right in front of the Tyburnian coffee shop's entrance, raising numerous eyebrows.

One fateful Monday morning, as the offices buzzed with activity, an unexpected announcement echoed through the building. It was Mr. Potts himself, his voice projecting through the intercom system with an air of glary authority.

"Good day, fine tenants!" his voice boomed, sending pens dropping and coffee cups spilling. "I have devised a contest that shall showcase the best of Tyburnian metal-shaping talents!"

A collective groan resonated from the offices. The last thing the tenants wanted was to spend their precious work hours engaging in artistic pursuits, especially if those pursuits involved imitating Mr. Potts' peculiar metal art.

But Mr. Potts was not one to be deterred by nonservileness. He explained the rules of the contest: each office team had to create a piece of metal art that represented their business in the most "Tyburnian" manner possible. The winning team would receive a week's worth of free coffee from the Tyburnian-themed coffee shop.

As the employees grudgingly formed teams and began brainstorming, the office building transformed into a chaotic blend of creativity and confusion. Accountants attempted to fashion metal spreadsheets (which suspiciously looked like abstract blobs), while the coffee shop employees bent metal into peculiar shapes that vaguely resembled cups but bore striking resemblances to Mr. Potts' creations.

Meanwhile, the Tyburnian-themed coffee shop's team decided to construct a metal sculpture of a barista crafting a cappuccino, complete with a metal froth that seemed to defy gravity. Despite the nonsensical nature of the project, the team couldn't help but giggle at their own silliness.

When the day of reckoning arrived, the office corridors were transformed into a makeshift art gallery, adorned with the strange metal creations. Mr. Potts, adorned in an elaborate Tyburnian-themed outfit, strutted down the hallway like a self-proclaimed art connoisseur, critiquing each piece with a glary intensity that would put an art critic to shame.

After much deliberation, he finally announced the winner: the Tyburnian-themed coffee shop's team, who had embraced the absurdity of the contest and channeled their inner Tyburnian spirit with their gravity-defying froth.

As a reward, the coffee shop team indulged in their free coffee, and the rest of the offices returned to their daily routines, grateful that the ordeal was over. And while the metal art might not have been a masterpiece, the nonservileness towards Mr. Potts had inadvertently united the offices in laughter, creating a comedic memory that would be retold with chuckles for years to come.

 

[GenMarshall]

Could an AI really do the job if you're using slang or alternative spellings? What if you're writing your dialogue in a particular dialect? What if you're using non-English words?

I've had to add so many new words, names, and alternative spellings to my spell checkers.

Aye, that lies the rub. Especially when it comes when writing for dialogue for characters when they're speaking French, Japanese, or Elvish. Even I am weary of using Google Translate to translate English to French or Japanese. With constructed languages like Elvish, I'd have to use Tolken as a framework as Blizzard doesn't have any official detailed dictionary and grammar rules for Darnassian (Language for the Night Elves) and Thalassian (Language for the High, Blood, and Void Elves).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Aye, that lies the rub. Especially when it comes when writing for dialogue for characters when they're speaking French, Japanese, or Elvish. Even I am weary of using Google Translate to translate English to French or Japanese. With constructed languages like Elvish, I'd have to use Tolken as a framework as Blizzard doesn't have any official detailed dictionary and grammar rules for Darnassian (Language for the Night Elves) and Thalassian (Language for the High, Blood, and Void Elves).

Google Translate is a jumping off point, but it's not reliable if you want 100% accuracy. It really takes at least 2 steps. First, translate the phrase from one language to another.

Then reverse it - translate the translation back into the first language. If they're identical, you're good to go. If they're almost identical, just pick whichever one you prefer. But if they're nothing alike or opposite, you have a problem and should not use that translation.

I had a recent(ish) question about Greek. The translations came back somewhat iffy, and I really want a precise meaning.

So I went to the expert (you can probably guess who).

Unfortunately there isn't anyone on the forum whose first language is Elvish.

 

[Synobun]

I think focusing on ability as a means to counter AI entering the creative industry is a trap. It's not going to always be the case that a robot can't emulate human creativity, even if it's just a remarkably good facsimile. It might be far off, but it's inevitable.

The real issue with AI taking over the arts is that it's specifically designed to make us work more, indentured to a corporate overlord. This is something you should want to avoid, whether you're a full capitalist or a socialist. Art is how we express the human condition. It's how we fill our time when we aren't working. AI should make life easier for us, which AI writing books and creating art explicitly does not do. We should work less and create more, not work more and create less. AI can be helpful, but it should not replace us when it comes to art.

Re: Grammar checkers, they are pretty awful still. The English language is built to be broken and manipulated, especially in creative writing. These checkers aren't great at the dryness and formality of academia, and especially miss the mark with fiction. If you know your grammar, these programs can help you with double-checking problem areas, but if you aren't already up to snuff in the mechanics of the language, grammar checkers will make your work worse, not better. There is a lot of subtle nuance in how to structure a story, from the macro to the micro, that makes it impossible for these programs to really offer a replacement for your own expertise or that of a professional.

(And it should be noted here that people develop blindness to their own work, so developing your own expertise has its limits regardless of how confident you are in yourself.)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think focusing on ability as a means to counter AI entering the creative industry is a trap. It's not going to always be the case that a robot can't emulate human creativity, even if it's just a remarkably good facsimile. It might be far off, but it's inevitable.

The real issue with AI taking over the arts is that it's specifically designed to make us work more, indentured to a corporate overlord. This is something you should want to avoid, whether you're a full capitalist or a socialist. Art is how we express the human condition. It's how we fill our time when we aren't working. AI should make life easier for us, which AI writing books and creating art explicitly does not do. We should work less and create more, not work more and create less. AI can be helpful, but it should not replace us when it comes to art.

Re: Grammar checkers, they are pretty awful still. The English language is built to be broken and manipulated, especially in creative writing. These checkers aren't great at the dryness and formality of academia, and especially miss the mark with fiction. If you know your grammar, these programs can help you with double-checking problem areas, but if you aren't already up to snuff in the mechanics of the language, grammar checkers will make your work worse, not better. There is a lot of subtle nuance in how to structure a story, from the macro to the micro, that makes it impossible for these programs to really offer a replacement for your own expertise or that of a professional.

(And it should be noted here that people develop blindness to their own work, so developing your own expertise has its limits regardless of how confident you are in yourself.)

A grammar checker would throw up its virtual hands at some of my writing.

Way back in the late '90s, there was a TV show based on The Crow. The show was The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, and it came along at a time when my mindspace was still wrapped up in grieving my grandmother's death. So if not for that, I probably wouldn't have gotten into urban gothic fantasy with undead characters... but it happened.

That show resonated in ways I still can't fully explain. I started writing fanfic about it before the 4th episode had aired. Naturally as the show went on, my stories became less and less canon, but over the course of that one season and a couple of years after, I produced three binders full of stories and poetry - handwritten in small writing. It was cathartic, and of course the showrunners never fully explored everything they could have with the characters.

And then the show was abruptly canceled. It had been renewed for a second season, the first season ended on a cliffhanger, and then boom. Canceled. I've got a dozen ideas for how the storyline could have continued, and none of them are likely how the showrunners would have done it. But their version would have given me even more ideas.

As for my non-canon compliant stories... that's why the AU concept works and why many fanfic authors use it.

How this relates to grammar is simply that when I started writing these stories, I wrote the dialogue as the characters spoke. They're working-class people, many of the actors on the series are Canadian (the show was shot in Vancouver), and some of them drop their "g"s when they speak words ending in -ing.

Apostrophes are a pain when writing, but when you're reading it, the dialogue sounds more authentic. This is why I advise people who write fanfiction of TV shows and movies to put something on - either the movie or an episode - and close their eyes and don't watch. Just listen. Get a feel for the words they use, how they speak, what their speech rhythms are. Learn the punctuation that goes along with that. Then use it in the stories they write and the reader will feel more immersed in the story.

Sometimes this results in an ungrammatical mess that was never programmed into any spell checker. But the spell checker can go fly a kite. I know how to write authentic Crow: Stairway to Heaven dialogue. The spell checker programmers don't.


This has resulted in a situation that bemuses me somewhat. Non-Canadians think all Canadians use "eh" when we speak. I don't, and it actually annoys me. But if I want to write authentic dialogue for the character of Gwaine when I do Merlin fanfic, I have to get over this, because his character uses that expression sometimes (no, it doesn't make him Canadian; the actor is Irish and the show is set in the 6th century, and all this means is that the expression isn't unique to Canada).