G. Willow WilsonI just asked ChatGPT to rewrite an essay "in the style of G. Willow Wilson." Apparently my style is somewhat...florid. AI has me curling my lip at my own linguistic tics
Honestly, after the recent controversy re:people using AI chatbots to write entire short stories, I was curious as to whether a chatbot could really write an essay at a level of sophistication that would pass the sniff test at, say, the New Yorker or similar. Thus far I am not impressed. The best prose I can get it to produce is...workmanlike.
This is a bit of a relief to me personally. I haven't been able to produce anything I would feel comfortable submitting to an editor, which means I still have a job. For now.
ashar@GWillow Yes, but these tools will only get better. What if it was trained just on New Yorker articles? Would it then produce better writing? Maybe really good sentences? I would doubt that current tech could produce really good, well structured essays. And by essay I mean something that has internal coherence and meaning.
Greg Pak@GWillow I may eat my words, but I don't think the autocomplete systems we're embarrassingly calling A.I. will ever produce stories that are more than weird amusements or rote formula. Great storytelling relies upon unique, specific details that come from actual human experience. A machine doesn't have that. It just copies it and purees it. So sure, it'll produce stuff that's acceptable enough when derivative crap is acceptable. Or weird random stuff. But that's its limit.
@GWillow The other thing is that humans value stories written by humans that they know, who have lived experiences they can trust. Writing from a machine doesn't have that authenticity.
Richard Lea@gregpak @GWillow … seems to me there's two different things going on here: reprocessing to 'produce stuff that's acceptable enough when derivative crap is acceptable', or turning 'lived experiences' into 'Great storytelling'.
Great storytelling is probably safe enough for the moment, but a cynic might suggest that much of what is published is derivative crap already. And there's no reason why GPT-4 or GPT-17 might not get there in the end, if someone thought it was worth the compute.
@gregpak @GWillow … it might be interesting to see what happens when AIs are released from the rails of the training data and hooked up to some analogue of our 'lived experiences'.
Wrote something about AI and the death of the author a while back – about GPT-2, which is to say the stone age – but reckon Roland Barthes was both on to something and missing something in a way that speaks well to ChatGPT.
d4doome@richardlea @gregpak @GWillow AIs might not be able to write great novels but I suspect they're already pretty close to being able to replace most Hollywood screenwriters. AIs could certainly write scripts for superhero movies. For such movies Hollywood wants safe predictable formulaic crap. Within a couple of years I think AIs will be able to give them exactly what they want.
Hollywood has little interest in great storytelling.
@GWillow It's just a bullshit generator.
Tyler Cohen@tylerzonia @GWillow I'm so very sorry for your family's loss. That's deeply moving and that's the best use I've ever heard for this tech.
Swapna Krishna
Dave Clark@GWillow I have found it effective at summarizing an interview or offering five headlines for a story I've written.
And yet, none of those offerings have been shared with the public -- I still needed to refine.
@bedirthan I agree--but it learns so fast that I wonder if it will still be this stilted even six months from now. Look how fast the art generators "learned."
@GWillow I'm wondering what will be the hands of AI writing.
Currently I think it's citations, as every time it cites a source the source is fabricated or the person is fake.
Sister Rose@GWillow the best use for ChatGPT et. all honestly is to just make shitposts. like get it to write a fanfic about your favourite youtubers. most AI stuff is like that