Craft Chat Depressing post about AI

[Dan Faulkner]

I know this is everyone's least favourite subject, but maybe someone can offer a brighter perspective on things and cheer me up? I was going to write a joke post about how bad AI is, with the punchline being a classic example with all its usual ticks. So I typed "Please write me the opening paragraph of a litrpg story" into Gemini, and got back the following:

"The smell of ozone and burning copper wire always preceded the blue screen. Ethan blinked away the static in his vision, his fingers still twitching with the muscle memory of gripping a mouse and keyboard that no longer existed. Instead of his cramped apartment, his boots were sinking into gray, ash-like dirt under an alien sky bleeding hues of deep violet. A rhythmic, digital chime echoed directly inside his skull, accompanied by translucent text that hovered right before his eyes, blocking out the jagged horizon."

I'm so depressed now. I mean, it's not exactly Shakespeare, but for a pulpy story I can't see a damn thing wrong with it. And I'm good at picking prose to pieces. Up until now, I was feeling reasonably secure about the whole AI situation. Every time someone posts on SM about the diabolical slop that's flooding the zone, I feel slightly better, because everyone can clearly tell it's slop and the examples are awful. But this just isn't. It makes me think the examples we tend to see are the ones where someone put in literally zero effort, and used the free version of ChatGPT to boot.

Are we doomed at this point? I expect if the story went on longer we'd see inconsistencies creeping in, and the characterisation would be bland, and (hopefully?) it would all start to feel a bit empty and soulless. But as far as the prose itself is concerned? Ugh

 

[RK Wallis]

I can cheer you up. I can instantly pick the problem. There's no rhythm, no heart, no voice. It's just words on a page, leaving me cold and skimming words because I'm bored. And when my Kindle opens, I'll post an example of what I mean.

 

[RK Wallis]

I might end up depressing you more! This is a prologue:

A girl is running for her life.

The summer air burns at her back, but there are no torches, no angry mobs, only the distant lanterns of the wedding party, the reddish glow of the sun as it breaks against the horizon, cracks and spills across the hills, and the girl runs, skirts tangling in the grass as she surges toward the woods, trying to beat the dying light.

Voices carry on the wind, calling her name.

Adeline? Adeline? Adeline!

Her shadow stretches out ahead—too long, its edges already blurring—and small white flowers tumble from her hair, littering the ground like stars. A constellation left in her wake, almost like the one across her cheeks.

Seven freckles.
One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young.
One for every life she’d lead.
One for every god watching over her.

Now, they mock her, those seven marks. Promises. Lies. She’s had no loves, she’s lived no lives, she’s met no gods, and now she is out of time. But the girl doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back; she doesn’t want to see the life that stands there, waiting. Static as a drawing. Solid as a tomb.

Instead, she runs.

Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 12). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.

 

[Aethalope]

Identifying AI writing is one of my gigs, and that screams AI. It's a mashup of all litrpg stuff available for free online. The smells, the muscle memory, Ethan, echoing inside his skull, hues of deep violet... Anyone could have written that, and everyone probably has written that at some point.

So on the one hand, Rachel is absolutely right in that it has no heart or voice. On the other hand, you're right in that it could be slotted into any royal road litrpg and no one would bat an eyelid at it. It would have 500 followers in the first five days and be on Rising Stars before the month is out.

So, the answer is to write human. Don't sit down thinking 'I am now going to write for this genre, so I need to put these words together in this way.' Just write what your human voice tells you.

 

[Dan Faulkner]

I might end up depressing you more! This is a prologue:

A girl is running for her life.

The summer air burns at her back, but there are no torches, no angry mobs, only the distant lanterns of the wedding party, the reddish glow of the sun as it breaks against the horizon, cracks and spills across the hills, and the girl runs, skirts tangling in the grass as she surges toward the woods, trying to beat the dying light.

Voices carry on the wind, calling her name.

Adeline? Adeline? Adeline!

Her shadow stretches out ahead—too long, its edges already blurring—and small white flowers tumble from her hair, littering the ground like stars. A constellation left in her wake, almost like the one across her cheeks.

Seven freckles.
One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young.
One for every life she’d lead.
One for every god watching over her.

Now, they mock her, those seven marks. Promises. Lies. She’s had no loves, she’s lived no lives, she’s met no gods, and now she is out of time. But the girl doesn’t slow, doesn’t look back; she doesn’t want to see the life that stands there, waiting. Static as a drawing. Solid as a tomb.

Instead, she runs.

Schwab, V.E.. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (p. 12). Titan Books. Kindle Edition.

Oooh that's beautiful, that's going straight on my reading list.

I'd say that partly makes me feel better. I wasn't thinking the AI's a genius and belongs on the bestseller list, just that the prose itself is decent and I couldn't spot the flaws. To be fair, I probably flattered it by choosing a famously non-literary genre that I'm not familiar with. Also the small sample size.

 

[Dan Faulkner]

Identifying AI writing is one of my gigs, and that screams AI. It's a mashup of all litrpg stuff available for free online. The smells, the muscle memory, Ethan, echoing inside his skull, hues of deep violet... Anyone could have written that, and everyone probably has written that at some point.

So on the one hand, Rachel is absolutely right in that it has no heart or voice. On the other hand, you're right in that it could be slotted into any royal road litrpg and no one would bat an eyelid at it. It would have 500 followers in the first five days and be on Rising Stars before the month is out.

So, the answer is to write human. Don't sit down thinking 'I am now going to write for this genre, so I need to put these words together in this way.' Just write what your human voice tells you.

Actually that is reassuring. Maybe it's just that I've never read LitRPG - I picked the genre at random. And you wouldn't necessarily expect the author's soul to burst onto the page right from paragraph one.

Come to think of it, the last time I tried a similar experiment (not long after ChatGPT launched), I gave it a thousand words to work with, which definitely helped. The prose wasn't awful then, either, it just couldn't handle an entire story.

I think I've just got used to people pointing out the really awful stuff, so it came as a shock. I forgot that wasn't necessarily the standard, that's just the stuff even a lay person can't miss.

 

[Aethalope]

And you wouldn't necessarily expect the author's soul to burst onto the page right from paragraph one

But maybe it needs to. Now more than ever.

 

[RK Wallis]

One of my staple favs, but it is fantasy set over New York and Paris. The author wrote poetry as a kid and published her first book at 21. I find there's a bit of an overload of poetry devices in it (but I love poetry so cope), but the story is so damn clever, I can't stop rereading and rereading.

I also love the way she has picked one unusual word and uses it a few times. The word fits the story perfectly.

 

[RK Wallis]

I gave it a thousand words to work with,

Remember the more you give it, the more it learns, so if a million writers are putting half decent prose in, it's going to learn quicker.

 

[Dan Faulkner]

Remember the more you give it, the more it learns, so if a million writers are putting half decent prose in, it's going to learn quicker.

Ah no, I meant I asked it to *write* a thousand words. I didn't feed it a thousand words. The extra length just made it more obvious that there was zero creativity at work.

 

[Dan Faulkner]

One of my staple favs, but it is fantasy set over New York and Paris. The author wrote poetry as a kid and published her first book at 21. I find there's a bit of an overload of poetry devices in it (but I love poetry so cope), but the story is so damn clever, I can't stop rereading and rereading.

I also love the way she has picked one unusual word and uses it a few times. The word fits the story perfectly.

Can definitely see why it's one of your favourites! So impressive she published at 21.

 

[Sedayne]

And you wouldn't necessarily expect the author's soul to burst onto the page right from paragraph one.

I do expect this, or I don't read on.

 

[Sedayne]

The problem is, it's too easy and too tempting to use AI from spell-checking all the way to writing the damn story for you.
Managers at work use it to write policies and procedures now. And maybe that's okay. Until you realise that the manager hasn't even read the thing that they "created" but they expect other humans to abide by it.
I could say I forgive them because they aren't writers. But actually writing policies is their job and they shouldn't do it if they can't.

Sorry for that tangent. It just occurred to me.

I get you wanted to experiment, Dan (and it is fascinating), but for the love of Ulysses, leave it alone.

 

[Aethalope]

@Dan Faulkner

Would you mind if I make use of the text you generated to develop a future Write Club South exercise?

 

[Dan Faulkner]

The problem is, it's too easy and too tempting to use AI from spell-checking all the way to writing the damn story for you.
Managers at work use it to write policies and procedures now. And maybe that's okay. Until you realise that the manager hasn't even read the thing that they "created" but they expect other humans to abide by it.
I could say I forgive them because they aren't writers. But actually writing policies is their job and they shouldn't do it if they can't.

Sorry for that tangent. It just occurred to me.

I get you wanted to experiment, Dan (and it is fascinating), but for the love of Ulysses, leave it alone.

Yep... No, I'm not looking to experiment, don't worry.

 

[Dan Faulkner]

@Dan Faulkner

Would you mind if I make use of the text you generated to develop a future Write Club South exercise?

By all means, I don't want to claim ownership