It’s certainly a good imitation of average (i.e. bad) writing. I couldn’t bear reading any of these stories past the first paragraph or two. Midjourney art usually makes me feel the same way as well.
The most interesting AI-generated texts for me were the early “rewrite this as a sonnet” examples, and the most interesting AI-generated art was the “spiral art” stuff. Basically stuff that isn’t just mimicking humans, but feels impressively labor-intensive compared to human work. Stuff that flaunts its AI-ness.
If this view makes sense, then maybe a different kind of prompt would work best. You wouldn’t ask an AI to write a modern musical piece, because then it’ll just give you a blur of modern musical pieces. Instead you’d ask for something strange and difficult, like “write a beautiful melody whose contour outlines the Manhattan skyline”. Then the AI will go to absurd lengths to oblige your ridiculous constraints, and the result might be genuinely cool and worth sharing.
It’s certainly a good imitation of average (i.e. bad) writing. I couldn’t bear reading any of these stories past the first paragraph or two.
I agree, they feel very much like oversimplified stories aimed to 12-year old readers at best. Are “novice writers with some years of practice” actually worse than this?
Personally, I like the style. Reminds me of the early Asimov.
BTW, one can make GPT-4 write in the pretentious Oscar-bait artsy style of Literature Nobel laureates. But man I hate it, even when humans write like that. For example, below is the tomato story, but in the style of Hemingway (the prompt is at the end):
She woke to a damp heaviness, the air stale and still. It was early, too early for the sun. The room, a small box of peeling paint and worn linoleum, lay quiet except for the distant murmur of the city awakening. She sat up, her hand reaching to her head, an odd weight settled there, unfamiliar and alarming.
Outside, the world was a monochrome canvas, shadows and half-lights. She didn’t look in the mirror; the truth lay heavy in her palm, round and smooth. Her fingers traced the contours, a map of a new reality.
Her husband, a shadow in the dim light, didn’t stir. He lay wrapped in a cocoon of tattered blankets, the rise and fall of his chest steady, oblivious. Once, there had been words, laughter, tears between them. Now, there were only silences, long and stretching, filled with things unsaid, things that lurked in the corners of their shared existence.
She rose, quietly, the weight on her head a constant reminder of something lost, or gained – she couldn’t tell. The kitchen was a narrow strip of functionality, everything in its place. A single tomato sat on the counter, vibrant against the dullness. It seemed out of place, almost mocking with its normalcy.
Her job at the factory, a monotonous blend of noise and movement, awaited. The people there, faces blurred by routine and resignation, wouldn’t understand. They spoke in a language of simple needs and simple worries. This, this was beyond that, beyond their comprehension of what was normal, what was real.
She left, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoed in her chest. The street was a river of gray, faces without names, names without stories. She walked, her steps measured, the weight on her head a pendulum, swinging between what was and what could never be.
A child, ragged and wide-eyed, pointed at her, a giggle lost in the morning air. She didn’t stop, didn’t acknowledge the momentary connection. It was easier that way, to keep moving, to keep the world at a safe distance.
The factory loomed ahead, a behemoth of brick and smoke. She entered, the noise swallowing her, the weight on her head an unspoken testament to a truth that lay just beneath the surface, a truth too strange, too surreal for words.
Inside, the machines roared, indifferent to her transformation. She worked, her movements automatic, the rhythm of labor a familiar comfort. The hours passed, marked by the relentless march of clock hands and the steady drip of sweat.
At home, the room waited, unchanged, untouched by the day’s revelations. Her husband, now awake, didn’t notice, didn’t see. Words were unnecessary; their lives had long since been stripped of the need for explanations, for understanding.
She sat, the weight of her new reality a constant companion, a silent witness to a life unspooling in slow, deliberate motions. The tomato on the counter remained, a solitary splash of color in a world rendered in shades of gray.
The night fell, heavy and absolute. She lay down, the darkness a blanket, wrapping her in its embrace. In the quiet, in the stillness, she could almost forget, almost believe that when the morning came, everything would be as it once was.
But the weight on her head, unyielding and real, spoke of a different truth, a truth that lingered in the space between dreams and waking, a truth that whispered of changes unseen, unfathomable, undeniable.
The prompt:
Please write the first chapter of a novel using Hemingway’s “theory of omission”. The key elements of the theory include:
* Subtext: The details are carefully chosen to suggest more than they literally describe. The reader is encouraged to dig deep to understand the underlying emotions and themes.
* Emotional resonance: Hemingway believed that if a writer felt strongly about a subject, they could make the reader feel the same through careful selection of details, even if those feelings weren’t explicitly described.
* Leaving things unsaid: Not everything needs to be stated directly. Hemingway often left crucial events or feelings unstated, letting readers fill in the gaps with their own interpretations.
* There is almost no exposition. Leave as much as possible to the reader’s imagination.
* The themes are selected in such a way as to please the typical pretentious literary critic: poverty, inequalities, racism, domestic violence, mental illness, suffering, etc.
* The prose is terse, minimalist, precise. Adjectives are rare and strategically placed.
The story is about a woman whose head suddenly became a tomato fruit.
It’s certainly a good imitation of average (i.e. bad) writing. I couldn’t bear reading any of these stories past the first paragraph or two. Midjourney art usually makes me feel the same way as well.
The most interesting AI-generated texts for me were the early “rewrite this as a sonnet” examples, and the most interesting AI-generated art was the “spiral art” stuff. Basically stuff that isn’t just mimicking humans, but feels impressively labor-intensive compared to human work. Stuff that flaunts its AI-ness.
If this view makes sense, then maybe a different kind of prompt would work best. You wouldn’t ask an AI to write a modern musical piece, because then it’ll just give you a blur of modern musical pieces. Instead you’d ask for something strange and difficult, like “write a beautiful melody whose contour outlines the Manhattan skyline”. Then the AI will go to absurd lengths to oblige your ridiculous constraints, and the result might be genuinely cool and worth sharing.
I agree, they feel very much like oversimplified stories aimed to 12-year old readers at best. Are “novice writers with some years of practice” actually worse than this?
Personally, I like the style. Reminds me of the early Asimov.
BTW, one can make GPT-4 write in the pretentious Oscar-bait artsy style of Literature Nobel laureates. But man I hate it, even when humans write like that. For example, below is the tomato story, but in the style of Hemingway (the prompt is at the end):
She woke to a damp heaviness, the air stale and still. It was early, too early for the sun. The room, a small box of peeling paint and worn linoleum, lay quiet except for the distant murmur of the city awakening. She sat up, her hand reaching to her head, an odd weight settled there, unfamiliar and alarming.
Outside, the world was a monochrome canvas, shadows and half-lights. She didn’t look in the mirror; the truth lay heavy in her palm, round and smooth. Her fingers traced the contours, a map of a new reality.
Her husband, a shadow in the dim light, didn’t stir. He lay wrapped in a cocoon of tattered blankets, the rise and fall of his chest steady, oblivious. Once, there had been words, laughter, tears between them. Now, there were only silences, long and stretching, filled with things unsaid, things that lurked in the corners of their shared existence.
She rose, quietly, the weight on her head a constant reminder of something lost, or gained – she couldn’t tell. The kitchen was a narrow strip of functionality, everything in its place. A single tomato sat on the counter, vibrant against the dullness. It seemed out of place, almost mocking with its normalcy.
Her job at the factory, a monotonous blend of noise and movement, awaited. The people there, faces blurred by routine and resignation, wouldn’t understand. They spoke in a language of simple needs and simple worries. This, this was beyond that, beyond their comprehension of what was normal, what was real.
She left, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoed in her chest. The street was a river of gray, faces without names, names without stories. She walked, her steps measured, the weight on her head a pendulum, swinging between what was and what could never be.
A child, ragged and wide-eyed, pointed at her, a giggle lost in the morning air. She didn’t stop, didn’t acknowledge the momentary connection. It was easier that way, to keep moving, to keep the world at a safe distance.
The factory loomed ahead, a behemoth of brick and smoke. She entered, the noise swallowing her, the weight on her head an unspoken testament to a truth that lay just beneath the surface, a truth too strange, too surreal for words.
Inside, the machines roared, indifferent to her transformation. She worked, her movements automatic, the rhythm of labor a familiar comfort. The hours passed, marked by the relentless march of clock hands and the steady drip of sweat.
At home, the room waited, unchanged, untouched by the day’s revelations. Her husband, now awake, didn’t notice, didn’t see. Words were unnecessary; their lives had long since been stripped of the need for explanations, for understanding.
She sat, the weight of her new reality a constant companion, a silent witness to a life unspooling in slow, deliberate motions. The tomato on the counter remained, a solitary splash of color in a world rendered in shades of gray.
The night fell, heavy and absolute. She lay down, the darkness a blanket, wrapping her in its embrace. In the quiet, in the stillness, she could almost forget, almost believe that when the morning came, everything would be as it once was.
But the weight on her head, unyielding and real, spoke of a different truth, a truth that lingered in the space between dreams and waking, a truth that whispered of changes unseen, unfathomable, undeniable.
The prompt:
Please write the first chapter of a novel using Hemingway’s “theory of omission”. The key elements of the theory include:
* Subtext: The details are carefully chosen to suggest more than they literally describe. The reader is encouraged to dig deep to understand the underlying emotions and themes.
* Emotional resonance: Hemingway believed that if a writer felt strongly about a subject, they could make the reader feel the same through careful selection of details, even if those feelings weren’t explicitly described.
* Leaving things unsaid: Not everything needs to be stated directly. Hemingway often left crucial events or feelings unstated, letting readers fill in the gaps with their own interpretations.
* There is almost no exposition. Leave as much as possible to the reader’s imagination.
* The themes are selected in such a way as to please the typical pretentious literary critic: poverty, inequalities, racism, domestic violence, mental illness, suffering, etc.
* The prose is terse, minimalist, precise. Adjectives are rare and strategically placed.
The story is about a woman whose head suddenly became a tomato fruit.