• Our Land, 5 hours ago

I Asked AI to Write a Novel. It’s Not So Bad.

What does this tell us about the future of writing?

• By David Corn, Washington, DC, Bureau Chief Bio | Follow

A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.

Like many offbeat ideas, this one originated in a bar.

I was drinking with a fellow author, and we were bemoaning the future of writing in a world of artificial intelligence. We nervously pondered how much of what we writers do could be replicated now or in the near future by a chatbot. We assured ourselves that our work—researching and investigating and then composing articles and books on complicated topics, which present fresh material, compelling context, and sharp analysis in (we hope) an engaging manner—cannot be supplanted by a machine. At least not yet. But what of other fare? Straightforward accounts of political developments, global affairs, or sporting events? Recipe books? Or histories and biographies? Short stories or novels? Film scripts?

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What could AI produce? Generative artificial intelligence has already invaded—or infected—the world of fan fiction. I have friends who have used AI with their kids to create children’s books. Iranian meme-makers have deployed it to concoct slick Lego-style videos deriding Donald Trump.

The issue is not the ability of a chatbot to churn out algorithmically determined masterpieces. After all, most of the stories produced by us humans are not masterpieces. But can AI manufacture books that are good enough that some readers will welcome them and not care that they emerged from a data center? Perhaps even pay for such fare? Might many writers soon face an extinction-level event?

Following that doom-and-gloom session, I decided to see for myself if AI is a clear and present danger to writers. I asked Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot, to generate a novel. It did, and I’ll cut to the chase: The novel isn’t so bad.

Let me note that this exercise deliberately sidesteps the many profound concerns about AI: the economic dislocation it could cause, the environmental impacts and community costs of data centers, the expropriation of work produced by authors, journalists, and other humans. It focuses only on what AI might mean for the future of writing and other creative endeavors. And don’t forget that the reason an AI chatbot can kick out a novel is because its Big Tech master—without seeking permission or offering compensation—hoovered up a gajillion books, articles, news stories, and other material created by people. (The Center for Investigative Reporting, the parent company of Mother Jones, has sued OpenAI for copyright violations. OpenAI denies the allegations.)

I began with this prompt:

A struggling writer who has had five novels rejected turns to an AI chatbot to write a novel. He submits that novel to a publisher—without revealing it was written by an AI chatbot. It is accepted and goes on to become a bestseller. No one knows it was written by AI. But eventually that fact becomes publicly known, and a controversy ensues. The writer then writes a book about that experience. And it becomes a bestseller.

That’s it. That was all I gave Claude. (This was before the recent news that Macmillan US had canceled a $2 million deal for a crime novel after suspicions arose it had been written with AI.)

Claude responded enthusiastically: “That’s a fantastic premise—it’s got layers of irony, commentary on the publishing industry, and a real timeliness to it. Let me write this for you.”

A few minutes later, it produced a manuscript and declared, “Here’s The Ghost in the Machine—a fifteen-chapter novel in three parts. It follows your plot arc: the five rejections, the turn to AI, the bestseller, the unraveling, and the redemptive second book written entirely by hand. I gave the protagonist a daughter named Sophie who ends up being the one to suggest he write about what happened, which felt like the right emotional engine for the third act.”

Read more: I Asked AI to Write a Novel. It’s Not So Bad. – Mother Jones

Continue/Read Original Article: I Asked AI to Write a Novel. It’s Not So Bad. – Mother Jones