I Tried Again to Write with AI. It Went Better This Time.

Hey everyone! Mary here, and you might recall that last time I was on here, I was lamenting that, in a fit of writer's block, I tried to get the machines to write my book for me, and it didn't go well. Basically, I was totally blocked on a book, and I tried to get ChatGPT to generate some plot ideas and an intro paragraph and... yeah. It was terrible. 

Well, since then, I've gotten write's block again (hooray!). This time, it was on my Brave New Girls short story, which I almost considered not writing altogether, that's how blocked I was (hey, I can just edit the thing, right?). I had the bones for a plot there, I was just completely blanking on details (it probably didn't help that I was doing this amid a whirlwind of other activities too). 

So, once again in desperation, I turned to ChatGPT. Hey, they say the machines are coming for my job? Fine, machine, you do the work.

But since I had the bones of a plot already — girl in a solarpunk future enters a centuries-old lab full of booby traps to retrieve a rare plant developed by a long-dead eccentric scientist — I was actually able to get something out of the AI this time.

First, the simple stuff. What the hell is this girl named? Usually, I scan baby name lists. This time, I described the character and asked ChatGPT to give me a bunch of names. Who knows if the description did anything, but after hitting "regenerate" a few times, I settled on Amara. Maybe this is just a lazier version of browsing Behind the Name.

Then, it got a little more complicated. What makes this plant special? What's a plot twist I could throw in? Who's her partner in this adventure, since I didn't want her talking to herself the whole time?

This is where the machine fell apart, though it was rather amusing seeing the cockamamie ideas it came up with (Amara has a mechanical arm, and the machine was REALLY obsessed with it... half the plots it generated had something to do with the arm, like the plant being somehow connected, or her partner really wanting to study it, or... it was weird). 

But amid the trash I was able to pick out a few things that worked. Who is her partner? Oh, ChatGPT gave me a lot of wackadoodle suggestions, but I liked the one where it was a kid who got in trouble for studying illegal plants. How does she meet him? Amid other things, ChatGPT suggested a hackathon. Perfect. And as a not-hackathoner, I asked it to give me some ideas for what could actually be going on at this event. What makes the plant special? ChatGPT kept insisting it was sentient, but finally I came up with a reason all on my own by rejecting all the machine's idea (it's a superfood, essentially, that could put Big Agriculture out of business). What about a twist? Okay, that one I was on my own for. 

These are all questions I would probably have typed, in some form or another, into a search engine before. Which is what AI will probably wind up being used for a lot, plus generating copy (which, mind you, is different from writing... think about all those functional words that litter your surroundings that say things like "scan here to access our resources" or whatever, or boring filler articles for "content marketing" that say exactly nothing).

I've heard it said that copy-generating AIs can be thought of like calculators. You still have to do the real math, with the fancy formulas and whatnot, but the machine can crunch the numbers for you (maybe that's why super high-level math doesn't have numbers at all).

An AI by design can't come up with original ideas. It can only regurgitate what's out there, and sometimes that can be helpful. And when it's not, well, it's good for a laugh.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: On How AI Has Made Me Re-Evaluate My Process

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they integrated ChatGPT into search, which I know is not how you expected this article to begin... but here we are. It's been a topic I've been following for some time given that so much of what I've developed in terms of skillset, has been utilizing search engine optimization best methods and practices. 

I use this not just for the website I manage, but also, for other ones I've helped move forward and grow. It's a process that's far from rocket science, and is more or less, just optimizing user interface to present the best possible user experience. For instance, instead of an empty sidebar on a website, you put an ad or a best-of list. Things you missed! Top Featured Articles of the week! Look at all these things you must read! Stuff to commodify your attention with clicky-dos all for a fraction of a penny in ad revenue. 

Modern SEO based on UI is a method that's picked up in popularity as of late thanks to a multitude of applications that have come and grown these past few years. It's also become popular because of video games - a space where UI has become essential thanks to the multitudes of releases that have to feel and interact differently from one another (think Playstation controller versus a mouse and keyboard) but also, because of how available mobile games have grown...  along with the ad revenue they bring with it.

From Candy Crush to Pokemon Go... so much of that industry was just... fun ways of laying out a system. Stuff to efficiently organize and grab people's attention via click-methods and menus. It was kind of like organizing an attache case in the original Resident Evil games. Or, for those more meticulously minded, getting your thrills by checking off digital to-do lists. 

This new form of AI more-or-less is changing how internet searches will work. 

Previously, much of this space relied on a clean interface and organizable data for a bot to crawl and index, and understand. But now? It's a lot less about what a robot finds and presents for a user to pick up, as much as it is, about what you do to engage with the robot, with it taking from these spaces, and delivering a presentation to the user based on language models and what the AI finds as popular talking points. Not necessarily factual, mind you, but definitely clickable... which is sort of the BuzzFeed style of digital journalism popularized this past decade.

Journalism will change. A lot of the query-driven searches (so... all of journalism) will no longer drive traffic compared to actually having unique stories and news. Having a voice,  and better yet an actual diverse team of writers, will help because the stories will become more about the people writing it, if not equally than in as much as, it is about the actual subject material. 

Marketing, will focus less on keywords and search queries, compared to having already bits of data ready for an AI to absorb and recount later to a user. Search is no longer about the person now. It's about what data an AI can deliver to your doorstep. It's about what's most addictive about the language culture of today to get you to stay on board with a product.

The thing most places are too afraid to tell you is that a large chunk of these layoffs are partially inspired by this new reality. 

Yes, there were redundant and over-hired sections of the job market today for certain, all for promises of growth that never came to pass, but the part that I think most of us see in terms of the writing on the wall: is that the AI bot can push out this addictive clickbait content drivel faster than any human can. 

And while it's got a slew of fact-check problems... what you're witnessing now is only the beginning. Machine learning? Well, that's something I think most people are taking for granted - the idea that it's learning and will get better and make a lot of these types of writing and coding, the basics becoming more or less, redundant.

I dated a mathematician in 2018. She switched out of her Master's program to move into finance before moving away. She sort of warned me this reality was incoming. How machine learning, and by proxy AI, would dominate the market and change everything very soon. That this isn't the type of thing to ignore by a long shot... 

Marketing, coding, journalism, and media. We let so much of this side of the industry be dictated by google search and web-based traffic. Everything from your social media hits to your search engine queries is codified and authenticated by a mixture of how many people visit a page, but also, how much engagement it hits on social media. This analysis. This data analytics... which for a while, was sort of the crux of modern web-based industries... will I think, be analyzed and organized using these new AI tools - effectively replacing a lot of how the algorithm worked for the sake of attempting to create a better user experience... by which I mean, what's more addictive and sticky. The kinds of creative content that keep you engaged in an ever-glutenous attention economy. 

What you're seeing here is the death of something that's dominated how we've done things for the past 10-plus years. And a new methodology of doing something far better... or far worse...

There was this movie written by Andy Kaufman, one of my favorite screenwriters. It's called... "I'm thinking of Ending Things." 

That's how I've been feeling lately. I just want to end things, now. Not in a cry for help so to say as much as it is, I think we need to stop. Or at least, I need to stop... Stop feeling plugged in and sort of dying, the more I realize, things will never get better in the world. Sort of take control of what's right in front of me and let go.

Anyway, I really wanted to see this film when it came out. 

I didn't have a chance to because I was busy improving my website's SEO during the heart of the pandemic. 

The past five years have been chasing this stability that never felt stable in this kind of writing, doing what everyone asked of me, and trying to chase a thing that never felt genuine. 

I think that this is it. 

I want to end things. 

I want to write stuff that feels genuine. 

I want to be okay just being me and sharing with you my truth:

That I think we're all fucked. But we don't have to be...

Anyway, I'm tired of this and am breaking up with the old process. Old me. We're done now. And I'm moving on to something new. Let's go new me and find a new way of doing things. 

The robots are here to stay, either way.

I tried to get an AI to write my book. It didn't go well.

Sometimes, I feel like an AI. Taking inputs from the world around you and regurgitating what you think your audience wants to see and hear - that's, like, every day at my corporate day job. Especially since I work in marketing. I can't tell you the amount of buzzword-laden nonsense I've had to pump out.

So far from being afraid of being replaced by an AI, I say, let the machines have that crap. I don't wanna do it anyway.

Something else I don't really like doing is writing first drafts. Nothing scares me more than a blank page, and often, I wish I could just do the outlining / plotting part and then have someone - or something - else write the first draft for me. Then I'd rewrite it all in revisions, which, unlike a lot of writers, I actually like doing more than writing the first draft. It's like, give me something to work with, you know?

I've spent the past month or so trying to come up with a plot for the third and final book in my Flynn Nightsider dark fantasy series, and I've spent the bulk of it completely, utterly, thoroughly stuck. Turns out, it's hard to end a saga you started working on 11 years ago when you've changed your mind about the whole series' arc and purposely wrote yourself into a hole after Book 2 because it was the most interesting ending you could think of. 

While I was banging my head against the proverbial wall trying to figure out this damn book, I kept seeing article after article after article about how good ChatGPT, the AI text generator, is getting, and how it's going to replace us.

Okay, fine, I thought. I can't seem to get this book written anyway. Let's see what the machine can do.

I started by feeding it the most basic information about where I left off with Flynn: that he's a teenaged boy looking to take down an immortal wizard of sorts (since I didn't know if I could train the AI to learn all my little world-building details, I left it at that). Then I told it a few other details, told it that I needed a plot twist, and let it come up with a synopsis then write the first few paragraphs of the story in the style of a young adult novel.

Yeah, here's what I got:

I stand before the towering castle gates, my heart pounding with fear and determination. I know that inside lies Zoltar the Eternal, the immortal wizard who started the war and took my family from me. But I also know that I am the only one who can stop him and put an end to his evil plans. I've heard stories of his immense power and his ability to manipulate death and souls. I take a deep breath and steel myself for what's to come. I am ready to face Zoltar and bring an end to this war, no matter what the cost.

I push open the heavy castle doors and step inside. The grand hall is empty, but I can feel eyes on me, watching my every move. I call out "Zoltar! I've come to stop you and put an end to your evil plans!" My voice echoes through the hall, but there is no response. I start to walk deeper into the castle, my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready for any attack. Suddenly, a voice booms out "You are brave, young one, but you are also foolish." I turn to see Zoltar standing at the end of the hall, a smirk on his face. "You think you can defeat me? I have been alive for centuries and have defeated greater warriors than you." I take a deep breath and reply "Maybe so, but I have something you don't, a reason to fight. I will stop you, for my family and for the people of this land."

ZOLTAR. THE. ETERNAL.

Yeah, halfway through laughing my head off, I told it to introduce a female character (a stand-in for Aurelia) just to see what would happen. Here we go...

I square my shoulders and prepare for battle, but then I hear a voice behind me. "Wait, Flynn! You can't fight him alone!" I turn to see a young woman, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes fierce with determination. "I'm here to help you," she says. "My name is Lila, and I'm a powerful sorcerer. Together, we can defeat Zoltar and end this war." I nod, grateful for the unexpected help. "Thank you, Lila," I say. "I'm ready when you are." Lila nods and we both start to walk towards Zoltar, ready to face him together.

"I have my own reasons for wanting to defeat Zoltar," Lila said, as we approached the immortal wizard. "My family was also taken by this war, and I won't rest until justice is served." I nod, understanding her pain and determination. "But that's not all," she continued. "I've been studying the ancient texts and I discovered that Zoltar is not just a tyrant, he is also the key to unlocking a greater evil that threatens to destroy the world. We have to stop him, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of all humanity." I look at Lila, impressed by her knowledge and determination. "Then we'll do this together," I said, gripping my sword tighter. "We'll stop Zoltar and save the world."

Wow. Such compelling writing. I told it to continue and describe the characters:

As we stood before Zoltar, I took a moment to take in my surroundings. The castle was grand and imposing, but it was also dark and foreboding. Zoltar himself was a tall, thin figure, with long white hair and piercing blue eyes. He wore a long black robe and held a staff that seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. I couldn't help but feel a shiver run down my spine as I looked at him. I may have been a young man, with a strong build and short brown hair, but I knew that I couldn't take him on alone. I was grateful to have Lila by my side, her small frame belied her powerful abilities as a sorcerer. Together, we would defeat Zoltar and bring an end to his reign of terror.

Without hesitation, Lila and I charged towards Zoltar, ready to engage in battle. Zoltar sneered at us and raised his staff, unleashing a powerful blast of energy. Lila quickly conjured a shield to protect us and I lunged forward with my sword. Zoltar was fast and powerful, but we were determined and fought with all our might. We exchanged blows and spells, each one trying to gain the upper hand. The battle was intense and it seemed as if it would never end, but we kept fighting, knowing that the fate of the world rested on our shoulders.

Still literally LOLing, I told it to introduce a plot twist:

Just as we thought we had the upper hand, Zoltar revealed his true intentions. "You fools!" he exclaimed. "You think you can defeat me? I am just a pawn in this game, a tool for the true enemy." With these words, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving us confused and bewildered. Lila and I looked at each other, trying to process this revelation. "What does he mean?" Lila asked, her voice filled with uncertainty. "I don't know," I replied, "but we have to find out. We have to discover who the true enemy is and stop them before it's too late." With renewed determination, we set off on a new quest, not knowing what challenges and twists lay ahead.

Riveting fiction, right?? Wellp, this exercise was useful in one way: I'm 125% sure that whatever I come up with will be better than the tale of ZOLTAR THE ETERNAL.

Just for fun, I also told the AI to give me a title and back cover blurb. Who wouldn't read this masterpiece???

Are you ready for an epic adventure filled with action, mystery, and betrayal? "The Immortal's Gambit" takes you on a journey with Flynn, a young warrior who joins the army to seek revenge for the loss of his family. But as he rises through the ranks, he discovers that the war is not what it seems and the immortal wizard who started it holds the key to a greater evil that threatens to destroy the world. Together with a powerful sorcerer, Lila, Flynn embarks on a quest to uncover the truth and stop the true enemy before it's too late. Get ready for a thrilling ride filled with magic, battles, and unexpected twists that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't miss "The Immortal's Gambit" a tale of war, betrayal and redemption.