Welcome to the Future, Part 2
AI and Author collaboration via Dall-E
In case you missed it, part 1 is here.
Backstory
You may remember that my first computer teacher, Mr. Wilson, shared a magazine article with me about the future of teaching. In this series, I’m talking a bit about trends in technological developments and daydreaming about the future of storytelling.
Last time, we talked about AI-generated images.
In this article, I’d like to talk about AI-generated text.
Just like the debate around the visual arts, writers often fear that someday they will become obsolete, replaced by an AI generating stories faster than any human can imagine.
We already live in a world of rapid-release authors, authors pushing themselves to write faster and faster, trying not to sacrifice their quality and craft for quantity and a living wage.
What if the AI wasn’t a competitor, but was actually an assistant?
The Goal of AI-Generated Writing
Let’s pretend that you just want to generate a rough draft of a scene, but it is giving you fits. You write it out, erase, rewrite, rinse, and repeat. What if you had an AI that could spit out a dozen different drafts of a scene within minutes? Some would be terrible, but some might give you ideas that you could build on.
In theory, as the AI develops, you’d be able to train it to understand your style and your prompts. The AI wouldn’t be writing the story, but helping you write out your draft. Then you’d work through it, add in your voice, and interweave all the magic of your craft.
The State of AI-Generated Writing
As part of the research for this article, I tried several AI writing programs. To be clear: there’s no way I could try them all. I’m sure there are better ones. Please: share your favorites in the comments!
I focused on two: Rytr and WriteSonic. I just used the free, average levels of the programs. Both have more advanced versions available.
My first reaction to these tests was to realize that I’d seen content generated by these AIs before in articles I’ve stumbled on while searching the internet.
I’m now even more skeptical of many tech and news articles that I read on the internet.
What I wanted to know was: Could AI generate a decent story?
Let me give you two samples:
From Rytr
- Story Idea: Two lovers (Fred and Betty) get in a spat and Fred leaves.
- Tone: Funny
- Language: English
- Creativity: Optimal
- Note that Rytr considers this a story “plot”
Betty is a woman who has had a difficult life. Her job as a nurse gives her meaning and purpose, but she lives with the guilt of not being closer to her family. Fred is Betty’s husband who loves Betty but has grown tired of the routine and compromises in their marriage.
While they were having dinner, Betty teasingly asks Fred what he would do without her. He replies that they should both take walks in the woods and not worry about getting lost because they would have each other to find their way back. Fred is joking with her, but Betty takes him seriously and starts to cry.
They are arguing when Fred abruptly gets up from the table and leaves the room without explanation. Betty gets angry and throws some of their dinner on the ground before carrying it back into the kitchen for leftovers later on.
Betty makes dinner for them again that night but it’s clear something is wrong because she didn’t speak to him at all during dinner. So at the end of the night he goes over to see if she’s okay.
“I made dinner again,” Betty said. “You’re welcome to stay.”
“No, I’m fine, I ate at work,” Steve said.
“Did you eat?” Steve asks with concern.
Betty nods and turns around trying not to look at him in his eyes because she knows that would be a definite trigger for her tears to start streaming down her face when he starts talking
Lisa’s comment: who is Steve??? Apparently the AI felt a third character was required.
From WriteSonic
- Prompt: Two lovers (Fred and Betty) get in a spat and Fred leaves.
- Tone: Romantic Suspense
- Language: English
- Quality: good
Fred left angrily, but Betty could not help but feel a little bit lonely. She spent the day wandering around the city, thinking of all the things they had planned to do together. As the sun set, she decided to take a walk down by the river. It was a beautiful night, and the stars were shining.
As she walked, Betty heard a voice in her head. It spoke softly but urgently: “Fred is missing you, Betty. Come find him.”
Betty didn’t know what to make of it, but she felt a sudden urgency to find her husband. She walked faster and faster, until she finally saw a light in the distance. It was Fred’s apartment! She went inside and found him sitting on the couch, crying.
“What happened?” asked Betty.
Fred explained that he and Betty had been fighting all day and he just couldn’t take it any more. When he left, he knew that he might never see her again, but he hoped that they could at least be civil to one another from now on.
Betty hugged Fred tightly and promised to never hurt him again. They spent the night talking and laughing until they both fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Lisa’s comment: my ProWritingAid assistant is having fits trying to fix those. My human editor wasn’t any happier.
I don’t feel threatened by either of those offerings. There was a hint of an idea in them, though. I probably should have tried a scene I was legitimately struggling with!
If you took the time to learn to use these tools, I could see them generating some acceptable basic ideas.
Much Better Current-Use Cases
Meanwhile, I was checking my blog statistics on a website called Ubersuggest, owned by Neil Patel. Neil is a marketing guru who emphasizes the power of blogging to raise the rankings of websites.
This tool noticed that I’m close to ranking for a very important keyword and suggested that I should write a new article to generate traffic. Yep. I know that. It’s been on my to-do list for a long time.
Then it went a step further and offered to write the article for me.
Skeptically, I played a bit. I have to admit that it came up with some good ideas for titles and even a pretty good outline. The tool was interactive. Based on my idea topic, it gave me several titles to pick from. Then it took my chosen title and gave me a breakdown of suggested ideas as a checklist.
After I checked the ones I wanted, it generated the rough draft of an article for me.
Is it done? No.
Is it perfect? Hardly.
But am I closer to being done with that article than I was? Definitely.
Now don’t worry. My blogs won’t be replaced by AI-generated content. But I may let some of them help.
AIs can also help with:
- social media posts
- article ideas
- ad copy
They can become your assistant, helping to keep you on track and helping you with mundane tasks, leaving you more of your valuable mental space for creative writing.
Remember: I’m not suggesting you let them write the final draft. I’m offering the concept that they may generate ideas and first drafts to get you past that blank page.
You’ve Seen AI-Assisted Work
Aside from the many articles on the internet that I firmly believe were written by artificial intelligence, something much closer to you has been influenced by an AI.
WITS.
Yes, this amazing website, Writers in the Storm uses an AI on a regular basis to help behind the scenes!
We don’t use it for writing, but we use it to make sure that our posts score well on search engines. The AI (or perhaps more correctly “advanced algorithm”) isn’t dictating the content, but it is guiding us so that the brilliant articles submitted by the contributors score well. If you are a blogger, you can use the same tool on your website. It’s free! AIOSEO (All in One SEO) works beautifully with WordPress.
Can you imagine a future in which an AI is your writing buddy?
Top Image by Deleyna using Dall-E.
Originally published at Writers in the Storm, October 5, 2022, Welcome to the Future, Part 2 | Writers In The Storm (writersinthestormblog.com)
