This post is actually from January 17, 2023. Just saying…
Welcome to @nonabiding, a gathering place with Catherine Gammon and friends, writers who read and readers who write, with help from a painter or two. We like books and cats and gardens, birds, forests, and some dogs. Here’s Theo, just for fun.
Most of what we do here will be read and look and observe the worlds we share and engage in words and images with whatever arises as we go along. And what seems to be filling a lot of media airspace this week is celebration and angst about the AI ChatGPT. So I decided to try it out.
I have to confess I did not really give it a fair shake—I didn’t try to educate it in any basics let alone nuances of style. Before the “work” it produced, offered below, I had already experimented with asking it to write a poem. It delivered a “poem” of cliched rhymed quatrains. I asked it for blank verse. It delivered a new collection of cliched rhymed quatrains. (It delivers, or should I say spits out, its imitations of words with amazing speed.) I asked it not to rhyme. It apologized and tried again. It delivered a new batch of cliched rhymed quatrains. (It really knows a lot of cliches.) I told it it was still rhyming and it apologized and tried again, etc., and I imagine it would have gone on like this forever.
Someone who knows how to train a bot could perhaps have given it better instructions. Instead I stopped playing, and a day later or so I tried again with fiction. I had originally done the first experiment that follows, even before the attempt with poetry. This time I decided to give it more explicit instructions, with Experiment #2 and Experiment #3. I found it fascinating to see how it interpreted changes in style based on the change in instructions: to write “in the style of” Virginia Woolf (#2) or Thomas Pynchon (#3).
Writers need not fear. It has no sense of style.
What is alarming, though, is that readers also may be losing all sense of style, and readers who become buyers and marketers. A reporter at PBS said “Not bad” to a haiku the thing wrote for her—a haiku not only bad, but in spirit not a haiku at all, although it did know how to count syllables. And if as a publisher you can spit out a book in under an hour, what percentage will there be in paying even a pittance to a middleperson to do that labor of love over a year or two or five? (A healthy antidote to this concern can be found here, for example, by Pat Wallace on Post.News.)
But on to the experiment itself:
ChatGPT Experiment #1
Me: Imagine a world fighting wind and fire and two people struggling in it
ChatGPT: I'm not sure what context you're imagining this scenario in. Can you provide more information or clarify what you're asking?
Me: Write it like a story
ChatGPT:
In a world ravaged by wind and fire, two individuals struggled to survive. The howling winds tore through the barren landscape, whipping up fiery debris and making it nearly impossible to find shelter. The two, a man and a woman, had been traveling together for what felt like an eternity, always just ahead of the raging inferno that seemed to follow them wherever they went.
As they trudged through the ash-covered ground, they came across a ruined village. It was a ghost town, the once-thriving community now nothing but a smattering of crumbling buildings and charred remains. They searched desperately for a safe haven, but everywhere they looked, they found only destruction.
Just as they were about to give up hope, they spotted an old, sturdy barn in the distance. It had somehow managed to survive the onslaught of the fire and was their only chance for survival. They quickened their pace, ignoring the protests of their weary bodies.
As they entered the barn, they collapsed in relief. It was dark and musty, but it was a roof over their heads and a barrier between them and the fiery apocalypse outside. They huddled together for warmth, grateful to be alive.
As the winds and flames raged on outside, they knew they had to stay strong and keep fighting if they wanted to make it through. They clung to each other, using the hope they shared to keep the fire of their own spirits burning bright.
The next morning, the wind died down and the fire had passed, and they walked out from the barn, to see a whole new world. A world that was new, but also a different one and yet, they knew that together, they could find a new home.
ChatGPT Experiment #2
ME: Write a story in the style of Virginia Woolf with two characters, fire, and flood.
ChatGPT:
As the fire raged on, engulfing the countryside in a sea of flames, two friends, Jane and Mary, sat huddled together on the banks of the river. They had fled their homes, leaving everything behind, in a desperate bid to escape the inferno.
The heat was intense, and the smoke made it hard to breathe, but somehow, in the midst of all the chaos and destruction, they found solace in each other's company.
As they sat there, watching the fire consume everything in its path, they couldn't help but reflect on the fragility of life. They had always taken their homes and possessions for granted, but now, in the face of such devastation, they realized just how fleeting and insignificant material things truly were.
But their troubles were far from over. As the fire began to subside, they heard the ominous sound of water rushing towards them. The river, swollen by the heavy rain, had burst its banks and was now flooding the land.
The two friends clung to each other, fear and uncertainty in their hearts, as the water rose higher and higher. They were powerless to stop the flood, and all they could do was wait and hope for the best.
But even as they faced the worst, they found comfort in the fact that they were not alone. They had each other, and that was all they needed to face whatever lay ahead.
As the water slowly receded and the flood came to an end, Jane and Mary were left to pick up the pieces of their lives. But through it all, they knew that they had each other, and that was something no fire or flood could ever take away.
The end of the day, and the future is uncertain, but together they'll face it all.
ChatGPT Experiment #3
ME: Write a story in the style of Thomas Pynchon with two characters, fire, and flood
ChatGPT:
The fire was a thing of beauty, a dance of flame and heat that mesmerized and entranced. But for two men, Max and Joe, it was anything but beautiful. They had been caught up in the inferno, their escape routes cut off by the advancing flames. They had no choice but to wait it out and hope for the best.
As they huddled together, watching the world burn, they couldn't help but reflect on the nature of fire. It was a force of destruction, yet at the same time it was a force of creation, a necessary component of life and renewal. But that didn't make the current situation any less terrifying.
But even as they feared for their lives, they couldn't help but feel a sense of connection to the fire, to the world around them. They were part of something bigger, something beyond themselves.
Their reprieve was short-lived as the intense heat and fire started to turn into a flood, the rain had been pouring on the scorched ground and it was not able to absorb it all, so it created a flash flood. They were in awe as the flood washes over, extinguishing the fire, the water rushing towards them in a torrential rage.
In the face of the flooding, Max and Joe had a sense of dread and hopelessness, it was a force that couldn't be tamed, something beyond their control, but still, they clung to each other for support and comfort, knowing that they were in this together.
As the water receded, Max and Joe were left in a world of destruction and chaos. They had survived the fire and the flood, but at what cost? The future was uncertain, but they knew that they had each other, and that was something no disaster could ever take away.
In the end, they realized that fire and flood, like life, are cyclical, it's a cycle that can be brutal, unpredictable and uncontrollable, but they are also a reminder of the power and beauty of nature. The two friends emerged from the experience changed, with a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.