“The robots are coming for your jobs”, they tell us.
“But I’m a writer!” I cry. “How could a machine create inspired works of fiction?”
Here’s The Science:
OpenAI is a billion dollar artificial intelligence research group dedicated to sharing information to stop the development of dangerous technologies. In 2019 they abruptly changed their strategy after developing GPT-2, which they deemed too dangerous to unleash upon the world.
GPT-2 is a text generator so powerful that they fear it may flood social media with synthetic noise or devastate our ability to parse news from propaganda. Imagine if 9 out of 10 articles were like ‘Pizzagate’, forever.
To give the public a sense of its potential, they released a nerfed version of GPT-2 that was trained on much smaller sets of information. Will futuristic technology make the human fiction writer a thing of the past? I thought I’d take it for a spin with the service StoryAI.
I provided the opening lines, what they call the ‘story seed’. Everything after that was generated from the hobbled version of GPT-2.
Here was one of my first experiments:
(The A.I. generated this headline)
I’ll have you know that I am a troll with a body
(The A.I. chose this image)
Photo by Audi Nissen on Unsplash
(The human wrote)
The Shrehkt dragged its talon across the parchment, crossing another name off its list with fresh blood. It had slain Ulbrim The Invincible, the paranoid blacksmith who had worn three overlapping suits of armor. It had eliminated Laramis, the faery cutthroat who could dance on the wind and press her invisible blade to your throat as fast as you could blink. So too had the Beast of Slab Iron been culled, though it could squeeze its tendrils through fathoms of rock, snatch a fish from a falcon in flight, and pulp a war elephant in its coils.
The Shrehkt unfurled its parchment, smiling as it bounced and rolled across the floor. Yesss, ssso many more targetsss. Ssso many thingsss to crosss off itsss lissst. The next creatures on its list were…
(The A.I. continued)
Trolls”, a species of troll that had been long thought extinct, until the Shrehkt, a troll with no body, was caught. estampit
Said troll was half-orc, though it could easily have just been a troll with a body. estampit
Said troll, as it dragged its half-orc body down a hallway. estampit
Said troll, with its body in the air. estampit
Said troll, in its half-orc body… estampit
Said troll! It had done it! estampit
Said troll! Yessss! estampit
Said troll! Yessss… estampit
Said troll! Yessss! estampit
Well, not quite what I was hoping for. I’m not in love with the picture, but the title has a flair that I would not have come up with on my own.
Perhaps I should do as Elon Musk suggests, and partner with the AI to combine our powers. Here are some stories I seeded, generated, and then reapplied my human sensibilities to.
(The A.I. generated this headline)
The old days were the days before the rise of the sun
and they were like a perfect world
(The A.I. chose this image)
Photo by Aniket Bhattacharya on Unsplash
“More jokes!” roared the Ogre. He swayed in the doorway of the dimly lit tavern, bellowing, drinking, yet never quite falling down drunk. The huddled villagers did their best to ply him with grog and humor. These were the jokes they told.
“It was like the old times,” said one.
“If you had been here,” the Ogre grunted, and the bar stool he was sitting on fell slowly to the floor. The Ogre took two gulps of his beer before he looked at the old bearded woman with the yellow fur. She was holding a pint of wine in one hand and a handful of bread in the other. The Ogre took a glass of beer before taking another sip of wine.
“I remember the old times,” said the old lady. “You must have been young then, and you had those times with us.”
“Yes,” said the Ogre. “There was great fun in those days. It was like living in a fairy tale… a perfect world, in some ways.”
“It was like having a full day, every day, to run around the world,” she continued. “We heard of the old gods who loved us all.”
The Ogre laughed. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but it had a certain magic about it. We lived up in the mountains. At the height of summer, when the sun started to rise, we would gather at the mountain’s peak, drink and chase away the night,” he continued.
The woman smiled. “I remember how it felt.”
Not too bad. I was hoping to generate a bunch of weird jokes, but instead it generated a melancholy vignette.
This was an attempt at a Fantasy/Thriller. Somehow it got converted into a computer age story about the video game The Last of Us. It is dialogue heavy and sentimental, unlike what I typically write, so I wasn’t able to do much with it. I cleaned it up enough to make it readable.
(The A.I. generated this headline)
A lot of people think that the Last of Us
is a story about the end of the world
(The A.I. chose this image)
Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash
Maris pressed her sweaty forehead against the cold marble wall and gasped. If she could just stop running, if she could get a moment of sleep, perhaps she could wrap her mind around the artifact in her satchel. She had risked everything to steal it. Would it be worth it?
She touched the crystal catalyst and drifted into dreams of power and possibility.
-The Last of Us Chapter 3-
“It isn’t an artifact,” Ellie said, not wanting to mention the word again. She swallowed hard as she spoke, not wanting anything too intimate to come out. “No,” she repeated again without looking up from the computer screen to stare at the woman. “It is the culmination of my years of experience and… my research.”
The woman gave a low whistle. “I see,” she frowned. “Yes,” and gave Ellie another too-low whistle. When the whistle faded, Ellie was sure that the woman had been thinking about her. “You are going to be a big deal and I know it. We are going to become heroes.”
She grinned in a way that told Ellie she was having a bad day. Ellie couldn’t tell what that was supposed to mean, but it felt good.
“But you want to give up your life as a hunter?” She was being so damn honest.
“For now. Maybe, once I do the rest of the research on the artifact,” Her face turned serious. “But I could… maybe… leave something behind for my daughter.”
Ellie tapped on the laptop with all her might.
“And what do you know about those ancient ruins on the island?” the woman asked.
“I… that kind of ruins are… too… dark for us,” Ellie said, closing the laptop. “Especially the dark places.”
The dark ruins are intriguing. I wonder what that story would have been about?
My attempt at a sci-fi story got sideswiped by a random mention of an unknown type of fetish pornography. You’ll know it when you see it (as the old saying goes), but the AI doesn’t linger on it, so you won’t have to either.
(The A.I. generated this headline)
Hey, you know what’s pretty cute?
Photo by The Honest Company on Unsplash
‘Bugborgs aren’t just for kids anymore’, the advertisement shouted. ‘Why not put a Bugborg under the tree for the students and professionals in your family this Christmas? Grandma needs company too!”
Ugh, I have enough of the little monsters crawling around the class room. Now I’m supposed to let them infest my home?
The words were spoken more than 50 years ago, but many of us still remember them. It may have been one of only a handful of ads of its kind. It wasn’t until more recent times that more awareness was drawn to the fact that these advertisements for a new type of creature—the Bugborg, often erroneously referred to as an eggbug—were all too common. Now, thanks to Google and the rise of “cub porn”—online porn featuring humanoid creatures—we are no longer so shocked when these kinds of ads hit the web.
They look like bug-shaped eggs, complete with tiny, translucent, insect like legs and antennae.
They have the distinct advantage that their bodies can expand from one size to another. And if you look closely, all of them look identical.
It’s all a bit unsettling, when you think about it. It looks like something out of an 80s science fiction movie, or maybe a child’s sketchbook. The Bugborg can walk, climb, crawl by themselves, and even crawl on the wall with their own body parts.
When they hatch, a female begins to grow around her own egg. She has only about 5 legs. If a female is not lucky enough to hatch before her mate does, she dies. When she’s fully grown, her large body begins to turn into her giant form. In the breeding season, this giant form will be completely different from the insect-like forms. She may be able to fly.
They aren’t just for kids anymore.
That one got a little freaky.
My final experiment hoped to leverage the godlike power of Artificial Intelligence to create a third sequel to the Teen Wolf movies.
(The A.I. generated this headline)
“Wolfman” is a wolf who has been raised by wolves
(The A.I. chose this image)
Photo by Tom Pottiger on Unsplash
Teen Wolf 3 was not based on the MTV show, nor was it the rumored Alyssa Milano hockey vehicle. Teen Wolf 3 was the long awaited conclusion to the trilogy that would launch the Wolfiverse franchise. The original Teen Wolf featured Michael J. Fox as a down on his luck high school basketball player who had to learn how to control the power of becoming a werewolf. The sequel, Teen Wolf Too, starred Jason Bateman as a collegiate boxer.
“Teen Wolf Three is about the end of the series, and The Wolf Within is not the finale – it’s the start of the story!” say Director Tim Kring and writers Scott Gimple and Michael J. Fox.
Bernard Munch is wearing a wolf on his sleeve.
In the first season, the Wolves have new sidekicks, the Wolfbrothers. The Wolfbrothers are wolves who have been “born” into werewolf society and raised by wolves.
Bernard appears in the opening credits of Teen Wolf as a werewolf, and later appears in the end credits, also as a werewolf.
Bernard’s werewolf sidekick was shot to death to keep the wolf in line.
Bernard Munch’s character was then killed off. Bernard’s character’s story didn’t go anywhere.
Tim Kring’s character was resurrected as a werewolf after saving Wolf’s life. Tim Kring’s character’s story didn’t go anywhere. Tim Kring’s character turned into a werewolf, and he had the final words in the entire Wolfverse, “This isn’t over.”
Hot damn! That sounds amazing.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
Author Jeff C. Carter 