How independent writers are turning to "AI"

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(Note that the article is a HTML5 experiment - be prepared for not just an article post on a web magazine site.)

Can AI write good novels?

Authors are getting a hand from machine learning tools — and some of them think it’s the future of writing.

www.theverge.com

Lepp, who writes under the pen name Leanne Leeds in the “paranormal cozy mystery” subgenre, allots herself precisely 49 days to write and self-edit a book. This pace, she said, is just on the cusp of being unsustainably slow. She once surveyed her mailing list to ask how long readers would wait between books before abandoning her for another writer. The average was four months. Writer’s block is a luxury she can’t afford, which is why as soon as she heard about an artificial intelligence tool designed to break through it, she started beseeching its developers on Twitter for access to the beta test.

The tool was called Sudowrite. Designed by developers turned sci-fi authors Amit Gupta and James Yu, it’s one of many AI writing programs built on OpenAI’s language model GPT-3 that have launched since it was opened to developers last year. But where most of these tools are meant to write company emails and marketing copy, Sudowrite is designed for fiction writers. Authors paste what they’ve written into a soothing sunset-colored interface, select some words, and have the AI rewrite them in an ominous tone, or with more inner conflict, or propose a plot twist, or generate descriptions in every sense plus metaphor.

Not feeling very good about this.

 

[Soen Eber]

Not feeling very good about this.

Why? Just because every crackpot out there can write their own best-seller take-off on the "Turner Diaries" or "Atlas Shrug"? Let a thousand piles of poo bloom?

 

[Noodles]

> Write a story about AI taking over and ruling humanity

> Stick it into AI Writer to "spruce it up"

> AI turns it into a story where humanity loves its benevolent AI overlords

Every single time.

 

[Essence Lumin]

In 2005, some sci-fi writers decided to expose a Vanity presses' claims of only accepting quality manuscripts. They wrote Atlanta Nights to be as horrendous as possible. They accepted it until they caught on. Chapter 34 was entirely computer generated. It begins

Bruce walked around any more. Some people might ought to her practiced eye, at her. I am so silky and braid shoulders. At sixty-six, men with a few feet away form their languid gazes.

I know I was hungry, and impelling him lying naked. She slowly made for a man could join you I know what I ought to take you probably should have. He wants it worriedly. About think what to wear?

Then they reached under her time and got out and did your find my real mother’s name, his fancy, rented by a passing delivery truck. Well, Maggie Ooh, Andrew, you but I know my leftover cake!

Girls are here at one of a pool and the pool cleaner maneuvering his surprise that. He smiled certain her way down cruel and flashed him.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Its -far- more common for writers to have a stable of writers behind a pen name. Which causes other authors to complain, because they can't keep up.

But the thing is, if you aren't putting out a book a week or every two weeks, you lose readers anymore [unless you're a big name], so its a no win situation.

Thing is, SciFi written by AIs has a certain poetic appeal.

 

[Free]

Why? Just because every crackpot out there can write their own best-seller take-off on the "Turner Diaries" or "Atlas Shrug"? Let a thousand piles of poo bloom?

A thousand piles of poo already bloom without the help of neural nets disguised as intelligent bots.

 

[Isabeau]

Its -far- more common for writers to have a stable of writers behind a pen name. Which causes other authors to complain, because they can't keep up.

But the thing is, if you aren't putting out a book a week or every two weeks, you lose readers anymore [unless you're a big name], so its a no win situation.

Thing is, SciFi written by AIs has a certain poetic appeal.

Agree but I think it should be mentioned on the cover.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Agree but I think it should be mentioned on the cover.

Yeah it should, it'd be a selling point.

 

[Soen Eber]

I could see a writer being given an AI outputed story and told to rewrite it; creating plot & structure is HARD but putting a narrative spin on a story and tweaking plot points is relatively easy if you've got a good grip on the character voice.

 

[Kokoro Fasching]

I go through on average 1 book a day. As long as a writer puts out their next book with in 2 years, there is a 99% chance I'll get it and read it. when it is 5-6 years between books I will tend to forget about even looking for them.

I will say that I read alot of the stable driven writer who put out books every other month, but they are quick fluff and I tend to only read them when they are on the Kindle unlimited. The good authors and books, which come out slower, are purchased, so that I can go back during lean times and re-read them.

 

[Khamon]

Are those "If you enjoy Lord of the Rings you'll LUVZ TO DEATH this wonderful adaptation of a likeness of Josiah the Elven Lord of Hosts battling Frodoserous the Evol Wizard of Zandux against a vivid political backdrop of passion between Zeus and Hexadecimal" advertisements for crappy word salads churned out of AIs?