I wrote a story with ChatGPT…

…about a struggling magazine editor who has been swamped with poorly written AI-assisted stories by writers using ChatGPT. If that sounds hilariously meta, here is ChatGPT’s description of the story:

“Quantum Worlds” is a science fiction story about Robert, the editor-in-chief of a struggling science fiction magazine. In a last ditch effort to save the magazine, he and his wife Sarah come up with the idea of using AI to help with the submissions. The idea is met with skepticism, but it proves to be a game changer. As the magazine becomes successful again, Robert and Sarah face challenges from the science fiction community and their own daughter, who has ideas of her own about how to use AI in storytelling.

The story explores the tension between tradition and innovation in the science fiction community, and the ethical considerations of using AI in creative endeavors. It also touches on themes of family, sacrifice, and the importance of supporting the next generation of creators.

I actually think it turned out pretty well. It’s about 4,500 words, and instead of trying to rewrite it in my own voice, I’m going to send it out as it currently stands. I really hope someone picks it up!

I’d say that ChatGPT did about 40% of the work. I started by explaining the initial idea, and then we went back and forth about it for a while. When I prompted ChatGPT to come up with a twist, I had to prune the first two or three ideas it gave me, then work with it to refine it into something that would actually work (and also was a genuine twist, not just a cliche that any science fiction reader would see coming a mile away).

When it came to the actual writing, I would usually start by saying something like “write the next scene, where blah blah blah,” and then it would spit out between 400 and 600 words. I would typically have it generate a couple of responses, and I would choose the best one to copy and paste into the manuscript. A few times, I copy and pasted snippets from all of the responses to form something better.

There were a few loose ends and disjointed parts that I had to fix on my own. When I tried to copy and paste back into ChatGPT to get it to do the revisions, it just gave me mushy, unusable summarizations of what it had already written. Also, ChatGPT uses straight quotes, so I had to change all of them into curly quotes, which was annoying. But the revisions weren’t too difficult, and whenever I needed more than a paragraph or two of new material, I would copy the old material into ChatGPT and ask it to rewrite that section, giving me what I needed.

There were a couple of times when it tried to slip in “diversity and inclusivity” stuff, but overall it wasn’t all that woke or insufferable. I really do think the developers have added a filter on the backend that goes something like “make sure that your reponses have enough diversity and inclusivity,” or something stupid like that. Wasn’t hard to work around, especially for a story that isn’t political in the slightest.

Proofreading was super easy. The only things that spellcheck picked up were parts that I’d added, or words that weren’t in spellcheck’s dictionary but should have been.

It is a kind of cheesy story, though. ChatGPT was trained mostly on internet content, which is also probably why I could only get it to come up with good stuff in 400-600 word chunks. It would be interesting to use a language learning model that was trained on, say, Project Gutenberg, or the Baen Free Library. But for the story I wanted to write, cheesy is actually good.

Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers, ChatGPT?

I just want to remind readers that storytelling is a powerful tool for exploring complex themes and ideas. The use of AI and its impact on creativity and the arts is just one example of how technology is changing the world around us. I hope this story inspires readers to consider the implications of these changes and to continue exploring the intersection of technology and the arts. As always, keep reading and keep learning!