Can AI Write a Story? Cases for and Against Human + Machine
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne: a Nebula-nominated science fiction author and data scientist from Colombo, Sri Lanka; runs fact-checking organization; started osunpoet to test human+AI collaboration; https://medium.com/@osunpoet
Just the title of this meeting sparked a story idea.
Let’s just say that it’s possible for an AI to write a story.
What would they write about?
Taking from my own life, I write SF because writing “realistic fiction” doesn’t let me escape; and one of the reasons I read and write is to “escape” this mundane existence. Not that my life is bad at all – I love my life. And the fact is that I DO read realistic fiction as well; Craig Johnson’s LONGMIRE mysteries; Jan Karon’s MITFORD series; Edwidge Danticat’s novels and collections; Gregory David Roberts’ novel SHANTARAM; I even read the occasional straight up romance, like LaVyrle Spencer’s NOVEMBER OF THE HEART; Colleen McCullough’s THE THORN BIRDS. Then there’s James Michener’s THE COVENANT, CENTENNIAL, and CHESAPEAKE; as well as James Clavell’s SHOGUN and even Tom Clancy’s RED TIDE RISING…OK. So, I read a lot of stuff that’s not speculative fiction. So sue me!
At any rate, let’s say that we have an AI that want’s to write; would they write science fiction (as they ARE science fiction incarnate!); fantasy (while an AI would be able to draw on all of the very best fantasy Humanity has ever created, would it be able to have a new idea? Could an AI become the next JK Rowling? Or JRR Tolkien? What if they wanted to be the new CS Lewis?
Which raises another question, could an AI write a standard novel – because most of them include, somewhere in them, some aspect of faith (or not faith), be it through cursing or prayer. COULD an AI write such dialogue or even discussions? How would an AI’s writing come across as real if two characters got into a major fight and used vulgarities – because we all know that the use of vulgarities is strictly a matter of timing, in fact, very little different from the timing required to tell a joke.
Could an AI inject humor into their writing? Humor is so subjective that there are Humans who can’t even tell a joke, let alone write one!
Let’s look at one of the most famous “machine intelligences”; Data from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. Data freely admits that humor is a difficult concept. In fact, in a recent re-watch with my wife, of the “Q” episodes, the titular entity, after having his powers restored in “Déjà Q”, he decides to leave Data with a gift.
At first, Data thinks that Q will make him Human. But Q has quite a different intent:
“Q: No, no, no, no, no, no. I would never curse you by making you human. Think of it as a going away present. (Q vanishes, and Data turns into a quivering heap of helpless, contagious laughter.
“LAFORGE: Data? Data, why are you laughing?
“DATA: (stops abruptly) I…do not know. But it was a wonderful…feeling.”
Data is a marvelous character and while he only gains emotions when he places an “emotion chip” in his positronic brain – that was recovered from his evil twin brother, Lore – he has plenty to say about the Human condition. BUT: could he write a novel that would engage Human readers, or would his writing lack something?
Which raises another question, will someone try to write a novel someday using an AI – say a less-than-scrupulous editor who sets about to continue his/her lucrative career publishing, oh…Stephen King’s work…after the author’s death, proclaiming with great excitement that a treasure trove of unpublished King works have been discovered on some 100 disks stashed in his attic and the company is making plans to release them, once a year for however long it takes to get them all published. They ARE hiring an AI to edit and do any kind of revisions necessary…
Which of course, raises a hue and cry…or does it? What if the first one is really fantastic? What if it’s horrid? What then? Would this be a proof of concept?
Mr. Wijeratne runs site that features AI poetry. I’ll be going there for certain now!
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/scheduleImage: https://artistdetective.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/robotarmtyping.png?w=669&h=284
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