For fun I wrote three chapters, and let opus write the 4th. It was god fucking awful. No amount of prompting could fix it.
Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I read this correctly, books and fiction are headed in the same direction. I don't really see how AI 'democratizes' fiction and book writing?
> I don't really see how AI 'democratizes' fiction and book writing? When people say "AI will democratise $FOO" they don't mean it the way it is usually understood: people with skill and motivation can now produce $FOO. What they mean is that people with no skill and no motivation can now pretend that they produced $FOO. Remember the "I'm the ideas guy" people who would ask you to build a complete system and offer 1%…
You need to learn to be able to say no to people as a life skill, first off, but if the ideas guy has vibecoded a mountain of code that they're trying to ship, but has hit the vibe wall, and has money to pay you to fix it, say yes.
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#43> Are readers generating fiction with AI models? Why not? Journalists, lawyers and pundits of various stripes are already doing it. Why shouldn't readers?
Because fiction is a different genere and historically at least AI was much worse at it. The big differences: - fiction tends to be longer, AI struggles with making a satisfying coherent plot structure after a certain length. - fiction tends to be subtler. You want characters to have nuance, shades of grey, symbolism, etc. Not everything should be shouted in your face. This is the opposite of writing persusaive liter…
I tried it once. Maybe 8-9 months back.I recall doing it soon after one travel, so that's why I can pinpoint it and this may be useful to figure which AI versions were available then.
The challenge is length and the context window. I had to own the plot since once it compacts, it has already lost the plot :)
I will give it pointers and tell where to go next. It will do it but either 1) stop after 3-4 paragraphs, or 2) write in a totally different direction than I expected. So I will nudge it to course correct, and it will do it. And then you keep iterating.
It was a good experiment for a couple of days. It saved me typing and it sometimes gave me lines of thinking that were interesting. But nothing that could be published.
But now that I think about it, I found a use case. If only GRRM could use its help :)
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#44I had a sci-fi plot sketched out in my head, I had Codex give a whack at it. It was "ok" - not the worst content I've ever read, not the best. It was "sufficient."
But now you have a starting point to edit from. Just find a bit more motivation to continue writing...
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell that to the LLM RP crowd.
I think you lose that draw of interactivity when you’re essentially reading someone else’s RP, though.
As someone with extensive experience with this: no, you don't.
As much as it's nice to know another shares my interest (and will partake in it with me), I can't always get that.
When I can't get that, LLMs are not a worthless substitute, especially if what I actually want is just to play out a situation.
I want to act and then get back a description of reaction. LLMs can describe reaction, therefore I find value in them.
Like how in D&D you go to do whatever and the dungeon master tells you what happens in response. LLMs fit there for me.
They don't fill the void of social interaction or anything like that, but I don't strictly need that here.
Take a look at services like AI Dungeon to see the kind of thing I'm talking about.
It doesn't really replace social anything, but it's kind of like text adventure. It's plenty interactive enough.
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#46> We show that users especially gravitate toward fanfiction and erotica Why am i not surprised its primarily porn
Erotica is a whole separate class of smut than porn (in the cultural sense, that we understand the term “porn”). It’s literally like calling a book a movie. It’s also, on the whole, a much more ethical and engaging form of smut. I don’t really have an issue with the choices of consenting adults, but the (video and image) pornography industry is so seldom that.
I've heard that word used to refer to (still) pictures, and in more casual/offhand use to refer to text. I don't understand it as being quite so restricted by media-type as you seem to.
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#47> Are readers generating fiction with AI models? Why not? Journalists, lawyers and pundits of various stripes are already doing it. Why shouldn't readers?
I suspect that those other groups are largely not trying to generate fiction.
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point was, LLMs always generate fiction (bad fiction, but fiction nonetheless); what they generate is plausible, grammatical text that may have many points of congruence with the truth, but are not in any way constrained to do so. In short, fiction. If they could reliably generate high quality non-fiction, that would be news.
"wrong" or "random" is not the same as "fiction" "non-fiction" doesn't mean "correct".
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#49[flagged]
Re: Are readers generating fiction with AI models?
#50I think I probably did 12 whole books before I realized no one else would read them, or that if they did, I would feel guilty. some of them are really good though even knowing they are purely plan-based expression!