Karlin
Troubadour
I've asked AI, ChatGPT or Bard, to write short stories. They generate stories with a proper structure and decent language that are horribly boring, and lack a soul.
-
Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!
ChatGPT For World Building?
- Thread starter _Michael_
- Start date
-
- Tags
- chatgpt worldbuilding
pmmg
Myth Weaver
I suppose that is how they will stay forever. Our reputations as actually capable and creative will remain in tact.
- Thread starter
- #23
_Michael_
Troubadour
Ah, yeah, I don't really need to for where I am at--yet. lol I'm still doing the outline and overall structure, but as I "zoom" down I very well could see someone using it like that for more setting flavor and period-accuracy. I'm not going to lie, I am amazed it was able to give me a bunch of info on the planetary data that held up--like the planet having two moons in stable coplanar orbits in a 4:1 resonance in a trojan configuration. lol
Nobody needs me. Not all things beneficial are necessary things. I'll keep writing, creating. AI doesn't take any of that away. It very likely will screw with markets for publishing, but those markets have been worked over multiple times over the centuries.
>AI writes stuff poorly.
So do lots of humans. Stuff still gets out there.
So do lots of humans. Stuff still gets out there.
Joe McM
Minstrel
I just got introduced to ChatGPT. It’s been helpful for providing suggestions for paragraph and sentence rewrite. I’m going to try it to get ideas for a book title.
Demesnedenoir
Myth Weaver
I could see its use in science things; it's just creativity where it sputters and dies. And writing skills beyond "pro writer voice."
Plinto
Dreamer
I've found ChatGPT very useful for creating D&D Campaigns and organizing its information. Honestly its amazing for that. Ask it to come up with descriptions of characters, backstories, rules questions, random encounters, more complex level-based encounters and custom monsters based on the world lore. It's fantastic.
I won't use it to generate any amount of writing for my own work, not even stuff I know won't be included in the book. Not even to ask it questions about my plot or characters. I totally get its allure, but to me it feels dishonest to use it as a creativity aid. Even if all it really does is provide framework/foundations that still require a ton of writing to make use of. I feel like a fraud just thinking about it.
But I would consider using it as a first pass editor someday.
I won't use it to generate any amount of writing for my own work, not even stuff I know won't be included in the book. Not even to ask it questions about my plot or characters. I totally get its allure, but to me it feels dishonest to use it as a creativity aid. Even if all it really does is provide framework/foundations that still require a ton of writing to make use of. I feel like a fraud just thinking about it.
But I would consider using it as a first pass editor someday.
Azul-din
Troubadour
I fail to see where this differs from some poor bastard stuck in a back room writing a Star's memoirs. AI is a rapidly evolving entity and in some not so distant time someone will remember the old adage 'if it walks like a duck, and floats like a duck and quacks like a duck...' Personally, I think it is a marvelous way of weeding out the real geniuses of literature from the ducks.
Last edited:
The "poor bastard" gets paid. I am personally in favour of humans, even anonymous ones, getting dough.
- Thread starter
- #31
_Michael_
Troubadour
The issue becomes yes, the poor bastard gets paid--far more than most homebrew dreamers with aspirations of D&D publishing glory can afford to pay someone to help them. That's the attraction--being able to produce fairly polished text without having to spend hours wrestling sentences oneself. I am a prodigious waster of scrap paper--I take notes for each paragraphs to play with the phrasing and word order. For descriptions? Yeah, it's beautiful. That's primarily where I use it--the expository filler text with descriptions and characters I've already detailed to the AI. I gave it the bones, it filled in the muscles, and I put on the flesh with the final touches.
Best of all, and not even mentioned yet, is the AI's ability to emulate not just a professional writer, but to emulate specific writers' writing styles. That is even more useful because after several exchanges and samples of my own writing given to the AI, the AI is able to not only provide me with expository descriptions, but make them sound as though I myself wrote them.
Best of all, and not even mentioned yet, is the AI's ability to emulate not just a professional writer, but to emulate specific writers' writing styles. That is even more useful because after several exchanges and samples of my own writing given to the AI, the AI is able to not only provide me with expository descriptions, but make them sound as though I myself wrote them.
I think the way you're using it, to replicate your own style, is fine. But oh wow, is that a short, steep, slippery slope to Hell. I haven't gotten involved with AI except on a pretty surface level - I have Alexa - but I had no idea it could be that sophisticated. That's getting perilously close to replicating voice.
- Thread starter
- #33
_Michael_
Troubadour
Yeah, it's definitely one of the stepping stones to cultural decay. Being able to replicate a writer's voice is more subtle, and more dangerous. It's not perfect yet, thankfully, which ironically makes it easier to edit. What if it spit out results that were so perfect we didn't need to edit them? Would the temptation then be to simply use it as is? Undoubtedly some will in the future. "National Author Slammed For Plagiarizing ChatGPT" will be a headline in the near future.
I've not really used it to emulate another writer's style simply because I can't imagine Stephen King penning a fantasy franchise--he did okay with Tears of the Dragon, but that's a far cry from a franchise. Plus, I have my own writer's voice--might not be the loudest in the room, but I have my own style to be sure.
What's potentially more disturbing beyond even that, however, is how the AI will subtly and without prompting adopt the writing style of the user, reflecting back the style of text input into it as it generates text. After an hour or so of chatting with the AI, the AI's expository text becomes closer to my own writing style without any directives given to adopt my style.
I've not really used it to emulate another writer's style simply because I can't imagine Stephen King penning a fantasy franchise--he did okay with Tears of the Dragon, but that's a far cry from a franchise. Plus, I have my own writer's voice--might not be the loudest in the room, but I have my own style to be sure.
What's potentially more disturbing beyond even that, however, is how the AI will subtly and without prompting adopt the writing style of the user, reflecting back the style of text input into it as it generates text. After an hour or so of chatting with the AI, the AI's expository text becomes closer to my own writing style without any directives given to adopt my style.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
Just like, if you were using a ghost writer, dont come to me after and say what a good thing you made. We are aspiring to be writers. Ai is aspiring to make it so you dont have to be one. I know ai can do it. What can you do?
- Thread starter
- #35
_Michael_
Troubadour
Problem is, there's not a lot of people who have huge amounts of time to pour into research and development to bring a fully-fledged game world and RPG system to market. You're talking thousands of man-hours. An AI filling in expository text for descriptions and being used as a glorified calculator to flesh out the bones of a basic d20 system is not the same as having something completely ghost-written.
This is to say nothing of the actual typesetting, layouts, artwork and formatting, or the procurement of artwork licenses so you can use them. It's great for proof of concept works that you then take to a publisher and say, This is what I've got so far. Or to use as a tool to attract more people to the project so that they can see the rough outline as you see it and then (hopefully) get that same excitement to join in.
CNN using it to generate "journalisming" articles is a step in the wrong direction. Judges using it to pen decision opinions (like the judge in South America) is another step in the wrong direction. Constraining it to works of fictions is probably best. It is only because of AI art detector sites that we are aware of just how prevalent AI art is in the world of misinformation and disinformation warfare. I guess this is where it comes down to personal responsibility. I would rather be though less of for using AI art pieces and help in generating some descriptions than to outright lie and try to hide it, then look like an ass when I am inevitably caught. Where I have time to really wordsmith a paragraph or two, I do so happily, but I can definitely feel the edge where AI should not be used wholesale or we risk losing human inventiveness. Why bother thinking when a machine can do it for you...?
In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine's doing that for you...
This is to say nothing of the actual typesetting, layouts, artwork and formatting, or the procurement of artwork licenses so you can use them. It's great for proof of concept works that you then take to a publisher and say, This is what I've got so far. Or to use as a tool to attract more people to the project so that they can see the rough outline as you see it and then (hopefully) get that same excitement to join in.
CNN using it to generate "journalisming" articles is a step in the wrong direction. Judges using it to pen decision opinions (like the judge in South America) is another step in the wrong direction. Constraining it to works of fictions is probably best. It is only because of AI art detector sites that we are aware of just how prevalent AI art is in the world of misinformation and disinformation warfare. I guess this is where it comes down to personal responsibility. I would rather be though less of for using AI art pieces and help in generating some descriptions than to outright lie and try to hide it, then look like an ass when I am inevitably caught. Where I have time to really wordsmith a paragraph or two, I do so happily, but I can definitely feel the edge where AI should not be used wholesale or we risk losing human inventiveness. Why bother thinking when a machine can do it for you...?
In the year 5555
Your arms are hanging limp at your sides
Your legs got nothing to do
Some machine's doing that for you...
Azul-din
Troubadour
Or to put it another way, imitation ex post facto by whatever means can only ever be a homage to existing literature. I think you are confusing imitation with genius. Take the work of the greatest living writer (and no, I won't name him or her,make your own estimation.) By what means could anyone predict what his Next work will be?
- Thread starter
- #37
_Michael_
Troubadour
Yeah, but nothing is new under the sun. Every idea has been done in one way or another, and is just an homage to something down the line. And imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all. If AI is programmed by a human, that means that you're essentially using some other humans' idea and bias programmed into the AI. If it is useful to generate something entertaining and new enough on its on own to not just look like recycled junk on the big screen we see flopping seemingly every other day, then I'd say that's a worthwhile pursuit.
There's a lot that goes into initial ideas to completion, and that process of fruition often changes the original material significantly from it's original vision. Yes, there will alway be lazy writers who try to pass off plagiarized junk as their own, or pass off cliche and unoriginal stuff as something of quality. The more human work and imagining that goes into the final product, the better, though. I'm for using AI like ChatGPT as a tool for the descriptions and overall literary structure of the narrative that I have spun. Those are ideas that I can then take and run with as the entire landscape evolves into a fully-fledged world. The AI's work amounts to descriptions and structure, but plots, settings and original seed ideas are mine.
There's a lot that goes into initial ideas to completion, and that process of fruition often changes the original material significantly from it's original vision. Yes, there will alway be lazy writers who try to pass off plagiarized junk as their own, or pass off cliche and unoriginal stuff as something of quality. The more human work and imagining that goes into the final product, the better, though. I'm for using AI like ChatGPT as a tool for the descriptions and overall literary structure of the narrative that I have spun. Those are ideas that I can then take and run with as the entire landscape evolves into a fully-fledged world. The AI's work amounts to descriptions and structure, but plots, settings and original seed ideas are mine.
Azul-din
Troubadour
I am reminded of the joke about the rich boy being carried out to the car by the servants. 'Oh dear,' says a passerby, 'can't he walk?' 'Of course he can,' the mother retorts, 'but thank heavens he doesn't have to!'
Karlin
Troubadour
Nooooo! my boss uses it for science things, and it write vague things at best, and sometimes things that are completely wrong. So you have to check everything. Better off using normal search tools.
By the way, it is extremely annoying to have your boss ask ChatGPT for technical information, when he has a bunch of engineers and scientists (including PhD's) working for him.
Finchbearer
Istar
Not ideal!
When I think of things like ChatGPT I do consider that before many people would rely on Google, and before that? Libraries and books…before that? I don’t think we can call ourselves completely original in our thinking. As long as ChatGPT remains the poorly conceived sounding board that it is it can’t compete with anything that has come before it.
