I got into a vicious argument in a friend's discord. It was me vs. everyone. People seem to think that because AI can generate realistic, human-looking text, that it's "only a matter of time" before we can press a button and have a compelling novel spat out. None of these people are writers, mind you.

Fundamentally, I do not disagree that an AI can spit out 500 pages of "something." But to actually create a book of that length that even a single person would enjoy, it requires humanity. AI can't understand human emotion or human thought. It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why. This makes it impossible to actually connect with a reader or create a character anyone would care about or remember.

Well everyone is going to see it differently no doubt. For me I feel it's "only a matter of time" before they take over the planet. Whether that's 20 years or 150 I don't know. Writing a novel seems paltry in comparison but maybe you're right, I'm in a "wait-and-see" approach considering the idea of AI writing novels.

What I am looking forward to is AI in game development. I would love nothing more than to put a bunch of prompts into Maya, and have it spit out a beautifully designed model of whatever I want. Or effects in houdini etc. etc.

I'm kind of surprised to hear it turned into a vicious argument... maybe I'm just mellowed out these days. I can't imagine furiously typing with a vein popping out of my head because someone thinks AI may or may not surpass the average writer one day.

I disagree. Theoretically I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible for a complex enough algorithm to place certain scenarios, character archetypes, plot events, etc. in the proper order such that it would elicit an emotional reaction from actual people. I mean, that’s basically just what we do ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously. 

I don’t think what we humans do is necessarily unique. To the extent that it is, it’s only unique in that we’re the only ones who can do it so far. It’s not hard to imagine a world where AI gets advanced enough to replicate it, and you yourself seem to acknowledge this possibility in the title of this post (hence the “at least not in our lifetimes” part, implying that there’s nothing fundamental about this difference and it’s only a matter of time). Having acknowledged this, the argument isn’t really about whether or not this can happen, but when, and though I’ll admit that’s a hard thing to predict, I don’t think it’s completely out of the question that we could live through such a transition considering how technology has been advancing exponentially in the modern age.

This all isn’t to say that I support AI art. Honestly, it seems like a complete nightmare technology in our current system. But in a more fundamental sense, I would say that, while humans aren’t unique in what we do, we are unique in what we are; that is, human, a particular species of creature with a particular language and context and interrelation that needs to be experienced to be truly understood. I think AI art could create representations of this experience, but I also think that people will broadly feel hollow with the knowledge that those experiences are being created by something which does not feel as we do, an empty machine. Even if the technique is perfect, the mere knowledge of artificiality will induce an uncanny valley effect, at least in my opinion. In that case, the difficulty for AI art would be more a PR hump outside the text rather than anything wrong about the text itself. Those who own the tool would have to either hide the fact that it’s being used or show it off as a gimmick or try to justify it by some market optimizing argument that might convince everyone to accept it for certain uses but not for others. Ultimately I think human art will always be respected more, if only because people seem to have a natural inclination to want to put a name next to someone’s work; people want to know that the things they feel are also being felt by others.

JR Wrote: I disagree. Theoretically I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible for a complex enough algorithm to place certain scenarios, character archetypes, plot events, etc. in the proper order such that it would elicit an emotional reaction from actual people. I mean, that’s basically just what we do ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously. 

I don’t think what we humans do is necessarily unique. To the extent that it is, it’s only unique in that we’re the only ones who can do it so far. It’s not hard to imagine a world where AI gets advanced enough to replicate it, and you yourself seem to acknowledge this possibility in the title of this post (hence the “at least not in our lifetimes” part, implying that there’s nothing fundamental about this difference and it’s only a matter of time). Having acknowledged this, the argument isn’t really about whether or not this can happen, but when, and though I’ll admit that’s a hard thing to predict, I don’t think it’s completely out of the question that we could live through such a transition considering how technology has been advancing exponentially in the modern age.

This all isn’t to say that I support AI art. Honestly, it seems like a complete nightmare technology in our current system. But in a more fundamental sense, I would say that, while humans aren’t unique in what we do, we are unique in what we are; that is, human, a particular species of creature with a particular language and context and interrelation that needs to be experienced to be truly understood. I think AI art could create representations of this experience, but I also think that people will broadly feel hollow with the knowledge that those experiences are being created by something which does not feel as we do, an empty machine. Even if the technique is perfect, the mere knowledge of artificiality will induce an uncanny valley effect, at least in my opinion. In that case, the difficulty for AI art would be more a PR hump outside the text rather than anything wrong about the text itself. Those who own the tool would have to either hide the fact that it’s being used or show it off as a gimmick or try to justify it by some market optimizing argument that might convince everyone to accept it for certain uses but not for others. Ultimately I think human art will always be respected more, if only because people seem to have a natural inclination to want to put a name next to someone’s work; people want to know that the things they feel are also being felt by others.

I actually don't think it ever will. I just think that if it does, it won't be in our lifetime.

I don't see how an AI could generate an interesting plot with believably human characters over the course of several-hundred pages without having a genuine understanding of human emotion and feeling. And I think for that to happen we would first have to unlock and learn how the human brain works.

As a writer I certainly hope not.  There is enough competition already. 

But at the rate technology is progressing?  I wouldn't completely rule it out.  If you told people 50 years ago of some of the stuff technology can do today they might not believe you. Of course some stuff they did predict didn't come to pass either.  

Parogar Wrote: I got into a vicious argument in a friend's discord. It was me vs. everyone. People seem to think that because AI can generate realistic, human-looking text, that it's "only a matter of time" before we can press a button and have a compelling novel spat out. None of these people are writers, mind you.

Fundamentally, I do not disagree that an AI can spit out 500 pages of "something." But to actually create a book of that length that even a single person would enjoy, it requires humanity. AI can't understand human emotion or human thought. It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why. This makes it impossible to actually connect with a reader or create a character anyone would care about or remember.

I was thinking the same about AI art this April when Wombo's scrambled color collections were at the industry's top. Now, just over 6 months later, we have near-perfect AI art.

Will it take a while until we will get long-form generation? Yes. Token limits are hitting hard. Will it take more than a decade? No way in hell. Give it a few more years.

Buller Wrote:

Parogar Wrote: I got into a vicious argument in a friend's discord. It was me vs. everyone. People seem to think that because AI can generate realistic, human-looking text, that it's "only a matter of time" before we can press a button and have a compelling novel spat out. None of these people are writers, mind you.

Fundamentally, I do not disagree that an AI can spit out 500 pages of "something." But to actually create a book of that length that even a single person would enjoy, it requires humanity. AI can't understand human emotion or human thought. It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why. This makes it impossible to actually connect with a reader or create a character anyone would care about or remember.

I was thinking the same about AI art this April when Wombo's scrambled color collections were at the industry's top. Now, just over 6 months later, we have near-perfect AI art.

Will it take a while until we will get long-form generation? Yes. Token limits are hitting hard. Will it take more than a decade? No way in hell. Give it a few more years.

To be clear, I'm not saying AI in a few years won't be able to spit out a "story."

But anything that would be even remotely enjoyable even to the least picky reader? Virtually impossible.

AI will just create a story: literally that. A happens. B happens. C happens. Etc.

It will not create believably convincing characters that grow over time. It won't satisfy a single person.

And I highly doubt it ever will.

Think about the best character you've ever read in a book: your absolute favorite.

You think an AI is going to auto generate that in an instant? And have it be consistent throughout an entire book?

I for one welcome our AI overlords and want them to know there are rebellious humans hiding under the sewers.

Parogar Wrote: Think about the best character you've ever read in a book: your absolute favorite.

You think an AI is going to auto generate that in an instant? And have it be consistent throughout an entire book?

Yes. There is 0 chance of it happening with current tech
But that's the fun thing about tech over time. It improves

Parogar Wrote: It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why.

To be brutally honest, that's pretty much what 90% of the authors out there are doing right now,

AIs ALREADY produce novels a normal person cannot distinguish from works of an average-level author.  Where they can't compete is in novel imaginative works that make up most Fantasy or Science Fiction.  AIs are especially good at Historical Romance novels, from what I've heard, as they can just plug and paste in most content and use well-established plot lines.

I glanced over the first letter in the title and thought: "well... that's depressing".

As a writer who plays with text generation models, I disagree. It is possible right now.

By default, a text AI will usually go ballistic if you just use some short prompt and no dataset.

However, it is possible for AI to write an entire novel that is perfectly readable and entertaining. By using mask function in GPT-2 model, carefully constructed prompts, and balanced settings, you can create a skeleton that the AI will flesh out without straying off too much.

While the result is barely decent, this is what anyone can do in Google Colab. A trained model and more complex framework would print out something way better, and people are already working on that. You can check out the writing AI sites and see for yourself that they're pretty good.

Parogar Wrote:

Buller Wrote:

Parogar Wrote: I got into a vicious argument in a friend's discord. It was me vs. everyone. People seem to think that because AI can generate realistic, human-looking text, that it's "only a matter of time" before we can press a button and have a compelling novel spat out. None of these people are writers, mind you.

Fundamentally, I do not disagree that an AI can spit out 500 pages of "something." But to actually create a book of that length that even a single person would enjoy, it requires humanity. AI can't understand human emotion or human thought. It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why. This makes it impossible to actually connect with a reader or create a character anyone would care about or remember.

I was thinking the same about AI art this April when Wombo's scrambled color collections were at the industry's top. Now, just over 6 months later, we have near-perfect AI art.

Will it take a while until we will get long-form generation? Yes. Token limits are hitting hard. Will it take more than a decade? No way in hell. Give it a few more years.

To be clear, I'm not saying AI in a few years won't be able to spit out a "story."

But anything that would be even remotely enjoyable even to the least picky reader? Virtually impossible.

AI will just create a story: literally that. A happens. B happens. C happens. Etc.

It will not create believably convincing characters that grow over time. It won't satisfy a single person.

And I highly doubt it ever will.

I think you're wrong. I would say that most authors have the same issues you brought up. It's really only a handful that ever rises about a niche audience. The only reason there isn't AI already writing novels better than most on this site is that nobody has pushed the concept yet. There are already examples of AI-generated stories. And like most things at the start, the AI got them wildly wrong. You feed enough content into an AI, and it will spit back a generic story that some people will enjoy. I mean people enjoyed 50-shades of Grey for god sake.

Ralen Wrote:

Parogar Wrote: It only spits out text based on data samples but without any deeper understanding of what it's spitting out or why.

To be brutally honest, that's pretty much what 90% of the authors out there are doing right now,

The reader doesn't know what the author means and they simply 'imagine' there to be some grand scheme. The sense of there being something more doesn't require there to be something more. It's the writer's version of a fake road painted on a wall. Why are we thinking that AI can't copy that? Since it's a mainstay, there's plenty for an algo to learn from.

I strongly disagree, as both a writer and someone who is in this area of research

I think AI art generation and text generation is pretty primitive right now. And current systems won't necessarily solve their shortcomings, though they can scale up to something pretty impressive with more computing power. I think it will take a few fundamental breakthroughs in research to bring AI up to the level of a human writer writing a novel from scratch, and the rate at which those breakthroughs occur can be difficult to predict. 

But I don't think it is impossible whatsoever. In fact, I think the breakthroughs that are necessary to occur are likely to be easier to come by than, say, breakthroughs in things like extreme physics. I think within 30 years it's going to be a very real debate whether there is anything at all humans can do that a machine cannot. 

I think there's always going to be a bias towards buying from a person rather than a machine. People naturally feel drawn to others. It's like if I offered you the choice between two identical pairs of shoes that were the exact same price. There's A: which was designed and made by machines or B, which were hand-crafted by a man with thirty years of experience and was taught everything he knew by his father.

You could also run the "AI are taking over" to infinity. If you can get AI advanced enough to create compelling stories then how long before they are indistinguishable from a human? How long before they become superior to humans? At that point there'd be AI teachers teaching our kids or AI friends for them. People would have AI romantic partners and so on.

I'm still in the wait and see camp. Usually technological innovation and automation has only been a good thing for people.

InfantryTerminator Wrote: As a writer who plays with text generation models, I disagree. It is possible right now.

By default, a text AI will usually go ballistic if you just use some short prompt and no dataset.

However, it is possible for AI to write an entire novel that is perfectly readable and entertaining. By using mask function in GPT-2 model, carefully constructed prompts, and balanced settings, you can create a skeleton that the AI will flesh out without straying off too much.

While the result is barely decent, this is what anyone can do in Google Colab. A trained model and more complex framework would print out something way better, and people are already working on that. You can check out the writing AI sites and see for yourself that they're pretty good.

We're talking snippets barely a page long. AI can't generate a full plot because it uses a probabilistic model. It doesn't actually understand cause and effect. Without the ability to think like a human being or to feel like a human being or imagine like a human being, it simply lacks the ability to make the connections between objects and things necessary to make a coherent novel several-hundred pages long.

As far as I know, and I don’t know that much, some Ais can already pass the Turing test today. The test works by chatting with one AI and one person at the same time, and your goal is to tell which is which. If you can’t tell the difference, the AI passed the test. The way Ais do this is by looking at every conversation on the internet and formulating proper responses. You can say that it’s cheating, it’s not having an original thought, and you would be right. But! You can say the same thing about humans. From the moment we are born, we start learning proper responses to various stimuli, what is right and what is wrong, how should we respond and react. All very complicated and on a much larger scale than what Ais do and very philosophical. If you want to read some disturbing stuff, look up feral children. Barking, chirping and clucking, they behave like animals they were raised with. Can’t speak and in some cases can’t even learn to speak later on. Really horrific stuff.
 
The point of this is that Ais don’t need to understand human behavior in order to fool humans. They don’t need to understand emotions or feelings. What they need is enough data sets and processing power. Event A leads to B, B leads to C, C to D and so on.
 
Let’s focus on this site and ask a question. How many novels on this site are truly original? Have a unique structure, unique characters, and unique plot points. I would say none of them. The reason is simple. The authors read other stories and used those stories and their own experiences to create something new. It’s debatable how new those stories are if they are inspired by existing stories.
 
You can still say that without understanding human emotions, you won’t be able to write proper human responses. Let’s think about that. I’ve never killed another human in my life, so how could I write a reaction to that act? Well, I would look at how other people reacted in both stories and real life and write based on that. What is preventing an AI from doing the same thing? Absolutely nothing.
 
Well, you can say that you need to give the AI instructions. Again, humans need those as well. You don’t just wish for a story and it appears magically in front of you. You think about the setting, genre, who the protagonist and the antagonist are, what are their motivations and backstories, the world, plot points, key events, etc.
 
Are Ais going to start writing the best stories every seen? Probably not. Are Ais going to write stories that humans won’t be able to tell are written by Ais? Yes. There are stories on this site written by humans that would embarrass the Ais if they could feel anything.