A.I. M.E.? — James McLeod

On the 1st of October 1950, Alan Turing published an article in the philosophical journal Mind, in which he proposed a test designed to answer the question, ‘Can Machines Think’.

The question was clearly a response to the rapid development of computing and Turing’s involvement in the British code-cracking efforts of World War II. Yet, the ‘Turing Test’ or ‘Imitation Game’ as it came to be known, would become one of the most pertinent questions of computing for the next 70 years. Could a machine actually pass itself off as a human when interacting with an actual human?

Many efforts to create a machine that could do just that were attempted over the next half-century, and some even claimed success, though these programs were often heavily flawed and required excuses to be made for them, for example that they were a human ESL speaker, or a human with psychological issues.

It wasn’t until March of this year however, that a study evaluating the newest kid on the block, LLMs (or Large Language Models) provided ‘the first empirical evidence that any artificial system [had passed] a standard three-party Turing Test.’

Big news to some, perhaps. But to anyone who has been paying attention, no surprise, really. As with most of the tech-generation, I’ve been using ChatGPT for over two years now and long ago recognised its potential for human-like discourse.

The problem, of course, is that once something becomes human-like, it can be abused, and ChatGPT has turned into the perfect cheating device.

I’m an avid reader and in the last year alone, I’ve encountered almost a dozen books written (I’m relatively sure) entirely by ChatGPT or a similar technology. How do I know? There are a number of signs, from incoherence and contradiction, to that ‘GPT’-like lack of personality and formulaic structure. In short, I’ve had that many conversations with the machine that, ironically, I’ve become rather good at picking it out.

The situation isn’t good. Navigating online bookstores has become a minefield, with material devoid of intent, passion, or responsibility deluging the literary world. It’s become the latest trend to become an ‘author’ by using these technologies. In fact, some services even encourage it.

Sudowrite, a platform which touts itself as ’The AI tool with unparallelled story smarts’ will generate a full, multi-chapter book for you with just a few prompts. In their words, you can ’Write a novel from start to finish. In a week.’

When confronted with all this, I sometimes feel dejected. After all, it’s taken a lifetime to learn and hone my skills as an author. My latest book alone has taken 4 years to write, and this industry, which was already difficult to crack into and survive in, is now steadily filling up with noise and trash.

A faint hope remains that this is just a trend and that, like image generation, people will soon see that all these creations, while superficially flashy, lack soul and provide no basis for contemplation. Services may lure many in with promises of becoming ‘an artist’ or ‘an author’ or ‘a songwriter’, but their creations will impart no learnings, nor skills, nor true agency, nor real reward. The reader gains no true insight nor inspiration, while the user remains just that, wholly relient on another to produce anything. The hard truth is that to call yourself an author or songwriter or artist, you have to learn. To develop a craft using the blob in your own noggin and the limbs you posess.

Some years ago when this new technology was emerging, I stated that I would never use it to generate ideas nor content for any of my stories. And I stick to that. So if you read my books, rest assured you will get a 100% human-brain generated story, written by me.

Perhaps they’ll be imperfect, but I believe that’s part of the value of human-made works, whether art or music or prose. Humanness is inherently imperfect. And though we may eventually read books written by AI authors and watch AI standup-comics on stage, true stories come from human experiences, from flaws and failures and learnings, rather than perfection and dazzle. In short, real story is the product of a particular author, uniquely told.