Benny The Blue Whale - A novel written with AI and the author's interrogation of its processes

An in-depth review of Andy Stanton's 'descent into story, language and the madness of ChatGPT' in his book "Benny The Blue Whale'.
What AI can and caan't do, it's limits, its (programmed) biases, how novels work, organic language versus programmed language remixing and whether a novel produced by Chat GPT could pass the Turing test.

[@tomlabooks3263]

Such an intriguing experiment. No expert here either, but there’s something very crucial that people don’t seem to wrap their head around: the speed at which AI is developing makes saying “ChatGPT can’t do this or that” an obsolete statement in about a month. Focusing on what it can’t do well now doesn’t really matter. What we should focus on is what it will be able to do in 2 years. 2 years is nothing, and yet in 2 years all AI’s (not only ChatGPT) will be able to write full novels, and fairly good ones. In 5 years, those novels will be good. There really isn’t any other possible outcome, one year more, one year less, unless a global catastrophe halts the tech development. From my perspective, I don’t see why this 2 and 5 years scenarios are difficult to imagine or predict, although it seems like it is for many people, especially for those who look for the “limits” of AI. It’s like asking a newborn to lift a small weight and then laugh when it cannot do it.

[@jf8559]

Fascinating discussion Marc! Thank you for your analysis and observations. I take TomLA’s point down below but it’s the fundamental lack of humanity and the creative ways that we express our humanity that seems an obstacle ChatGPT/AI will never overcome. Happy New Year to you too!

[@SpringboardThought]

Is pretty fascinating. It absolutely does sound sociopathic. Which is even more interesting to me because of the constraints placed on it and how it was programmed. I would hope the general public has come along enough to dispel the notion of machines being completely unbiased, but on all corners, you tend to be surprised by how little has been absorbed into the general intellect.

[@bbbartolo]

Off-topic here, but did others call your attention to Bookish's recommendation of your latest? Bookish:: "... I think Death of the Author in triplicate would be a great intro to Marc’s work. It is stylish and funny and full of ideas." His more detailed description sounds like it's right down my alley.

[@MarcNash]

I did see he'd put it in his top 10 reads of the year thanks Bartolo. Most gratifying!

[@guitaoist]

This is as interesting as it is terrifying. Though i personally feel we need to keep the humanity in art instead of experiment with robots’ abilities. What morals can they teach us? What lessons can inanimate beings provide us? And what spiritual connection does this provide other than a “fun” hobby?

[@bluewordsme2]

great and fascinating vid Marc...I cant remember if we discuss this on our walk, but i've played with ChatGPT a bunch of times out of curiosity and also as an exercise to try undermine the soulessness of it...with poetry, it is absolutely insipid and moronic....and all the forms of the poems it creates are teenagerish cliched versions of tradition forms...it loves sonnets by the way, fuck me ;) ...i'll give you and example, i just use it while watching your vid ....i used two of my own lines from a poem and offered this prompt: "B You: write a two stanza poem about death with the following lines: my cowlicked body hung waiting for an afternoon snack, revelry an itch that moved through a spectrum of light ....ChatGPT: In shadows cast by the setting sun, my cowlicked body hung, Awaiting fate's sweet rendezvous, an afternoon snack, revelry begun. A dance with destiny, a waltz with time, in twilight's gentle embrace, Silhouetted against the canvas of dusk, I lingered in the quiet grace. An itch, a whisper through the spectrum of light, Death's caress, a transition, a celestial flight. As shadows deepen and the sun retreats, I surrender to the unknown, where earthly pulse meets cosmic beats.

[@bluewordsme2]

so it took my two lines and then ended up with cliche and meaningless 'shadows deepen' "earthly pulse meets cosmic beats', etc.....incidently, the two lines i fed into the GPT, were from my recent poem White Socks.....anyway....i think i'll order Andy's book....and the two russians you were thinking of (that we discussed) is Ilf & Petrov.....and guess what, coming at the end of January, this time, you'll get to meet my wife....anyway, looking forward to your end-of-the-year review.....lovely watch Marc....see ya soon, bb

[@bluewordsme2]

, and bless Andy for putting up and patient enough to deal with the tedium of Chatgpt...each time i played with it, it get frustrated with it its robotic inability to 'imagine' beautiful language...and that is just it isnt it?...language is gorgeous in the head and heart of a writer because real language and real metaphor comes from more than just a sling of text...but an infernal combination of music and sound and shadow/light of word and form and meaning, just just words, but the ghost inside the words.....what worries me is that increasingly publishers will just use ai writers and not pay us....which is why i will always stay with indies....anyway, they'll never wrest the pen from the maze of our minds.....bb

[@BookishTexan]

Good news for fiction writers. I guess I should switch from non-fiction 🤓

[@guitaoist]

“Labor saving device” aka a lazy persons cure for using their own brain