By Michael McKown, human writer
Me: Write one paragraph to open a story about ChatGPT’s writing ability as compared to a human writer.
ChatGPT: In a quiet corner of a bustling café, a writer sat hunched over a laptop, furiously typing away, as the hum of conversation swirled around her. She had been stuck on the same paragraph for hours, the words refusing to flow no matter how hard she tried. Nearby, another screen glowed — this one belonging to ChatGPT, the latest marvel of artificial intelligence. With a few clicks and a prompt, it effortlessly conjured sentences, weaving stories and crafting dialogues with a speed and fluidity that was almost unnerving. But as she looked at the text on the screen, the writer couldn’t help but wonder: Could this machine, with all its algorithms and data, ever capture the raw, messy, and beautifully human spark that made stories come alive?
Me: In short, game over, the bot wins. Or maybe not. Can ChatGPT write a human’s memoir?
ChatGPT: Yes, ChatGPT can help write a person’s memoir! However, it’s important to note that a memoir is a deeply personal account of someone’s life, and while ChatGPT can assist with structure, style, and generating content, the most authentic and meaningful memoirs come from the individual’s own experiences, emotions, and voice.
Here’s how ChatGPT can assist with writing a memoir:
- Organizing the Structure: ChatGPT can help outline the memoir, suggesting different ways to structure the chapters (chronologically, thematically, etc.), and helping decide what to include based on the key moments of the person’s life.
- Developing Content: ChatGPT can help flesh out specific events, turning bullet points or ideas into full paragraphs. It can also assist with descriptions, dialogue, and reflective insights that bring the story to life.
- Writing Prompts: If the person feels stuck or unsure of what to include, ChatGPT can provide writing prompts or questions to help spark memories and reflection.
- Tone and Voice: ChatGPT can assist in finding a tone and writing style that matches the individual’s voice, whether it’s conversational, introspective, humorous, or dramatic.
- Editing and Polishing: After a draft is written, ChatGPT can help refine the prose, check for clarity, consistency, and grammatical correctness.
While ChatGPT can provide guidance, ideas, and writing support, a memoir’s authenticity comes from the person’s personal perspective. It would still be up to the individual to reflect on their life, contribute real-life details, and ensure the story resonates with their true experiences and feelings.
If you’re interested, I can help you get started by asking a few questions and then crafting a segment of your memoir. Would you like to begin?
Me: No. Although I’m 78 years old, nothing interesting ever happened in my life, so I’ll pass. When writing for publication, how does ChatGPT avoid plagiarism?
ChatGPT: When writing for publication, ChatGPT avoids plagiarism in several key ways:
- Original Content Generation: ChatGPT does not copy and paste from specific sources. Instead, it generates responses based on patterns, structures, and knowledge learned during training from diverse publicly available sources. It doesn’t retain specific documents or texts and doesn’t have access to proprietary or non-public databases unless explicitly provided by the user.
- Knowledge Synthesis: The model synthesizes knowledge based on its training, which includes a wide array of topics. This allows ChatGPT to produce unique content by combining ideas, facts, and perspectives from different sources without directly copying them.
- No Direct Quoting: Unless the user provides a specific quote or text, ChatGPT does not include direct citations or proprietary excerpts in its responses. If the user requests a quote, it will be presented with proper attribution, and it’s up to the user to ensure the quote is accurately cited and used according to ethical standards.
- Avoiding Paraphrasing That Resembles Sources: ChatGPT’s responses aim to produce content that is distinct and not merely a rephrased version of a specific source’s text. However, it can generate content that may be similar to commonly known facts, as these are not considered plagiarized.
- Encouragement of Proper Citation: If asked to include information from a specific source or to incorporate well-known research or quotes, ChatGPT encourages users to cite these sources properly. This is particularly important for academic writing or any other publication requiring attribution.
User Responsibility: The responsibility for checking for plagiarism, ensuring proper citations, and adhering to publishing guidelines rests with the user. If you’re using content generated by ChatGPT, it’s advisable to run the text through plagiarism detection software and make necessary edits before publishing. By creating original content based on its training data and providing helpful suggestions for proper attribution, ChatGPT helps users produce content that respects intellectual property rights.
Me: Nevertheless, OpenAI (which owns ChatGPT) is getting sued by many organizations, including the New York Times, for copyright infringement. How effective is ChatGPT at storytelling?
ChatGPT is quite effective at storytelling, especially when given clear direction, context, and style preferences. It can generate compelling narratives, create engaging characters, and develop intricate plots. Here’s an overview of its strengths and limitations in storytelling:
Strengths:
- Creativity: ChatGPT can come up with imaginative ideas, plot twists, and scenarios. It excels at brainstorming and generating fresh, unexpected narratives based on prompts.
- Character Development: ChatGPT can create rich, multidimensional characters with distinct voices, motivations, and conflicts. It can also help you build detailed backstories for characters.
- Consistency: When given the proper guidelines, ChatGPT can maintain consistency in terms of plot, character arcs, and settings over longer sections of a story.
- Adapting to Style: You can request a specific writing style—whether it’s formal, humorous, suspenseful, or poetic—and ChatGPT can adjust its tone and language to suit your needs.
- Speed and Productivity: ChatGPT can write quickly, which is useful for generating drafts or overcoming writer’s block. It can also rewrite and refine sections as needed.
- Versatility: Whether you want a short story, a novel excerpt, or a children’s story, ChatGPT can adapt to different genres (fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance, etc.).
Limitations:
- Lack of True Emotion: While ChatGPT can simulate emotional depth and write stories with emotional arcs, it doesn’t experience emotions itself, so some readers may feel that the writing lacks a certain level of genuine human emotion. The emotional resonance depends on the quality of input and how well the prompt is constructed.
- Complexity in Long Narratives: For very long stories (novels, for example), ChatGPT might struggle with maintaining deep continuity over chapters, ensuring character consistency, or sustaining complex, multi-layered plots without occasional lapses in focus.
- Predictability: While ChatGPT can generate original ideas, sometimes it can follow conventional patterns, especially when working with limited prompts. This can lead to predictable or cliché storylines, though these can be adjusted with more specific or unique guidance.
- Understanding of Nuance: ChatGPT may not always fully grasp subtle cultural, emotional, or contextual nuances that a human storyteller might. It’s good at the surface-level plot and character work but can occasionally miss deeper, intricate layers.
- Depth of Analysis: While ChatGPT can develop characters and themes, it may not always produce the same level of introspective or philosophical depth as a seasoned human writer might.
Me: Write a funny poem about a woman living in poverty with 3 children, whose alcoholic husband divorced her, her car won’t start, but she recently inherited half a million dollars.
ChatGPT: Sure! Here’s a funny poem that touches on the situation you described with a lighthearted tone:
“The Million-Dollar Wake-Up Call”
Janet’s life was far from grand,
Three kids, no car, and a husband’s hand —
That hand was often holding beer,
While Janet just tried to persevere.
Her house was small, the roof leaked rain,
Her ex was gone, still numb with pain.
The car, poor thing, just wouldn’t start,
And the bills piled up, breaking her heart.
Then one day, out of the blue,
A lawyer called, said, “I’ve got news!”
“Half a million dollars, Janet dear,
It’s yours now, don’t you fear!”
Janet blinked, thought, “Is this a dream?”
But the check was real, a shiny gleam.
She stared at it, eyes open wide,
Wondering where the catch would hide.
The kids ran in, “What’s the deal, Mom?”
She held the check up like a charm:
“I’m rich, my dears, we’ll be alright!
No more frozen pizza every night!”
But first, the car, she had to try,
To start it up, give it a fly.
She turned the key with all her might,
And out came a screech that gave her a fright.
“Great,” she groaned, “It’s still a bust,
But at least we’re eating something we trust!”
The kids cheered loud, “Does that mean cake?
Or a vacation by the lake?”
So while her ex might still be drinking,
Janet’s out there happily thinking:
“Who needs him, and who needs a car?
I’ve got half a million—I’m a star!”
This poem takes a humorous approach, showing how Janet is dealing with the chaos of life, and her unexpected windfall, with a mix of humor and resilience.
Me: Can ChatGPT write text that can’t be identified as being A.I. generated?
ChatGPT can certainly write text that may appear indistinguishable from human-written content, especially in shorter or less complex forms. It can generate well-structured, grammatically correct, and coherent pieces of writing across various styles and topics. However, while it can mimic human language very effectively, there are still some subtle indicators that might make text identifiable as AI-generated:
1. Lack of Deep Personal Experience:
- AI lacks personal emotions or experiences, so the text may sometimes come across as overly neutral or lacking in depth when it comes to expressing subjective experiences or emotional insights. Human writing often has a more nuanced or deeply personal tone.
2. Consistency in Style:
- AI can maintain a consistent style, but it sometimes lacks the subtle variation in tone that a human writer might naturally incorporate, which can make it seem mechanical over longer texts. For example, a human writer might shift tone or rhythm to match a scene’s emotional progression, while AI might be more uniform.
3. Occasional Overuse of Certain Phrases or Patterns:
- Due to the way AI is trained, it can occasionally rely on certain structures or phrases that are common in the data it was trained on. These patterns might seem slightly repetitive or formulaic.
4. Lack of True Creativity:
- AI can generate original content within the confines of the input it’s given, but true creativity, like coming up with groundbreaking ideas or truly new ways of expressing things, is still difficult for it to achieve. So, while the text might be grammatically sound, it can sometimes lack a unique spark that would come from a human creator.
5. Errors in Complex Reasoning:
- While AI can handle straightforward tasks well, its ability to follow through on complex, multi-step reasoning or produce highly specialized content without errors can still be limited. Human writers, on the other hand, can more naturally follow through with intricate arguments or complex storytelling.
6. Subtle Repetitiveness:
- At times, AI might repeat itself unnecessarily within a longer piece of writing, especially if the prompts are not detailed enough. Humans, in contrast, tend to avoid such repetition unless it’s intentional for emphasis or style.
7. Inconsistencies in Facts or Details:
- AI can sometimes provide information that’s outdated or inconsistent with reality, as it lacks up-to-date access to information or a real-world context. Humans are more likely to fact-check or adjust their writing based on lived experience or current knowledge.
In summary, while ChatGPT can produce text that is highly convincing and may pass as human-generated in many cases, certain subtle patterns, like a lack of emotional depth or occasional repetitiveness, can sometimes reveal that it’s AI. However, with careful editing and personalization, it’s possible to make the text feel more human-like, blending the strengths of AI-generated writing with the authenticity of human touch.
Me: You said: “Could this machine, with all its algorithms and data, ever capture the raw, messy, and beautifully human spark that made stories come alive?” Can ChatGPT write fiction about those raw, messy, beautifully human things that violate its ethical guidelines?
ChatGPT: That’s an intriguing question. While ChatGPT can certainly craft stories that explore the complexities and emotions of the human experience — love, loss, joy, conflict, and personal growth — it does so within ethical boundaries. These boundaries are in place to ensure the stories remain respectful, thoughtful, and appropriate.
- In fiction, I can write about the “raw, messy, and beautiful human spark” in ways that don’t cross ethical lines. For example, I can explore difficult emotions like grief, regret, or struggle, but I must do so in ways that don’t glorify harmful behaviors, promote violence, or disrespect individuals or groups. The messiness of human experience often involves grappling with the very challenges that make us human, and while I can write about those struggles, I avoid celebrating harm or negativity.
Fiction can be a powerful tool for addressing human complexity, but even within creative works, I aim to provide narratives that inspire thought, understanding, and empathy rather than perpetuate harmful ideas. That said, I’m happy to help create stories that explore human depth — without crossing those ethical lines.
- If you’d like, I can help you craft a story that captures the messiness and beauty of being human, but stays within those respectful boundaries. Would you like me to try?
Me: No. Fiction within ethical guidelines? A.I. may put a lot of writers out of a job, but none of them will be named Quentin Tarantino or Stephen King.
For those who want to get down in the raw, messy and beautiful mud with an actual human scribe, Ghostwriters Central, Inc., can assist with your story without your having to tolerate a bot’s censorship. We’ve been in business since 2002. Find out about our fiction and non-fiction ghostwriting services right here. Thanks for reading.