(despite david simon being a shitlib)
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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I've heard some people say they like it as an idea generator like this but I just can't imagine being a self-respecting artist or professional writer and admitting that you use AI, even in that limited capacity. It's like admitting you've given up and would rather rewrite some bland statistically average slop in your own words than find any other way to get past a little bit of writers block (like say, taking a break. Who would want to take a break ever? And risk reducing my productivity? heresy to the neolib striver)
"what if we had a guy who was like 'im the ideas guy' but it was a shitty algorithm"
And even if you use it as an idea generator, the ideas you get are mediocre boring ideas. You never get something unique and interesting.
Mad Libs, but done by soulless techbro.
I remember trying it for some very basic TTRPG campaign prep and it gave me the most hokey by-the-numbers boring derivative shit I've ever seen. You have to keep in mind TTRPG writing is a genre of writing that mostly consists of ripping off books and movies you liked, anyway. And it couldn't even reach that very low bar. Genuinely concerned idea scroungers never heard of hitting the "random" button on TVTropes.
When I was GMing I really liked GPT-2 for just churning out some nonsense to fill in unimportant details on the fly while just riffing on ideas with my players to build sessions. Like sometimes I'd have a good idea for a run, and other times I'd just ask the players what sort of run they want and workshop ideas with them till we got an idea we liked, then I'd (openly) get some stilted and bizarre blurbs from GPT-2 to give a little backstory and flavor to that.
But that was also relying on how flawed and weird GPT-2 was and how well the absurdity of its gibbering meshed with the tone we were setting. I feel like if one were to try to use chatGPT for the same thing it would just be dull instead of producing entertainingly absurd nonsense.
It was useful to generate names for me, and also go more in depth about geography.
For the first I did things like: give me a list of fantasy names vaguely inspired by Ancient Greek/proto-IE/Sanskrit etc. Also based on characteristics, like “give me a name based in PIE that refers to black beard/holy land etc.”.
For the second I did things like explain vaguely the geographical characteristics for an area, then ask if that is realistic and how the climate and biosphere would look like taking x, y or z into account.
It worked… ok-ish.
For the first it made up a lot of fake shit. I even went on some rabbit holes asking for sources and finding some, in like French from 50 years ago, or not finding it at all.
For the second, I honestly don’t know. It was convincing? I don’t know enough about geography to really know tho.
I imagine using it as an "idea generator" is more like a programmer's rubber duck. It's not actually giving you anything you'd use directly, it's a way to think out loud and maybe jog your memory, or potentially connect ideas you hadn't thought to connect.
It's trash as an idea generator.
The only useful thing I've gotten out of a (text) AI is asking it to guess functions of keyword mechanics in games. Like I was designing personality traits for AI leaders in a strategy game, and had a dozen bad candidates for "over produces defenses." So I told ChatGPT to try to guess the meanings of bunkerist, hoxhaist, prepper, turtle, protectionist, survivalist, isolationist, guardian. Which did narrow it down to bunkerist, turtle, and protectionist (note that this is literally wrong in the case of protectionist). Normally I'd try to poll a bunch of random people for this sort of thing, and try to avoid anyone who's trying to be clever. So it did save some work there.
It won't come up with anything useful going the other way around though ("list some possible names for traits of AI leaders in a strategy game"). Like I said, it doesn't work as an idea generator.
I guess in general it's probably useful if you're in a situation where you need to make sure your writing is very very clear. If ChatGPT can correctly summarize what you wrote, it's probably safe for people who are distracted or bad at reading or whatever.
I've looked into using it to save time, the way this interviewer recommends, and I must say "I would rather put a gun in my mouth" is a pretty accurate response to how it makes you feel as a writer. The only thing it is good for is when I'm feeling incompetent, I plug my ideas into an AI and the garbage it generates makes me feel way better about my own writing skills.
Fuck it, I'm going to give AI the W here. You read it here first folks! Making people feel better by being terrible is the first legitimate good use of AI I have heard yet.