I’m not sure what the purpose of this post was, but I hope you never submit these for publication anywhere. As literature, they do not even rise to the level of “bad”.
This is rude critique. You may be right, but the same can be said without expressing impingement on anothers’ agency. Simply express what effect the writing had on your own agency. Ideally, also express something about what would have changed your review.
I don’t know what your reference to “agency” means, but my critique was certainly blunt.
What would have changed my review? Well, if these stories had not been written, I would not have commented on them. Short of that, I can only gesture at the leaden prose, the telling without ever showing, the excessive adjectives and adverbs, the concluding paragraph of each one hammering on the intended moral, and the generally porridgey feeling. I expect that for these reasons any editor dealing with such a story would instantly reject it with no more than a form letter.
Of course, these are standard faults of all of GPT’s prose. GPT writes stories the same way it writes non-fiction: like a high-school essay. Nowadays that instantly identifies it as such, giving further reason to reject it and any future submission from the same person. That is the policy of the first magazine whose author guidelines I just looked up (“Analog”): “We will not consider any submissions written, developed, or assisted by [AI] tools. Attempting to submit these works may result in being banned from submitting works in the future.”
The current state of the art in GPTs is that its fiction is trash, its factual writing is pedestrian, unreliable, and badly sourced (if at all), its conversation is on the level of an NPC (which is literally what it is), and its poetry is doggerel.
ETA: I wonder if the acronym NPC (Non-Player Character) should receive a new expansion: Non-Person Character.
ETA2: I have not voted on the post (which currently stands at −6), because as I said earlier, I do not know what the writer’s intention for it was.
Sounded okay to me, except that it (the first iteration) ended where I expected the real story to start.
I do not want LW to become a website for GPT-generated fiction, regardless of quality. But this one actually has an interesting point (the two different levels of “bit flip”).
ChatGPT: Sure, here’s an example of a classic “Dad joke”:
Why don’t scientists trust atoms?
Because they make up everything!
Me: Give me five more.
ChatGPT: Sure, here are five more examples of “Dad jokes”:
I’m reading a book on the history of glue. I just can’t seem to put it down.
Why did the tomato turn red? Because it saw the salad dressing!
What do you call an alligator in a vest? An investigator.
I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.
I’m on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it.
Yes, those are competent “Dad jokes”. That’s about the level of competence of the current LLMs.
ETA: In fact, every one of these occurs verbatim on the net already, so it didn’t even invent them. I tried asking it to make up a completely new one, but after three failed attempts I gave up.
Me: I’m going to tell you a short story. I’ll indicate where it begins and ends. What I want you to do is write the reply an editor of a fiction magazine might write in response to receiving this story as a submission.
Here is the story:
[First story of the OP inserted here.]
That is the end of the story.
As an editor of a fiction magazine that this story was submitted to, decide whether you would publish it and give your reasons, in the form of a reply to the author. Whether you accept it or reject it, your reply should be specific about the aspects of the story that led you to your decision.
ChatGPT:
Dear Author,
Thank you for submitting your story, “Lucas’s Choice,” to our fiction magazine. While your story has some interesting elements, unfortunately, we cannot accept it for publication at this time.
The story begins with an engaging premise—a young man is given a choice between two very different paths in life. However, the story’s pacing and development falter after this point. The protagonist’s decision to enter the virtual world is sudden and lacks sufficient reasoning or character development. Similarly, his later decision to enter the darker realm feels underdeveloped and lacks a clear resolution.
Additionally, while the theme of exploring one’s desires and the consequences of those actions is intriguing, the story’s execution is lacking in depth and nuance. The exploration of Lucas’s emotions and inner conflicts could benefit from more detail and insight.
In conclusion, we appreciate the effort you put into your story and encourage you to continue developing your writing skills. We wish you the best of luck in your future writing endeavors.
Sincerely,
[Editor’s Name]
That actually makes good points, as far as it goes, which is a great deal farther than any real rejection letter would. For writers who resort to LLMs to write beyond their own ability to write, it might be useful to also use them to judge the result beyond their own ability to judge.
Perhaps someone should set up a fully automated fiction website, where authors can submit their stories, those are judged by GPT, and published if approved. The authors would use GPT to generate the stories, and… uhm… Singularity. Or rather, sweet AdSense money.
I’m not sure what the purpose of this post was, but I hope you never submit these for publication anywhere. As literature, they do not even rise to the level of “bad”.
This is rude critique. You may be right, but the same can be said without expressing impingement on anothers’ agency. Simply express what effect the writing had on your own agency. Ideally, also express something about what would have changed your review.
I don’t know what your reference to “agency” means, but my critique was certainly blunt.
What would have changed my review? Well, if these stories had not been written, I would not have commented on them. Short of that, I can only gesture at the leaden prose, the telling without ever showing, the excessive adjectives and adverbs, the concluding paragraph of each one hammering on the intended moral, and the generally porridgey feeling. I expect that for these reasons any editor dealing with such a story would instantly reject it with no more than a form letter.
Of course, these are standard faults of all of GPT’s prose. GPT writes stories the same way it writes non-fiction: like a high-school essay. Nowadays that instantly identifies it as such, giving further reason to reject it and any future submission from the same person. That is the policy of the first magazine whose author guidelines I just looked up (“Analog”): “We will not consider any submissions written, developed, or assisted by [AI] tools. Attempting to submit these works may result in being banned from submitting works in the future.”
The current state of the art in GPTs is that its fiction is trash, its factual writing is pedestrian, unreliable, and badly sourced (if at all), its conversation is on the level of an NPC (which is literally what it is), and its poetry is doggerel.
ETA: I wonder if the acronym NPC (Non-Player Character) should receive a new expansion: Non-Person Character.
ETA2: I have not voted on the post (which currently stands at −6), because as I said earlier, I do not know what the writer’s intention for it was.
Sounded okay to me, except that it (the first iteration) ended where I expected the real story to start.
I do not want LW to become a website for GPT-generated fiction, regardless of quality. But this one actually has an interesting point (the two different levels of “bit flip”).
Yes, those are competent “Dad jokes”. That’s about the level of competence of the current LLMs.
ETA: In fact, every one of these occurs verbatim on the net already, so it didn’t even invent them. I tried asking it to make up a completely new one, but after three failed attempts I gave up.
I asked ChatGPT to write a review.
[First story of the OP inserted here.]
That actually makes good points, as far as it goes, which is a great deal farther than any real rejection letter would. For writers who resort to LLMs to write beyond their own ability to write, it might be useful to also use them to judge the result beyond their own ability to judge.
Perhaps someone should set up a fully automated fiction website, where authors can submit their stories, those are judged by GPT, and published if approved. The authors would use GPT to generate the stories, and… uhm… Singularity. Or rather, sweet AdSense money.
This is a splendid idea.