AI and Literature (3):

The Anxiety of Irrelevance: The Novelist's Dilemma

Everyone knows that writing a novel is tough and writing a great novel is double-tough. Trying to write several great novels is a lifetime achievement and most of us don’t achieve it. If we are wise, we use the tools we can, and accept the support we need. That requires both agility and humility.

There are many reasons writing a great novel is tough and some of those reasons are obvious. Natural talent is real and not everyone has it. Some of us face bad luck (e.g. sick family members, hard times) and the journey ends before it properly begins. Others become sidetracked by what we euphemistically call "life." Still others find new kinds of love and commitment (and obligations) along the way and choose to abandon writing novels for the proverbial gelato.

And yet, some of us stick it out — as I have — and we're still going for it.

What is "it"?

For me, there are two answers. One is a way of living (not a "lifestyle" but a way of being in this one-and-only life) that has value in itself. The second are the benefits that come with success which I classifiy as wealth and glory. Some people aspire to fame but personally I find fame to be fickle and invasive and pointless as well as a bit juvenille for its lack of perspective.

As an aside: Take the case of Irving Wallace. A straw poll among my well-read friends proved that few had even heard of him and none had read him. (Obviously, Irving Wallace fans will be irate and think I need new friends).

Wallace wrote sixteen novels, seventeen non-fiction books and sold more than 250 million copies between 1959 and 1989. That's more than James Patterson and as many as J.R.R. Tolkien. None of us are going to sell 250 million books and even if you do, you'll be forgotten inside of fifty years.

Trust me, forget the fame.

Meanwhile, back to the grind: We novelists have an odd profession. I have tried to describe it to friends and audiences this way: Imagine you’re a boxer and you’re in a ring and you’re getting pounded releventlessly like Rocky in all the movies before he turns it around; except that you're not sure you're going to turn it around because this is life not a Rocky movie.

You’re pounded by an industry that does not pay for your effort but only the results; pounded by publishers who are offering lower and lower advances because they can; by editors terrified of the far-right book burners and the far-left Woke mobs who can sink several years of effort and massive investments with a Tweet-storm.

You're hammered by caffine-addled, sugared-up, vitamin-D deficient critics who are paid next to nothing and have a day or two to read the book you spent a year or a decade writing.

And of course there are the Amazon reviewers who give it one star because it wasn't delivered fast enough.

Meanwhile, no one motivates us, no one is waiting for us to finish, and no one pays for that first draft of a new book; you only get paid if they like what you've already sunken your cost into (I'm sticking with "sunken").

That's the space.

Now imagine it’s your turn to punch back by publishing a new novel.

Here’s the part to remember: In the course of your entire career as a novelist you will likely get somewhere between one and dozen punches. If one of them doesn’t knock everyone and everything on its ass and turn the crowd in your favor, you're back to square one (i.e. survival against the ropes) and — unlike in Apollo 13 — failure is not only an option, it is the expected result.

A dozen novels doesn't sound like much but that is the reality with most of literary writers you know and love. Consider some award winners known to many English-language book readers. Yes, I'm cherry-picking these to support my argument but they are representative at scale and I chose them to represent the set not prove its existence:

Kazuo Ishiguro (Nobel Prize): 68 years old, 8 novels.

Richard Russo (Pulitzer Prize): 74 years old, 9 novels.

Hilary Mantel (Two Bookers): 70 years old, 10 novels.

Colson Whitehead (National Book Award, Pulitzer): 53 years old, 9 novels.

Marilynne Robinson: (Pulitzer, National Humanities Medal): 79 years old, 5 novels.

Margaret Atwood (Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Booker…): 83 years old, 18 novels.

All right, forget Margaret, but you see my point.

It's double-tough being a writer, the world is against you or apathetic, the financial and social pounding is brutal and releventless, and you need to take all that abuse while competing against the finest minds in the world.

In summary, trying to be a literary novelist in 2023 is a stupid life. It is, however, fun if you can pull it off.

Pulling it off requires an investment of time, energy, and resources. Let's discuss resources because a new one just entered the universe called Artificial Intelligence and writers are already using it though it feels like it's been here a month.

What is it and what does it do?

For people like me, AI is a brower-accessed tool. You can find different versions including, but not limited to, CHAT-GPT and CHAT-GPT 4 (which constitutes about fifty-percent of direct usage by writers), Bing, MS Bard, Grammerly, Pseudowrite and Jasper. My understanding is that — except for Bard — all are based on Chat-GPT.

The first lesson I learned from playing with ChatGPT for a while is that there is no roadmap for what it can do. You have to play with it to start finding the patterns and possibilities. Whereas a map has a legend and scale, and dictionary actually explains to you at the beginning what it's for and how it's to be used, ChatGPT does not.

To get started, you go to https://chat.openai.com in a browser and create a free account.

Now what?

You start taking to it like it's a person.

Long, long ago (about three months or so), we old-timers knew about the Turing Test. The Turing test is a benchmark for evaluating a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human. It involves a human evaluator engaging in natural language conversations with both a human and a machine. If the evaluator cannot consistently differentiate between the two, the machine is said to have passed the test.

Chat-GPT, as an advanced language model, has made significant strides in passing the Turing test and I would argue — as just another user — that it has. It can engage in coherent and contextually relevant conversations, generate human-like responses, and mimic a variety of personalities and styles. It leverages a vast corpus of knowledge and language patterns to produce convincing interactions, often leaving users unsure whether they are conversing with a human or an AI. The uncertainty is what convinces me that it has passed because — well — that’s what indistinguishable means.

It is uncanny. For those of us affected by gravity and time it is also unnerving.

Here's an example of a conversation I had with Chat-GPT, which was about using it as a tool to assist with writing novels. In this case, the act of conversing is informative but so too is the discussion itself.

I typed in, "Tell me ten of the best prompts to use to help a novelist come up with plot twists for novels."

This is what it wrote (unedited by me and I am going to start using these doubt brackets {{AI Generated Text}} for AI-written material as they don't seem to have much of a regular function):

{{Certainly! Here are ten plot twist prompts to help spark creativity and generate unexpected turns in a novel:

1. The Secret Identity: A main character discovers that they have been living a double life, completely unaware of their true identity or the hidden motives behind their actions.

2. Betrayal from Within: A close ally or trusted friend of the protagonist reveals themselves to be a traitor, jeopardizing everything the protagonist holds dear.

3. The Reversal of Fate: A character who has faced continuous hardships and setbacks suddenly finds themselves in a position of power and success, only to realize it comes with unexpected consequences.

4. The Unreliable Narrator: The reader learns that the story they've been following is told from the perspective of a narrator with skewed perceptions, leading to a revelation that casts doubt on the events and challenges the reader's understanding of the narrative.

5. The Twist of Time: Through a sudden time shift or manipulation, the protagonist discovers that events they thought had already occurred are yet to happen, altering their course of action and introducing new conflicts.

6. The Unexpected Alliance: Two characters who have been at odds throughout the story find themselves forced to work together, their shared goals outweighing their differences, but with unforeseen consequences.

7. The Mirror Image: A character encounters an individual who is an exact doppelgänger, leading to questions of identity, mistaken identities, or a deeper connection between the two.

8. The Revelation of the Past: A long-buried secret from the past resurfaces, exposing a hidden truth that reshapes the characters' understanding of their history and impacts their present lives.

9. The Double Cross: A character who has been portrayed as an antagonist throughout the story reveals unexpected motivations and redeems themselves, becoming an unlikely ally to the protagonist.

10. The Twist of Perception: The reader discovers that the events they believed to be true were actually part of an elaborate ruse or illusion, challenging their assumptions and forcing them to reassess the story from a new perspective.

Remember, these prompts are intended to inspire your imagination and can be tailored to fit the specific genre, themes, and characters of your novel. Feel free to adapt and expand upon them to create unique and compelling plot twists that will captivate your readers.}}

No editing. That's really waht it wrote.

As it happens, these are thematic ideas straight out of Hollywood and best sellers. No, there's no originality per se, but there is a superb and nearly-immediate summary of generic plot suggestions that can account for hundreds and books and films and some are very good. Off the top of my head, here are five:

1. The Secret Identity: Bourne Identity ("Like you read it out of a book.")

2. Betrayal from Within: Aliens 2 ("Burke, you son of a bitch!")

3. The Reversal of Fate: Trading Places ("one dollar!")

4. The Unreliable Narrator: Shutter Island, Gone Girl

5. The Twist of Time: Terminator, The Edge of Tomorrow, Groundhog Day

I could go on.

The AI-generated list brings potential value and might orient — or prompt — a writer towards a framework that seems appealing and could accommodate a premise or character or theme.

That wasn't what I meant, though.

So I said to it: "No. I have an idea for a novel already. Sometimes, I want to add in an unexpected twist. I want to know how to use AI to improve what I have already written. Please explain that."

This was the response which I believe passes the Turning test, responds in natural language to my request, attends to the problematic at hand, and provides the answers in an approachable and easy-to-read format. That is to say: It's a tool we can use.

{{Certainly! If you already have a novel idea and want to enhance it with unexpected twists using AI, there are a few ways you can leverage AI-powered tools:

1. Idea Generation: AI language models like ChatGPT can help you brainstorm new ideas by providing alternative perspectives, plot twists, or character developments. You can interact with the model, describe your story concept, and ask for suggestions on how to introduce surprising twists or turns to your existing plot.

2. Rewriting and Editing: You can use AI to review and improve specific scenes or sections of your novel. Share the relevant portion of your text with the AI model, and ask for suggestions on how to enhance the pacing, suspense, or impact of key moments. The model can provide alternative phrases, sentence structures, or narrative approaches to make the twist more engaging or unexpected.

3. Character Development: AI models can assist in deepening your characters by generating insights, backstories, or hidden motivations. You can provide information about your characters and ask the AI model to offer suggestions on how to add complexity, secrets, or surprising traits to them, creating unexpected twists within their arcs.

4. Plot Structure and Conflict: AI models can help you analyze the existing structure of your novel and identify opportunities to introduce plot twists at strategic points. You can describe your story's major plot points and ask the AI for suggestions on how to modify or reorganize them to create more unexpected and captivating turns.

Remember to use AI-generated suggestions as creative prompts rather than relying on them blindly. AI can provide valuable inspiration, but it's essential to evaluate and refine the suggestions to align with your storytelling style and vision for the novel. Use AI as a tool to augment your creative process and add fresh perspectives to your writing.}}

Writers have always used whatever tools are available to get their jobs done with as little harm to themselves as possible. In this sense, they are exactly like soldiers on a battlefield.

I'm a former specialist in arms control and disarmament, having a Ph.D. in international relations and having worked for two decades on the subject, including a decade at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research. It is fact that if you deploy a weapon to the battlefield it will be used when the going gets tough. The reason is rather obvious, which is that soliders don't want to die and will use whatever they have at their disposal to either kill the enemy or defend themselves (which is sometimes the very same activity). Consequently, if you don't want people to use certain weapons the best solution is to keep them out of reach by mutual agreement. This is why blinding weapons, chemical and biological weapons, tactical nukes, and more recently landmines are not deployed on modern battlefields and when they are (such as landmines) it is either because a party is not a signatory to an agreement or they are in violation of it.

The system is flawed and precarious but does, in fact, work. There are still landmines being deployed but no blinding weapons, and chemical weapons (though having been used by both Iraq and Syria in the past few decades) are rare. They are not being used (knock on wood) in Ukraine.

My argument is simple: AI can do things that writers need, and so some will. Because some writers will — and it's not illegal — it create a dilema for non-users.

Non-users are people who do not, or will not, use AI either because they are unable or unwilling. Some will be unwilling because all new technologies requiring learning and not everyone is capable of keeping up. Some will be unwilling (I'm certainly hesitant at the moment) because the use of AI is a violation of the writer's values, preferences, and tolerances. However, others do not and will not feel the same.  What I value and prefer is not univeral. This produces a game theory problem summed up by the classic  "prisoner's dilema" studied regularly by students of political science and economics (and nuclear deterrent theory).

In the Prisoner's Dilemma, two individuals are involved in a crime and arrested. They are placed in separate cells and offered a deal by the authorities. If both individuals cooperate by remaining silent (which in our case is analogous to both writers choosing not to use AI), they each receive a moderate sentence (that is, it remains business-as-usual for writers). However, if one person betrays the other by confessing (i.e. using AI) while the other remains silent (i.e. choosing not to use AI because they like the world as it is … or was, anyway), the betrayer receives a reduced sentence (i.e. potentially better results and a greater chance of success) while the other person receives a severe sentence (from financial ruin, alcoholism, divorce and suicide. You know … the usual).

However, if both individuals betray each other by confessing (i.e. both of them use AI), they each receive a moderately increased sentence (in our case, the process has changed, the stakes are new, and the game is afoot).

I believe that the world of literature and writing has now changed. The question is how we can — in good conscious, in good faith, with respect for the art, and a care for civilization itself — engage it meaningfully and with value rather than ignore it, pretend it doesn't matter, or wish it away.

Onward.

— Derek B. Miller, 2 June, 2023.