Forum: Story Recommendations

Brothers and Sisters of SOL: We've spent much time debating the pros and cons of AI generated stories. I think the general consensus is that some AI is useful as an editing tool, but the content, ideas and story lines should come from the heart of the writer.

I find that I ignore stories that say they are AI generated in the same way I ignore stories with m/m or beastiality. Hey, if that's your thing, go for it. It's not mine, so I ignore it. I tried a few AI stories, found them terrible in all ways, so I just ignore them.

And now I have discovered the writings of Megumi Kashuahara. All her writings, and there are many, say AI generated, and I'm flabbergasted. They are some of the best things I have read. I can't believe they come as a result of AI.

Her historical novels are on par with James Clavell's Shogun series. Her westerns rank with Zane Gray. I'm not a sci fi fan so I haven't read any of those yet, but I'm sure they rival the top writers of that genre. Her stories are the kind that, once I start I don't quit until the end. 3 am has come and I realize everyone else is abed and I'm just finishing a story.

Check out her story pages and let me know what you think.

If these are AI generated stories, we're all going to be out of work.

I've completely ignored her "AI Generated" stories as well and all "AI Generated" in general, but this is the 2nd "good review" I've seen of her AI stories so I should probably give them a try...I wondered how good they can be as she posts new stories so quickly

SunSeeker

I've started reading her earlier works from before she started using AI, and I have scored them all 8 or above. I haven't gotten to her later AI work to compare yet.

When you get a round tuit...

I scored all of them 8 or 9. As always, YMMV.

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=58998

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=53645

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=59188

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=22465

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=58244

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=57480

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=54708

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=55830

If these are AI generated stories, we're all going to be out of work.

AI generated versus AI assisted.

The ones you wrote about, and the ones I linked to, I cannot believe they are AI generated, defined by predominately AI produced.

AI assisted? Yeah, I'd buy into that if the author took what the AI produced and 'massaged' that output
-or- input her work and the AI 'massaged' that input and then she had a final time through to smooth the edges.

Or... she has figured out how to manipulate the AI to produce some magnificent tales.

Dunno. But IMHO the stories are as good as any recent work by known human authors here on SOL.

https://storiesonline.net/library/storyInfo.php?id=58998

So I looked at the first story linked above as an example of a great story written by AI, then I forced myself to keep reading to be sure I wasn't being unfair from confirmation bias and I consider managing to read it all the way through an accomplishment.

I'm not sure what the 'tells' of an AI story are, but here are the main issues I noticed with this story:
1)There are about a dozen 'roles' in the story, I call them roles rather than characters because there's nothing distinguishing them other than their role in the story. No differences in tone, word choices, emotional content, no physical description or even background other than the specific role they play in the story.
2)While the story is about a court case and thus the use of legal terminology throughout the story is to be expected, the repetition of the terminology, used between characters who are not lawyers was annoying, and made worse by the fact that nothing else was going on, i.e no 'fluff' or 'padding' in the story.
3)The main role in the story is an 11 yo super genius whose family and teachers are apparently unaware she was a genius until this story started despite the fact she was attending the tenth grade and taking advanced classes for the 10th grade (calculus is given as an example).
4)Lots and lots of exposition and talking to the reader, given the lack of any physical descriptions I suppose this was necessary, but that doesn't make it good writing.

Also, a couple of things that I personally don't like but don't actually affect the quality of the story
1)Rather than the story flowing from one chapter to the next, each was a separate incident, with a timeskip between chapters.
2)Grossly misrepresenting the legal process.

Needless to say I will not be checking out the other stories, although the concept behind both this story and the setting in general is very attractive.

My tells of AI-written story, which a decade ago used to indicate a junior writer in a minor newspaper:
1) trying to follow classical paper-writing/sales presentation advice: "Tell them what you'll say → say it → summarize what you said". Especially repeating the emotional stakes.
2) trying for a pithy line on every page, sometimes every paragraph. Sometimes what works perfectly at the end of the story just breaks up the flow when used on every page.
3) Just the general feel of an inspirational story or article. A good story inspires by the reader thinking about it in their mind. An AI (or a beginning author) beats you over the head with the inspirational message.
4) Lack of really quirky speech. That applies to human writers as well, but AIs have everybody speak in mostly flat, grammatically correct, standard English.

Recently I've come across several stories where authors are apparently unfamiliar with the use of quotation marks. In several cases they had dialog for several people in the same paragraph.