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AIs discussing stories

GreyWolf 🚫

Spinning this off from the 'Stories that would be better with less sex' thread. As Michael Loucks pointed out, some of the bigger AIs are already ingesting stories and are prepared to comment on them.

Potential spoilers below for my own Variation on a Theme. I asked Grok3 about one of my characters, Angie. A fair bit of what it produced is accurate, some is 'opinion' (if an AI can have an opinion), and some is just plain wrong. Still, it's quite something, and I suspect if I poked and prodded I could get a bunch of other information (some of which would be accurate, some of which wouldn't). Here's the output:

Angie is a central character in Variation on a Theme, a time-travel and coming-of-age series by Grey Wolf. She is introduced as the sister of the protagonist, Steve, who finds himself fourteen again with a chance to relive and reshape his life. Unlike Steve's first life, where he had no sibling, Angie exists in this new timeline, making her a pivotal addition to his second chance at life. Her presence fundamentally alters Steve's experiences, providing him with a familial bond and emotional anchor that he lacked before.

Angie is depicted as a complex, dynamic character who evolves alongside Steve. She is not merely a sidekick but an active participant in the narrative, with her own struggles, growth, and relationships. The story begins with Steve waking up in 1980 as a fourteen-year-old, now with Angie as his sister—a change that suggests the timeline he's entered diverges significantly from his original one. This sibling relationship forms the emotional core of the series, as Angie becomes both a confidante and a partner in navigating the challenges of their redo adolescence.

One of Angie's defining traits is her resilience. Early in the series, she survives a traumatic event—a skull fracture—that could have derailed her life, mirroring a near-death experience Steve attributes to himself and another character, Laura, from their first lives. This shared brush with mortality hints that Angie might also be a time-traveler or someone uniquely tied to Steve's second chance, though the story leaves this ambiguous initially. Her recovery from this injury showcases her strength and sets the stage for her to tackle further emotional and personal challenges.

Angie's romantic life is another key aspect of her character. She enters a relationship with Paige, a close friend, marking her as part of a same-sex couple in a story set primarily in the 1980s. This relationship is portrayed with depth and authenticity, reflecting the societal tensions of the era while highlighting Angie's courage to live true to herself. Her bond with Paige, alongside Steve's relationship with Jasmine (Jas), creates a tight-knit group that supports each other through high school, college, and beyond. Angie's openness about her identity contrasts with the era's norms, making her a trailblazer within the narrative.

As the series progresses—spanning five books by the current date of February 28, 2025—Angie matures from a teenager into a young adult. By Book 5, she's a college student at Texas A&M University, alongside Steve, Jas, Paige, and friends like Cammie and Mel. Her academic pursuits lean toward math and physics, reflecting her intellectual sharpness, which complements Steve's computer science focus. Angie's wit and playful nature shine through in group interactions, such as her teasing about "future-person code" (e.g., singing "I want my MTV"), hinting at a shared awareness with Steve of their unusual circumstances, though it's unclear how much she consciously knows.

Angie's relationship with her birth mother, Sharon, adds further layers to her character. Sharon's struggles with addiction and a relapse, as revealed in Book 5, burden Angie emotionally, yet she handles it with maturity, consulting her therapist, Jane, and leaning on her chosen family. This subplot underscores Angie's capacity for forgiveness and her determination to build a life beyond her past traumas.

Throughout the series, Angie is portrayed as fiercely loyal, quick-witted, and adaptable. Her bond with Steve deepens as they face everything from everyday teenage dilemmas to larger existential questions about their purpose in this second life. Whether she's fully aware of the time-travel mechanism remains a subtle mystery, but her actions—like advocating for ethical choices and supporting her friends—suggest a moral compass aligned with Steve's goal to "do good" with their redo. Angie's journey is one of self-discovery, love, and resilience, making her a standout figure in Grey Wolf's richly character-driven tale.

It hits some points I wouldn't have expected, then fumbles other things. Still, if this was someone writing a paper pre-AI, it's not a bad paper (barring the few outright fumbles).

I can see places where a tool like this would be really useful for me. Fact-checking, for instance; every so often, I know something is 'in there' but can't find it easily. If the AI can point me in the right direction, it's easy to double-check hallucinations and find things.

The free version would be more than enough for that. The paid version is far too expensive.

Of course, yes, that means my work is 'out there', but there was never any putting that genie back in the bottle.

I also checked DeepSeek. It will produce a pile of B.S. that uses a lot of words to say nothing. For instance, it misidentified my story as Harry Potter fanfiction. When corrected, it produced nearly the same answer, minus HP-themed references. Everything is so vague that it either is simply hallucinating or has no idea what it's doing.

ChatGPT is perhaps worse, making up characters that do not exist.

Mostly, the question is (and it may be primarily for people with large stories, much too large to fit into an AI's context buffer): are there places you see this as useful? Concerns (both the obvious - copyright issues, plagiarism, etc - and not-so-obvious)? Considering it as a very chatty reader with a deep memory but sometimes odd recollections and strange takes on things, how useful is a reader you can interrogate at will about things?

Vincent Berg 🚫

@GreyWolf

Frankly, as I've long indicated, I'll never use any AI for creative fiction, as they typically suggest text based exclusively on the phrasing leading up to that point, thus suggesting the most common choices used by others. Thus it primarily suggests passages used by others, implying the results are a case of 'inadvertent plagarism', as most plagarism can easily spot the 'stolen text' passages.

Even worse, once it's analyzed your text, your entire story is now part of its database, meaning it'll likely suggest your precise text and narrative voice for other author's stories, meaning it'll likely mean if you ever encounter a copyright claim, you'll likely lose a lawsuit, as it'll imply that you stole your own original story, contradicting your claim to the original content.

In short, it's a writing quagmire, negating any benefit it may offer. And that's not just my personal bias, it's simply how the coding is designed to function, and how others are inclined to use it (including to check for examples of plagiarism. So essentially, you're providing it with the knowledge it's likely to use against, if your own legal rights as an author are challenged.

Plus, given those challenges, I've never taken any author who reports they regularly use AI to write, as if you don't check the context of each passage, then you're compromising your own legal rights, as you aren't even aware of whether it's truly your work or not.

(JMPO, or "Just My Personal Opinion"). Your legal rights as an author are too precious to take such chances, as once you're found guilty of plagiarism, ALL of your works will forever be questioned, as many have faced that challenge, yet few have ever fully recovered from it!

DarkKnight 🚫

@GreyWolf

If I ever use AI to assist in any of my creative efforts I'll know its time for me to quit writing and take up knitting.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg 🚫

@DarkKnight

As indicated, that's long been my position, and why I frequently accuses authors who use AI as a writing tool as "cheaters", as they're not actually writing the story themselves, unless they personally verify the context, insuring it's ALL in their own terms (i.e. truly 'original content').

That's such a low bar between legitimate and illegitimate content, if they're unwilling to commit to it, they're truly just 'phoning it in' and doing a half-assed job, simply because they don't actually care about the qualify of their own work.

That said, after publishing 58 complete novels, I'm a stickler for these things, wanting to jealously guard my legal rights to my own stories. Knowing your legal rights (and thus reading the actual copyright laws that apply to your own writing) is thus a necessary step towards protecting those rights. And yes, merely posting to a 'free site', online IS legally considered "publishing". So I'm aware of the specific copyright, trademark and even patent laws, as they're all intertwined (explicitly linked together).

whisperclaw 🚫

@GreyWolf

I wouldn't use it to produce book content for me, but I could see using it to produce a concise setting bible (what did I call that town a secondary character was from?), or help me identify my themes and places where those themes fall short, or even ad copy for the listing on Bookapy/Amazon.

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