Let's limit the discussion to the writing implications of AI, please. LLMs have nothing to do with the Terminator.
Things AI can do
- Thread starter Naomasa298
- Start date
All I will say is, just try it. Give it a short piece to critique and see what it says, with an open mind. Compare it with what a human might give you. Tell it not to suggest rewritten text. Then, by all means, discard it, if you don't find what it gives useful, or you disagree - and disagreeing, doesn't make it useless. You might disagree with what a human critiquer or beta reader says too.
In the mean time can we all agree to formally deny the personhood of the business acquaintance who explained to me in our last meeting how he was able to fire his communications team because now an AI will write his heart-wrenching yet engagement-boosting LinkedIn posts about his latest charity cycle ride?
Edit: Last deviation from me, per previous two messages from OP and the modfather. Will now stay on topic or off thread.
Stuart Dren
Active Member
I'm game. I gave it the first three sentences of my WIP.
I'm putting this in a spoiler tag because there's lots of text:
can you evaluate the opening of my novel?ChatGPT said:
I’d love to.Please paste the opening (as much as you’d like feedback on), and let me know:
- What genre it is
- Who your target audience is
- What kind of feedback you want (big-picture story, prose style, pacing, hook strength, marketability, line edits, etc.)
You said:
It fell into each carbon model through an undiscovered gradient, something we suspected but never measured. If only we had taken the time to first solve the unknown variable, inevitable wildcard that made us, the world might not have ended.—Momma
A shiftwell could be predicted on short notice, so long as one knew to watch the muffin trees, or rather, how to watch them.
ChatGPT said:
This is a strong, intriguing start. It signals genre, voice, and mystery very quickly. I’ll break this down into hook, clarity, voice, worldbuilding, and line-level suggestions, then offer a tightened example revision.1. The Hook
Your opening line:This immediately signals science-driven speculative fiction. Terms like “carbon model,” “undiscovered gradient,” and “unknown variable” create a tone that feels analytical, maybe post-apocalyptic, possibly hard sci-fi.
The second line sharpens the emotional and thematic stakes:
This is the strongest hook element.
You’ve given us:
- Regret
- A mysterious “unknown variable”
- The suggestion of world-ending consequences
- A personal voice (“we,” and signed “—Momma”)
- A generational perspective
- Intimacy
- Possibly a diary, recorded transmission, or found document
2. Clarity vs. Intrigue
Right now, you’re walking a fine line between intriguing ambiguity and cognitive overload.Phrases like:
- “carbon model”
- “undiscovered gradient”
- “unknown variable”
- “inevitable wildcard that made us”
You’re asking the reader to process:
- A scientific anomaly
- A modeling failure
- A philosophical statement about creation
- The end of the world
That’s ambitious. It almost works—but it’s dense.
3. The “Momma” Signature
The em-dash attribution:This is excellent if:
- The story continues in the POV of her child
- Or this is a quoted epigraph
- Or her voice matters structurally
Right now, it reads like a diary excerpt or an epigraph. That’s good—but clarity of intent matters. Even a line break that visually sets it apart more could help.
4. The Transition to “Shiftwell”
Then we move to:This is where the piece becomes really interesting.
“Shiftwell” and “muffin trees” are specific, concrete, and strange. That’s good. They anchor us in a world.
However:
- “Shiftwell” sounds technical.
- “Muffin trees” sounds whimsical.
- The tonal collision is intriguing but abrupt.
- Abstract scientific regret
- The end of the world
- A mother figure
- A mysterious phenomenon
- Muffin trees
5. What’s Working Very Well
- Strong speculative tone
- Immediate stakes (world ending)
- Thematic depth (unknown variable “that made us”)
- Curiosity hooks (“shiftwell,” “muffin trees”)
- Voice with philosophical weight
6. What Might Be Strengthened
A. Reduce Abstraction Density
Consider making just one element more concrete.For example:
Instead of:
You might hint at what “it” is emotionally, even if not scientifically.
Mystery works best when it’s specific-but-incomplete, not abstract-and-layered.
B. Tighten the Second Sentence
This part:The grammar makes the reader work hard.
You might clarify the relationship between:
- The wildcard
- Humanity
- The world ending
C. The Shiftwell Line
This line is promising, but slightly long and indirect.“Or rather, how to watch them” is conceptually interesting but weak rhythmically.
You might make that sharper or more surprising.
7. Example Revision (Not Prescriptive, Just Illustrative)
Here’s a version that keeps your intent but reduces abstraction density and sharpens rhythm:Notice what changed:
- “Fell” → “slipped” (quieter, more insidious)
- Slight simplification of structure
- Cleaner rhythm
- More direct “read the muffin trees” instead of repetition
8. Overall Assessment
This feels like:- Literary sci-fi
- Possibly post-apocalyptic
- Philosophical, voice-driven
- Conceptually ambitious
But you absolutely have something compelling here.
This made me laugh:
To give it credit, it gave me similar advice I received from a human on another thread:
And of course its actual line revisions were shit, but no one's disputing that.
I didn't feel that it told me anything especially useful, and the nonsense is there beneath surface level:
What does that mean? Clarity of intent matters? There was a break on my end, but not when I copy-pasted it to the forum, so whatever.
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It's a bit short for it to really tell all that much about the story. As you noted - it didn't really do worse than your human reader.
Clarity of intent, I would read that it's clear what the story is meant to be. Kinda hard for it to tell from three sentences. It tries to give you quite a lot, compared to what you gave it, so I don't think it's a surprise that it doesn't do that well. If you give it a chapter, it'll probably do a lot better.
Clarity of intent, I would read that it's clear what the story is meant to be. Kinda hard for it to tell from three sentences. It tries to give you quite a lot, compared to what you gave it, so I don't think it's a surprise that it doesn't do that well. If you give it a chapter, it'll probably do a lot better.
Louanne Learning
Skipping along
Active Member
Winner: 4th Contest March
Winner : February Poetry
Winner: 4th Contest Feb
Winner: 4th Contest August
Hey, that's kind of what I suggested - I'm as good as AI!
Stuart Dren
Active Member
There's content but there's also the source: I'll always have magnitudes more faith in your suggestions than AI, even if parity emerges.
That's because I'm Luddite, but mostly because of your reputation and writing ability. Same goes for everyone else here obviously. The talent and skill on this forum can't be overstated.
You're right. It's not fair. When I have the time one day, I'm tempted to feed it a 5k or so story full of continuity landmines to see how many it can catch.
Something that just horrified me: people are using AI to create fake Holocaust imagery to distort history. This old BBC article (old as in August 2025) discovered it last year. This article from Reuters shows that I'm not the only one who's horrified. 
It's not just the Holocaust that's being distorted, as bad as that is. AI is being used to create fake history. Anything from the Colosseum to the aftermath of 9/11 to famous images from World War 2 are now fair game, and made to look realistic but are actually fake.
This ties in to the question of this thread - "Things AI Can Do" - in a very disturbing way. All the same, I don't blame AI but the people using it in such an insidious way. Suddenly the entire story of the human race is is up for grabs, and used to get "likes" and worse (even monetization) on Facebook and TikTok.
And by the way, I googled "are ai slop images used for monetization?" and found this:
$117 million a year. *whistles* Boy, are we in the wrong industry, huh?
But I have to ask: is this how low the human race has sunk? Has humanity become so vapid, in search of shallow gratification and banal entertainment, that it finds it acceptable to falsify its own story for shits and giggles? Because if it has, then I'm praying for Nuclear Armageddon.
'Cos even nuclear winter has to be better than this.
It's not just the Holocaust that's being distorted, as bad as that is. AI is being used to create fake history. Anything from the Colosseum to the aftermath of 9/11 to famous images from World War 2 are now fair game, and made to look realistic but are actually fake.
This ties in to the question of this thread - "Things AI Can Do" - in a very disturbing way. All the same, I don't blame AI but the people using it in such an insidious way. Suddenly the entire story of the human race is is up for grabs, and used to get "likes" and worse (even monetization) on Facebook and TikTok.
And by the way, I googled "are ai slop images used for monetization?" and found this:
$117 million a year. *whistles* Boy, are we in the wrong industry, huh?
But I have to ask: is this how low the human race has sunk? Has humanity become so vapid, in search of shallow gratification and banal entertainment, that it finds it acceptable to falsify its own story for shits and giggles? Because if it has, then I'm praying for Nuclear Armageddon.
'Cos even nuclear winter has to be better than this.
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None of this is new. People have been doctoring or spinning history for millennia and faking photographs for decades. Photoshop made that easier then AI made it easier still. The Romans and Egyptians would have done the same thing if they had the tools available to them.Something that just horrified me: people are using AI to create fake Holocaust imagery to distort history. This old BBC article (old as in August 2025) discovered it last year. This article from Reuters shows that I'm not the only one who's horrified.
Is that a real question?
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Have you ever read 1984
Winston Smiths entire job is to falsify the historical record. AI would have saved him a lot of time
Winston Smiths entire job is to falsify the historical record. AI would have saved him a lot of time
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Pending
Member
Sounds like a good idea for a game: "Are you smarter than an AI chatbot?" Critique this story to find out!
I'm thinking of something similar for a Fourth Contest prompt. Not quite sure what yet.
Sit down @Pending, there's something we need to chat about... you know how you look... different from the other children...
Rzero
Member
It's a scam. A bunch of the "AI detectors" are fake. They give you a high score and offer to "humanize" your work for a price.
Amontillado
Active Member
History without integrity, as can be seen with or without AI, is toxic.
All this generative stuff makes me want to start a secret cabal. Sort of an underground of cloistered monks, except nerds instead of monks and pizzerias instead of cloisters, writing with pen and ink, vim, emacs, simple word processors, or anything without AI.
"Toxic." I think I owe an apology. That's entirely too mild a term for altered history.
All this generative stuff makes me want to start a secret cabal. Sort of an underground of cloistered monks, except nerds instead of monks and pizzerias instead of cloisters, writing with pen and ink, vim, emacs, simple word processors, or anything without AI.
"Toxic." I think I owe an apology. That's entirely too mild a term for altered history.
Pending
Member
Pending
Member
Personally, I think monks were the nerds of their time. They were some of the few literate people of their time and they spent part of their days reading (typically far from society). I guess that would make them dweebs and not nerds though.
There would be the issue with maintaining the server or buying enough storage to preserve what is needed. Thanks to the overuse of AI, prices are incredibly high. Pen/paper might be the way to go...you'd just have to keep it in a dry place. (Maybe you could regress to iron gall ink and vellum.) Of course, you could always inscribe the history on old subway tunnels or chisel it on the walls of the caves.
They sure tried. Macbeth was mostly written to make James VI/I feel good, and curry favour. Just in theatre, not photographic.
Napoleon as a Caesar.
Napoleon as a Caesar.
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The Butlerian Jihad... seemed like a silly concept 35 years ago when I first read Dune.
