My dystopian vision of where AI storytelling could go

Throw-away stories and 😱 "good enough" to sell

I’m not afraid of “AI” writing better stories than writers.

There have been moments where that has been a fear, but the more I write about the differences between “AI” and human writers, the more comfort I have and I don’t see that happening.

But I am afraid of 2 other things that will affect writers.

• People creating their own content

• People creating enough “good enough” stories with “AI” tools

Personal Content

First, imagine someone can’t find quite the story they are looking for, or they loved a book and want a sequel that doesn’t exist or a small twist to that story. Maybe they want a steam punk version of Harry Potter or a cozy mystery version of Harry and Hermoine’s married life.

That doesn’t exist and probably never will due to copyright.

But if LLMs get good enough (they’re probably close enough now) that person could generate their own story just the way they like it.

And here’s the kicker.

They’re not going to try to sell it. That’s not the issue.

They read it, and then … just throw it away 😱

That’s what I’m scared about.

What if our readers don’t need us as much?

What if our readers make their own unique story and then dump it?

Mass “Good Enough” Stories

Now here’s my second fear.

What if writers—or worse yet, people who aren’t really writers—start pumping out stories that are “good enough.”

What does “good enough” mean?

Good enough to get someone to buy it.

Good enough to get a reader to read it.

Good enough to make money.

Devoid of true culture, emotion, life, and people.

If that’s the case, good enough might become the new normal.

Readers will come to expect that. They won’t read anything more difficult, dense, or “porous” like it says in Fahrenheit 451.

AI creators will make more content like that to sell.

AI will be trained on “good enough” content.

This starts a slow spiral to more and more culturally bankrupt stories.

And all this is even before we have actual AI. It’s just the fake “AI” LLMs that we have today.

So then the real AI is trained on the low-quality stories of the day (whenever or if ever AGI happens).

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I’m not trying to scare anyone.

It’s just a scenario I see playing out in my head which will probably never happen the way I imagine it.

I just want to encourage every writer out there to strive for better than “good enough” AI-written stories, or even “good enough” human-written stories, or even “good enough” AI-assisted stories.

We are the pillars of society.

We are the foundation and keepers of culture, the observers of humanity, the teachers of life and people.

Hold the line and strive for more than “good enough.”