For some reason I’ve been getting lots of adverts of for AI tools, especially ones for writers. The ones on Facebook are ver funny, they have hundreds of comments but are all hidden because each one is pointing out that using AI to write something for you is not writing. Youtube has taken its own turn, deciding to advertise programmes that can write, package and release your book in under an hour. I thought I’d have a little play.
I picked www.tinywow.com because it was free.
First I asked it to write a short story of three paragraphs and used as a prompt ‘Samuel Johnson’s relationship with his little brother’, as that’s the theme of the novel I’m currently writing.
Aside from the fact that this isn’t really a story, it doesn’t have a beginning, middle and end, the AI made up Samuel’s previously unknown younger brother, Thomas. I did actually try and name Sam’s brother in my prompt but there was a character limit to the prompt and Nathaniel didn’t fit.
Unlike Nathaniel, Sam was really nice to Thomas, becoming his mentor and becoming a ‘testament to the power of sibling love and the joy of intellectual companionship’. It’s almost the exact opposite relationship to the one I’m writing about.
Next I asked it to write a 15,000 word essay about what Samuel Johnson would have thought about AI. Aside from the essay being a but cluttered for the short word count (with a new subheading every hundred words) the piece reads pretty well at first glance.
It introduces Samuel Johnson as ‘an 18th-century English writer, poet, and moralist, was known for his keen intellect and wit. He is best known for his compilation of the first comprehensive English dictionary. Johnson's work often reflected his views on morality, society, and human nature.’ Interesting that some of the phrases used to describe him are exactly the same ones from the ‘story’, that must be all this particular algorithm knows of Samuel Johnson. The piece then often talks about Samuel’s beliefs in ‘honesty, integrity and compassion’ and says that his ‘philosophy centered around the idea that individuals have a moral duty to uphold principles of decency and kindness in their lives.’
The AI uses these generalities throughout to make it sound like the ‘essay’ is about something without it having to have any real content. I think it could be argued that Johnson did have a very strong belief in the moral duty to uphold principles of dignity (kindness perhaps being a little less certain). However, most writers and thinkers could be described as having those same beliefs. This is especially true of Samuel Johnson, who was a masterful repackager of standard moral teachings but not a hugely original thinker in himself.
A more sophisticated AI might have used some more particularly Johnsonian phrases and ideas. His notion of ‘the vacuity of life’, that life is essentially an empty hole we fill with the things that are important to us, could have had some really interesting interplay with the notion of AI. Would Johnson have viewed AI as a way of filling this hole, or as something pernicious, taking away the important things that occupy us?
The ‘truest’ paragraph of the piece was the one about Johnson’s perspective on scientific progress; ‘Johnson viewed scientific progress with a mix of curiosity and caution. While he appreciated the pursuit of knowledge, he also warned against the dangers of unchecked technological advancement that could lead to moral dilemmas and societal disruptions.’ This is very true. Johnson loved science and had his own shed where he did dangerous chemical experiments. Yet, social stability was his big shibboleth, even as he tweaked the nose of the gentry, he believed in the arbitrary hierarchy because to shake it was to threaten that stability.
Oddly, the piece becomes more casual as it goes on, with many exhortations to imagine Samuel Johnson doing various things. ‘Picture Samuel Johnson scratching his head…Imagine Johnson scrolling through his Twitter feed…let's envision Johnson perched on a virtual soapbox…If Johnson sat down for tea with Siri, what discussions would unfold?’ I think these are probably pre-programmed methods to make an essay more engaging, yet I can’t help but wonder if they also have something to do with his imagine being used in a popular meme. (I remember once, volunteering at Doctor Johnson’s House and some students came in out of curiosity and were very excited that it was the house of ‘that meme guy’.)
The back of the ‘essay’ is also filled with rhetorical questions. Presumably, this is a way to pad the word count without having to make any conclusions or say anything definitive. It ends by bidding adieu to our imaginary tête-à-tête between Johnson and AI - becoming oddly Frenchified . Aside from anything, it shows that the AI has clearly not yet gobbled up the works of Johnson or even the Samuel Johnson Quote Page. No writer about Samuel Johnson could write a whole piece about him without one quote.
Of course, it is impossible to know what Samuel Johnson would have made of AI, it’s quite a silly question (and so perfect for this blog). As someone who said that, “The chief glory of every people arises from its authors”, I imagine that a machine that steals from them to create contentless waffle would not appeal to him.
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