Writing Rant #3: Fears of A.I. (ChatGPT)

So, I decided to check out ChatGPT, and boy, am I glad I did. Now mind you, I didn’t pay a penny for it, so I didn’t use any fancy new version Open AI might have currently available, but what I have for you should be encouraging, because I came to one decisive and simple conclusion:

A.I. WILL NEVER REPLACE HUMAN WRITERS IN THE FICTION DEPARTMENT.

I’d say we’re not in the infancy of A.I., but rather in the toddler stage. Nevertheless, A.I. can’t replace people when it comes to storytelling, and it never will. Why, you may ask? It’s actually pretty simple:

A.I. IS UNCREATIVE.

A.I. simply doesn’t have the spark of the human soul. It has to beg, borrow, and steal from writers to put together a semblance of a story, and even then, it cannibalizes fiction from other A.I. models.

In other words, A.I. can imitate, but it can’t actually create anything new. It can slap together a bunch of different ideas, but it can’t follow up on them.

Wait…Don’t people do that? Actually…

ARE THERE NO NEW IDEAS?

The cold hard truth is that human beings are like A.I. models in the fact that everything has pretty much been done before. It’s how we present our story—how we tell it, how we twist it to our needs—that makes new stories unique.

For example, I like werewolf and vampire stories, but I didn’t create those concepts. It’s my own take on them that matters, just like it’s any human writer’s take on their own likes and dislikes that make a story unique.

So is A.I. killing writer’s jobs?

IT’S DEFINITELY KILLING THE MUNDANE STUFF.

I, personally, do not really consider a blogger or a columnist a “writer.” I consider them a blogger or a columnist, and yes, those jobs are being decimated by A.I., because A.I. is very, very good at replacing the mundane, assembly-line work of writing. For example, how-to posts are getting annihilated by A.I., because those posts are basically the blue-collar work of “writers.”

Call me an elitist (which I’m not), but I’ve considered writers to write actual books and stories, not, like, blogs for websites. If I wrote a newspaper article, for example, I’d be a journalist, not a writer. If you write blogs or posts, you’re a blogger, etc.

In my opinion, fiction is the most difficult thing to write, because you’ve got to be creative and just plain good at it to get people to read it. Yeah, you’ve got to be a researcher to write non-fiction, and I get that, and that can definitely be difficult, but writing fiction takes real, honest to God talent, and A.I. simply doesn’t have that talent.

No, it steals talent from actual people. Not exactly the same thing. Anyone that’s ever cheated to get a title and then goes up against a real professional can tell you how humiliating it was when they got their asses kicked. Of course, A.I. doesn’t get humiliated, but it can certainly have its ass kicked.

Aside from that mini-rant, I’ll show you some examples that ChatGPT gave me:

THESE ARE CHATGPT’S ATTEMPTS:

So I used ChatGPT to give me a couple of openings (beginnings) for short horror stories. Here’s what it came up with:

First Short Horror Opening (Untitled):

The rain hammered against the windows, relentless and cold, as the clock ticked past midnight. Lucy sat in the dim glow of the living room lamp, her fingers clutching the edge of her mug, the steam rising into the quiet air. She hadn’t meant to be awake this late, but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. Not since the letter arrived.

It had come in the afternoon, sealed in a yellowed envelope with no return address. She had thought it was some sort of prank at first, but the words inside were chilling. “I see you.” That’s all it said, in jagged, uneven handwriting.

She’d brushed it off as a strange coincidence, but then things started happening. Little things at first. A light flickering in the hallway, a creak in the floorboards when she was sure no one else was home, a shadow that seemed to move out of the corner of her eye.

But tonight, things were different. The doorbell rang, its sharp chime breaking the silence. Lucy froze. Who could be at the door at this hour?

She hesitated for a moment, then slowly stood, heart pounding. As she reached for the doorknob, a sudden chill swept over her. The air was colder than it should’ve been, and she shivered, fighting the urge to turn back.

When she opened the door, the hallway outside was empty. Just the dark, empty space stretching out into the night. No one was there.

But there, on the doorstep, was another envelope.

Okay, well this is an interesting idea, but I’ve seen it before. This is kind of a campfire-type story, but it has promise. It needs a human touch, though. I can already tell it’s a little too short for my tastes, but as far as opening ideas go, it’s not bad.

Let’s head to the second one:

Second Short Horror Opening (Untitled):

The wind howled outside, rattling the windows of the old farmhouse like a warning. Inside, the only sound was the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock, counting down the seconds to an unknown fate. Sarah sat huddled by the dim fireplace, clutching her mug of lukewarm tea, her eyes flicking nervously toward the doorway.

The storm had come out of nowhere, fierce and sudden, trapping her alone in the house for the night. Her phone had no signal, the landline was dead, and the power flickered intermittently, casting eerie shadows on the walls.

She told herself it was just the storm playing tricks on her mind. But when she heard it—the soft, almost imperceptible scraping against the back door—she froze.

It was too deliberate to be the wind.

A chill crawled up her spine as she stood slowly, her heart pounding in her chest. She tried to calm herself, but the sound came again, louder this time. A slow, agonizing scrape, like fingernails on wood.

Her breath caught in her throat. There was someone—no, something—out there.

The door creaked open just enough for a sliver of moonlight to spill across the floor.

And then she heard it.

A whisper, faint but unmistakable, carried on the wind.

“Let me in.”

Same campfire feel. I’ve noticed the diction, grammar, and sentence structure for these stories are good, definitely better than amateur, but the stories lack depth. If I actually took and wrote these two stories, they’d be much longer with much more character thought, depth, and dialogue. I think these openings are okay for story ideas, but not really for a complete story opening. There’s not enough setting, character description, or personal touches. For one thing, both stories hold the same generic “writer’s voice,” something I don’t think ChatGPT can overcome so easily. The tension for both of them is good, though.

Now let’s get onto some “complete” stories. I’ll give you three:

Short Horror Story (Untitled):

The house had been empty for years, abandoned after the tragic fire that took everything but the charred skeleton of its walls. No one dared to go near it, not since the night of the fire, and definitely not after the rumors started.

But when Emma and her friends stumbled across it on their hike, curiosity got the better of them. The building loomed ahead like a blackened ghost, windows shattered, the roof caving in. They laughed off their unease and decided to explore.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” her friend Lucas said, nudging her. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Emma tried to laugh with him, but her stomach twisted. She had heard the stories—the whispers about the family that once lived there. How they had disappeared one night, and no one ever knew what happened to them. Just that, ever since the fire, strange sounds and lights had been seen around the place. People said the house was haunted.

They stepped through the rotting doorway into the dark interior. The air inside was stale, filled with the smell of decay. They could hear nothing but their own footsteps, crunching against the broken floorboards.

Emma’s flashlight flickered in her hand. “You guys hear that?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Everyone paused, straining to listen. At first, there was nothing. But then, faintly, from somewhere deeper in the house—scratching.

At first, Emma thought it might be an animal, maybe a rat or a squirrel. But the scratching was too rhythmic, too deliberate. It was coming from the walls.

“Let’s go,” she said, already backing toward the door. But her friends laughed it off.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Lucas said, pushing deeper into the house. “It’s probably just old pipes.”

Emma stayed by the door, not daring to follow them. The scratching grew louder, frantic now, as though something was trying to break free.

Suddenly, one of her friends screamed. Emma’s heart jumped in her chest as she rushed forward, only to stop dead in her tracks.

The walls. They were moving.

Not just the walls. The very house itself seemed to breathe.

Then, from the shadows, a figure emerged. It was gaunt, its face a twisted mask of pain and rage. Its eyes, hollow and black, locked onto Emma’s.

“No… no, please—” she whispered, backing away, but the figure reached out with clawed hands.

Before she could scream, the walls shifted again. Her friends were gone. Vanished into the dark, their cries swallowed by the house.

Emma turned to flee, but the door was no longer there. The house had sealed itself.

The scratching started again, this time coming from inside her own skull.

Okay, so this is reminiscent of a published story I published in Bloody Twine #4 titled “Knucklebones,” right down to the name “Lucas.” It’s not quite the same, but it has some coincidences in it. Nevertheless, the story above is ChatGPT’s complete short story, and it’s based on the old “spend the night in a haunted house” trope, which is probably one of the most, if not the most, common theme for short horror out there. It’s no surprise ChatGPT would hit this setting first, because I imagine a lot of its training came from stories just like this one.

This story is sufficiently F’d up, but it kind of leads nowhere. I’d say this story has an unsettling, unorthodox ending, because we honestly don’t know what happens to Emma or what actually happened to her friends, but this particular tale is probably the most original of the three I’ll present.

Not bad, but not long enough. No further details on what’s happening in the house. No decisive ending and no lead in to an open, unresolved ending. Needs improvement, but not a bad start.

Onto the next one:

The Crimson Veil

The tavern was warm and loud, filled with the scent of ale and roasting meat. Elara pulled her hood lower over her face as she entered, her boots damp from the evening rain. She wasn’t there for food or drink—she was hunting.

Her eyes swept the room, searching for the woman who had been whispered about in fearful tones. A noblewoman, draped in crimson silk, always seen with a new lover but never the same one twice.

Then she saw her.

The woman sat alone in the corner, a goblet of dark wine in her pale hand. Her hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid night, and her lips were the color of fresh-spilled blood. She met Elara’s gaze and smiled, a slow, knowing thing.

Elara approached cautiously. “You’re Lady Vessara.”

Vessara tilted her head. “And you’re a hunter.”

Elara tensed. “Then you know why I’m here.”

Vessara sighed, setting her goblet down. “They always come for me eventually. Men, women, priests, mercenaries. None of them leave.”

Elara drew her dagger. “Then I’ll be the first.”

Vessara only laughed, a sound like silk tearing. In an instant, she was behind Elara, whispering in her ear.

“You should have stayed away, little hunter.”

Cold fingers traced Elara’s throat. She tried to move, but her body was already betraying her, her limbs frozen, her heartbeat slowing.

Vessara kissed her cheek. “You came here seeking a monster.” Her lips parted, fangs glinting. “Now you belong to one.”

The tavern roared with laughter and song, but no one noticed as the huntress and the lady in red slipped into the night—one leading, the other stumbling, as the rain washed away the last trace of her humanity.

So, for this one, I signed into ChatGPT and gave the command: “Write a short horror story involving female vampires.”

Boy, was that a mistake. This has erotic horror written all over it (pun intended). I imagine this concept was sniped from the gobs and gobs of vampiress erotic horror out there; it’s just left out all of the weird and freaky sex. It’s not bad, but it’s not good, either, as something like this would be better suited for a longer story, one involving said weird and freaky sex, because I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be erotic fiction, and erotic fiction without the sex is like drinking decaffeinated coffee. It has the eroticism, but it’s PG, not XXX, not like a lot of the masturbatory material out there that young women are into. Heck, it’s not even PG-13. It’s like Carmilla without the nudie art.

Now, I am not a fan of erotic fiction. Jerk-off material is the lowest form of literature, and it’s mostly read by women anyway. Guys typically prefer visual media (a.k.a. porn) to reading when it comes to this type of material. Not to mention that there is way too much of it out on the market right now, and that flood of stroke-the-magic-bean fiction has choked off men’s literature in the brick-and-mortar stores, killing both fantasy and science fiction at the same time. Thankfully, there’s still plenty of horror for men. Horror has not been overrun by women’s ero-lit. Not yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I have written vampiress stories. In fact, I just wrote a vampiress story titled “There’s Always Food,” but it centers on the acceptance of depravity over morality in order to survive, and it’s not erotic fiction; it’s just straight-up horror.

Now onto the last one:

Charlotte’s Web of Lies

The villagers adored Charlotte. She was small for her age, with big, dark eyes and a voice as soft as silk. She wandered the streets barefoot, humming strange lullabies, her golden curls bouncing as she skipped.

“Poor dear,” the baker’s wife would sigh. “All alone in that crumbling house at the forest’s edge.”

They left food at her doorstep. They let her sit by their hearths. They never questioned why she never ate in front of them.

Then, one by one, people started vanishing. A hunter. A milkmaid. A priest. The villagers whispered of wolves, of spirits, but no one thought of Charlotte.

Not until little Tom went missing.

His mother, wild with grief, stumbled to Charlotte’s house in the dead of night. The front door hung open, the wood splintered and rotting. Inside, the air was thick with cobwebs, clinging to the walls like ghostly lace.

And there, at the center of it all, sat Charlotte.

Her small body twitched unnaturally, her arms bending at sickening angles. Her wide, innocent eyes had split into eight. Her dress hung in shreds over a monstrous, glistening black form.

Tom dangled above her, wrapped in silk, his face frozen in terror.

Charlotte smiled, her fangs glistening.

“Are you here to tuck me in, Mrs. Miller?” she cooed.

The woman screamed, but it was too late. The web had already tightened around her ankles.

So, for this one, I plugged in the command: “Write a short horror story involving a little girl who is a giant spider.”

Gotta admit…the title is clever. That’s pretty good. Even so, this story is, once again, too freakin’ short. There’s just not enough tension or suspense.

My short story, “Missy,” (who also happens to have golden curls) is much longer and much more detailed than this flash fiction campfire stuff that ChatGPT keeps cranking out. “Missy,” if you haven’t read it, is about a social worker in the 1970s who is caught in a battle between a little girl who is actually a giant spider and a pair of vampire hunters. The story is worth a read if you have the time.

My point is, though, that the current A.I. we have shortcuts everything. The stories A.I. creates are manufactured by pulling cherrypicked points from thousands of stories instead of carefully crafting one from scratch.

It’s the difference between buying a pair of cheap shoes from Walmart rather than having an expensive, well-crafted pair tailor made for your feet. Both sets of shoes will protect your feet, but only one pair will last longer than a year. Great stories stick with you, while these little flash-fiction bites, though entertaining in the short burst of flame you have while reading them, last about as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette. They just flat out need more.

Here, for example, is the description of Charlotte in the story above:

She was small for her age, with big, dark eyes and a voice as soft as silk. She wandered the streets barefoot, humming strange lullabies, her golden curls bouncing as she skipped.

Here is the description of Missy in my short story “Missy”:

This little blonde thing had pale peach skin, skin painted over with a light brush of peach upon alabaster, and she possessed ruby red lips that held a light sheen in what little light there was. She had striking green eyes, an eye color that was rare in combination for a natural blonde. Her adorable face was settled within a circlet of blonde ringlets, a face that was both cute yet disturbing in its…well…adorableness, and combined with her antiquated clothing, her very presence unsettled Lorena, if only because the girl looked like a walking and talking porcelain doll made flesh.

The difference is pretty clear in quality and length.

Here is another example from the story above, this one pertaining to description of action:

The woman screamed, but it was too late. The web had already tightened around her ankles.

Here’s my example of action from “Missy”:

He stepped forward to end the monstrous little thing, but Missy leapt straight up as the older man attempted to drive the stake through her tiny chest. The little girl crawled across the ceiling after that, only to dive directly down upon Fenman’s shoulders.

The older gentleman’s brown fedora was knocked from his head as the little demon clutched him from behind, her oversized fangs sinking through the stiff fabric of his suit jacket, sinking through his white button up and then into the flesh of his left shoulder.

Fenman cried out as he was bitten, dropping his stake in the process, and the silver-tipped weapon rattled across the wooden floor.

Missy jumped from his shoulders and back to the ceiling as the older man stiffened, his fingers gnarling as if he were wracked with sudden, agonizing pain.

Once again, quality and length. Where in the hell is the substance in “Charlotte’s Web of Lies”? Where is my description, my action, my dialogue, and my character depth?

So, how good or bad is A.I. at writing? All I have for an example for A.I.’s “creativity” is ChatGPT, but I’ll rate its storytelling skills anyway:

MY CONCLUSION IS…

ChatGPT is better than your normal amateur you’d find on WattPad, Vocal, or other sites like those two, but it lacks professional talent. I will say that it’s ability to crank this stuff out is pretty frightening, but it can’t improve on those works. In other words, it can’t evolve past this . It just doesn’t have the ability to. It’s soulless. It lacks a soul.

I think A.I. can be a useful tool for story ideas, but it can’t replace real fiction writers. Barring the exception of the sexless erotic fiction about vampiresses, I know ChatGPT just keeps giving me the same flash-fiction campfire tales over and over again. It can’t give me anything better yet, and to be honest, I don’t think it ever will.

We’ll see in about ten years, but I’m standing by my statement here:

A.I. WILL NEVER REPLACE HUMAN WRITERS IN THE FICTION DEPARTMENT.

And that is my writing rant #3. Agree with it or don’t. At this point, I don’t care. I’m going to write however I want.

The picture for this post was partially created by artificial intelligence courtesy of Canva.com.