Isabelle Levent

They thought it would be particularly useful for writing in a certain voice or character, or for coming up with thematically exciting words. They wondered what kind of thesaurus would come from a corpus of nautical novels (like Moby Dick)

A couple participants found success using the chatbot as a convenient search engine alternative (KL, WT). KL wrote: “It’s kind of great to use the chat interface and treat LaMDA as a thesaurus, quote finder, and general research assistant.”

Allen feels the same way. “I believe if you focus on the negative with AI, then that will come true,” he says. “And if we get more people focusing on the good and positivity that we can do with it, then that will come true.”

What’s difficult is to state our aesthetic values clearly enough to enable the program itself to make the evaluation at each generation.

If I have an idea for a novel, but the computer writes most of it, is it still my story? This question will not be answered with numbers about how many words I or the computer wrote. It’s going to be answered culturally; it’s going to be a feeling we have about where authenticity or truth really lies.