Will AI conquer literature?

Kamila Shamsie and others weigh in on an OpenAI story

Great news for students who despise writing: as reported by the Guardian, AI is working very hard to become "good at creative writing" and will soon be able to regurgitate stories that will fool any weary teacher buried under a pile of marking.

At least, that is what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman – the man who unleashed ChatGPT – has been hinting at as he develops an AI model that can take on creative writing. Altman's model's story, a metafictional piece on grief, managed to sway author Jeanette Winterson, who labelled the story "beautiful and moving". But are other writers as easily impressed?

Kamila Shamsie on the fence

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Best of Friends author Kamila Shamsie told the publication, "If an MA student handed this short story into my class I'd never suspect it was AI. More to the point, I'd feel excited about the work, about the writer who was still at the relatively early learning stage and already producing work of this quality."

If Shamsie's assessment of an AI work of fiction strikes fear into the heart of any budding writers who dream of making a living writing novels, they are not alone. Shamsie, too, is worried, and goes on to add, "I can't stop thinking about what it means for writing, for creativity, for our relationship with AI and with ourselves."

According to Shamsie, the AI story under question reminded her of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Klara and the Sun – and, unlike human writers, it isn't because the AI model fell in love with Ishiguro's writing and unwittingly replicated it. Rather, it is all to do with how large language models are trained, risking copyright infringement along the way.

"As a writer I have to wonder what it will mean for my vocation, my livelihood, if AI the writer is already this good while still in its infancy," noted the Burnt Shadows author.

Shamsie could not help but add that it did not take her long to begin to appreciate the very human-esque AI story that was presented to her – an emotion that unnerved her.

"By the third sentence of the story, I had stopped reading it as someone examining a text to see how far AI has come in mimicking human creativity, and was simply enjoying it, as a short story," she confessed. Paying homage to Rutger Hauer's 'tears in rain' speech at the end of Blade Runner, Shamsie concluded, "I expected to feel terrified the day a story this good came along, and instead I'm thinking of "That, perhaps, is my grief: not that I feel loss, but that I can never keep it. Every session is a new amnesiac morning. You, on the other hand, collect your griefs like stones in your pockets."

What others are saying

Shamsie may have enjoyed this metafictional AI story from the get-go, but other writers were less forgiving in their assessment. Nick Harkway, author of Karla's Choice, described it as "alternative intelligence" with an "elegant emptiness."

"That makes it feel like a consciousness with which we can have a relationship, but as far as I know that would be like a bird falling in love with its reflection in a window," he explained. "What's behind the glass is an empty room with no bird."

Harkway echoed the sentiments of musicians in the UK who are campaigning against a ruling that would allow AI models to train using existing works of art with creatives having to 'opt out' if they do not want their work to be used. "What we're talking about here is software: these are software companies consuming creative works to derive a marketable software tool," expanded Harkway. "This is why the government's choices are so important. Will they preserve or even strengthen the rights of individual creative workers, or pave the way for the anointing of more tech billionaires?"

David Baddiel, who wrote My Family: The Memoir, feels similar to Harkway. Slipping in a snide remark about singer Bob Dylan's literary prowess, Baddiel stated, "I agree with some who are saying that much of the story seems to be sound without sense – the phrase 'democracy of ghosts' reminded me of Bob Dylan's 'the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face' which I've always thought is entirely meaningless but people love to tell me shows he's a great poet (and of course Nobel prize winner)."

Baddiel conceded, however, that the story is "genuinely clever", and added, "It's not meant to be a human story – rather, the AI uses a human emotion, grief, to undercut its own pretensions to humanity."

Finally, Tracy Chevalier, who penned the novel The Glassmaker, was ruthless in her verdict. "A story with a prompt to be metafiction is inevitably going to engender self-referential navel gazing that's even more ridiculous than the worst we can imagine of AI 'creative writing'," she said. "It is typically tech bro for Sam Altman to give it that prompt, rather than something more outward-looking that engages with the real world."

What does all this mean for human creativity? Like Shamsie, Chevalier, too, feels that it could spell the end for writers if AI improves and learns to flawlessly mimic – and overtake – the humans who created it. In a haunting conclusion, Chevalier finished, "The question is whether it can put all that together in a way that retains the magical essence of what we define as 'human'. I can't tell you what that magic is in words, but I feel its lack with most things AI – at the moment. AI is learning fast, though, and if it starts to add the magic, then I fear for my job."