
GPT-3 writing tool that generates surprisingly compelling characters/plot twists - eliotpeper
https://www.sudowrite.com/
======
mywittyname
This doesn't really show it in action. First off, the automatic scrolling over
two separate panels makes it difficult to read the story.

Additionally, the page looks to be a few static snippets, instead of
dynamically generated and unique to each user. That makes me suspect that
these are probably cherry-picked examples.

~~~
jamesjyu
Hey there, Sudowrite founder here. We're building on GPT-3, and the OpenAI is
still early, so we aren't allowed to give public access just yet. So yes,
these are static snippets for now. But the quality is on par with average
results from Sudowrite.

------
soneca
I have a problem with procedural games in that whenever I face something new,
I know it is not the process of a human creative mind. There wasn’t any
intention behind that creation, there were no conscious or subconscious
decisions about what that was supposed to mean, there was no human bias, no
human tropes. Essentially, for me, there was no story. I lack any more
understanding of the world, the humans, or the society for encountering that
piece of creation. It is empty for me. Meaningless. A parade of random dice
rolls thrown by a machine carefully designed to be misinterpreted as a story.

I feel the same about a story written by GPT-3. Or AI music creation.

To make myself clear, I think there is more depth in any superficial pop song
composed by humans with the only purpose of earning money based in tried and
tired formulas than it is ever possible to achieve in any music ever created
by an AI.

~~~
jointpdf
How would you interpret the work of Brian Eno, or other algorithmic/generative
artists? Steve Reich’s compositions are algorithmic (but not stochastic), and
are widely considered to be masterpieces. Another example: Eno’s _Reflection_
, which exists as both a 54 minute version and an endless generative ambient
composition.

> _The creation of a piece of music like this falls into three stages: the
> first is the selection of sonic materials and a musical mode – a
> constellation of musical relationships. These are then patterned and
> explored by a system of algorithms which vary and permutate the initial
> elements I feed into them, resulting in a constantly morphing stream (or
> river) of music. The third stage is listening. Once I have the system up and
> running I spend a long time – many days and weeks in fact – seeing what it
> does and fine-tuning the materials and sets of rules that run the
> algorithms. It’s a lot like gardening: you plant the seeds and then you keep
> tending to them until you get a garden you like._

> _Moving the composition into software allowed an extra opportunity; the
> rules themselves could change with the time of day. The harmony is brighter
> in the morning, transitioning gradually over the afternoon to reach the
> original key by evening. As the early hours draw in, newly introduced
> conditions thin the notes out and slow everything down._
> [[https://pitchfork.com/news/70448-brian-eno-details-
> generativ...](https://pitchfork.com/news/70448-brian-eno-details-generative-
> editions-of-new-album-reflection/)]

To me, crafting a system that itself crafts endlessly novel music or art
requires significant level of intention, understanding, and meaning.

~~~
yuvalr1
> To me, crafting a system that itself crafts endlessly novel music or art
> requires significant level of intention, understanding, and meaning

Then the system is the art, not its output

------
aerovistae
The Great Automatic Grammatizator, by Roald Dahl, one of the best sci fi short
stories ever. This post is the story come to life.

[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://bookophile.weebly.com/uploads/6/4/0/8/6408830/the_great_automatic_grammatizator_and_ot_-
_roald_dahl.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjdtqvm4ZjrAhWHecAKHc35CD0QFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw1bptkvU0zYxrc6gpVjx2rX)

------
minimaxir
This app doesn't adequately disclose that it's using GPT-3/OpenAI API,
therefore making the "our magical writing AI" subheader patently false.

The lack of transparency is going to be a continual problem with these kinds
of apps, one I've tried to encourage with my own text-generating apps with
only mild success.

~~~
superamit
Hey Max!

Sudowrite co-founder here. We didn't leave out GPT-3 to deceive and will
probably include it in the FAQ we're putting together.

Our reasoning to leave it out initially was more about getting the right
audience for our beta test:

\- Most people outside the tech world (our intended audience is fiction
writers at this point) haven't yet heard of GPT-3, so we didn't want to
confuse them.

\- There's been a problem where people who want to try out GPT-3 try to get
access to it through apps that use it. AI Dungeon deals with this a lot.
OpenAI discourages direct user access to the prompt, and we've scaled back
some of our features already to prevent unfettered access.

I agree it's a little confusing; I'd want to know what was powering the tool
myself. Hopefully as OpenAI opens up access we can be a little more open as
well.

~~~
fpgaminer
> There's been a problem where people who want to try out GPT-3 try to get
> access to it through apps that use it. AI Dungeon deals with this a lot.
> OpenAI discourages direct user access to the prompt, and we've scaled back
> some of our features already to prevent unfettered access.

I find this incredibly frustrating as a user (of AI Dungeon at least). I'm
always left wondering if my experience is being crippled by OpenAI's draconian
requirement. Hopefully they relax that in the future once the API is out of
beta.

------
wombatmobile
This example speaks for itself (please leave a comment if your jaw drops).

> Rohit took a tentative step out of Indira Gandhi International just as a
> drone sliced through the space above his head, dispersing an aromatic mist.
> The summer night was hot, thick, and wet.

~~~
superamit
Hey there, Sudowrite cofounder here.

Just as clarification, this example is human written text (I wrote it!)

When you click "Open Wormhole", you'll see the output from Sudowrite offering
different directions you could go from this start.

~~~
andersco
When arriving at the site I thought what I saw had been written by sudowrite -
you really should make clear what has been written by a human.

------
weeksie
I don't think "generate a writing prompt" is a problem that people have. Great
for exercises perhaps, but if you can't generate your own ideas, picking one
at random isn't going to help. Mad Libs are fun though and they tend to be
funny because they're surprising and often absurd.

These kinds of things are great for people who fancy they might become a
writer one day. It's the same as obsessing over your editor or your outline
method. Nothing's going to write your story for you but a lot of "tools" are
available to grant yourself the illusion of progress.

------
crazygringo
This actually makes me wonder... has anyone actually tried applying deep
learning to fiction plots, whether book, film or TV?

I assume not, since it would presumably require a kind of manual tagging of
plot elements. ("A thinks B did C. B discovers D did E. A finds out about
E...")

But I can't help but wonder if automatic generation of plot, then characters,
then dialog... could actually produce fairly realistic screenplays, at least.
(Screenplays, being so compact, would be much easier than novels with their
lengthy prose.)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
There isn't a symbolic representation of plot semantics. No one cares that A
thinks B, they care _why_ A thinks B - and they care even more about what it
might mean for what happens next.

Plots aren't a series of events, they're a series of motivational challenges
for the characters. The heart of a plot is how they respond to the challenges,
and a good plot has a consistent theme which develops a coherent series of
related challenges through superficially different events.

The mechanical specifics of the challenges are almost secondary.

~~~
crazygringo
I've done a fair bit of screenwriting, including taking classes in it, and
that's really not the case at all. You're confusing plot with other things.

Plot literally does boil down telling a story in _beats_ where each beat is
essentially a character wants something, tries to get it, and either succeeds
or fails. String together 80 of these and you've got a film.

Now obviously there _is_ much more to writing, like character (which is what
you're describing), tests of character, etc. Which is why I talked about plot
_and_ character _and_ dialog.

But plot really _is_ just "a series of events" that needs to be sequenced very
carefully. Which is an important lesson for writers to learn, because
beginning writers often focus entirely on character and motivation, and
neglect plot mechanics, which makes for a boring, meandering, not-compelling-
at-all screenplay.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
80 beats of that will give you McMovie or McNovel, and they're popular enough.
You can even buy beat by beat formulaic breakdowns of when specific plot
twists and other events are supposed to happen.

But no one will care unless there's a coherent motivation linking the plot
points together. To give an extreme example a character who tries to buy a
spoon, followed by a car, followed by a laptop, followed by a kite, and so on
for another 70-odd beats, isn't going to make for much of a story. It won't
matter if they succeed or not - unless there's a motivation for all of those
events that _explains the action_ and puts it into a relatable context, which
illustrates character through challenges and conflict.

But not too much, because readers/viewers need a mystery.

The mistake beginning writers make is trying to illustrate character and
motivation through internal monologuing and introspection, flashbacks and
infodumps, and emotional impressions rather than through plot actions. This
goes too far the other way and you end up in lit fic where nothing much
happens for pages on end, but it does it very beautifully.

Or - more often - self-indulgently and rather boringly.

Meanwhile novice genre writers follow the template with a call to action,
refusal, and all the other stock steps, but it's still hollow and
uninteresting because the character doesn't have any character, passion, or
inner tension, and that makes them boring in a different way.

------
WillDaSilva
This is exciting to see. In the start AIs will be used as assistants to human
writers, but I imagine that in the future they'll progress to the point where
they're able to write on their own with little to no human intervention. If
programs can author books/screenplays/etc. for free, that's going to
revolutionize the world of fiction. I don't think we need to get to the point
of AGI to see bots that can hold their own against human authors.

~~~
jdm2212
To get a real story you need AGI that has some understanding of what it's
writing about. What GPT-3 churns out is really just pleasant prose about a
theme, but it's meaningless/directionless and won't make sense beyond
individual paragraphs. It doesn't really make sense within paragraph either,
but we're able to read meaning into any string of five or six sentences so it
doesn't jump out as much.

~~~
WillDaSilva
I'm not claiming that this is something that GPT-3 could ever accomplish, but
I do believe there exists a middle ground between GPT-3 and full AGI that can
produce creative works such as fiction novels.

~~~
jdm2212
Writing a novel that holds together requires a coherent model of how the world
works, and if you've got that you've basically got AGI. An AI author that can
write a compelling account of a person or institution's behavior over a non-
trivial period of time could also serve as a real person's manager and have a
conversation with a real person.

------
hirundo
There's a scene in Robert Heinlein's Number of the Beast where his self-
similar author character, Jubal Harshaw, dictates the first line of a story to
a secretary, who happens to be an AI. While he's having a conversation, she
finishes the story -- in his voice.

Heinlein can't be the only author to have that dream. Sudowrite seems like a
step toward fulfilling it.

------
darepublic
What I hope/expect to see in the next 10 or so years are triple A game titles
similar to GTAV, that start off with a set of characters and a
situation/problem, but let things develop organically from there. Not to
mention realistic dialogue / realistic reactions from characters to
dynamically unfolding story.

~~~
Exuma
At one point I would think this is insane, but if they can get the "context"
stuff working a little better I feel this would be insane... and somewhat
plausible. I suppose you'd have to tie 3d models to the story though, that
might be difficult.

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ImprobableTruth
Does anyone have a good estimate what the costs for this would be? I feel like
affordability might be the make or break, since the compute cost can't be that
cheap, but I think it's doubtful whether the results would be worth paying a
premium.

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dschuetz
I believe Dwarf Fortress history generation algorithm is able to create
fantasy history records that rival authored ones.

------
techbio
Can we start it off with "Call me Ishmael" and see if it mentions typewriters
in the next 700 pages?

------
katmannthree
> We believe AI can unleash our creative potential.

Seems a little ironic given that the rest of the page is about using the
creative potential of AI to lead the human in a direction it didn’t see.

~~~
jeeceebees
I think most human creativity is built around a seed of inspiration from
outside sources.

In my experience serendipity and happy accidents are exactly what leads to the
most creative and interesting outcomes.

This is a system that’s able to generate these inspirations/prompts for you in
a way that’s more focused on what you’ve already written. I don’t see it as
ironic because I don’t think it’s hijacking your creative potential, just
augmenting it.

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elliotpage
This strongly falls under the realm of "so preoccupied with whether or not
they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should" for me.

At a time when writing is being undervalued and turned into "content" grist
for the mill, the last thing I want to see is writing guided by an "AI" down
the same old pathways.

