#182 — dead or alive | ChatGPT

Machines Write Monsters

Because they can’t see humanity

Purpose

I do not delude myself that I am a great writer, but on my most confident days, I believe I’m a good storyteller: I can craft stories which intrigue and engross, which connect with the reader on an emotional level, and which explore the complexity of humanity. Whether I do that well is another question, but I think those are the factors which make stories worth telling. They’re also why AI can’t tell great stories.

Most things I know about writing I learnt from reading, and so I only know them instinctively, not academically. I can’t often explain, for example, why I chose a certain narrative structure, or why it felt better to tell the reader something rather than show it to them, but I do know whether or not the finished story works. In that sense, I’m like an AI, which has read widely but doesn’t understand writing at all, only knowing how to string words together in particular ways to form a coherent whole.

AI has read millions more words than I ever could, but I think I write better stories than AI can, because I’m human. I don’t know what aspect of humanity AI fails to capture or reproduce, but whatever it is, it’s as vital to stories as stories are to humanity.

Prompt

As an experiment, I took a favourite story of my own (linked at the end) and wrote a brief description of it:

A short story of approximately 1200 words set during the Warsaw Uprising. The narrator is a Polish woman in her late thirties whose husband and son died during the German invasion of Poland. She treats casualties in her basement despite being desperately short of medical supplies. Her latest patient is an eighteen-year-old boy who has lost both his legs and will die soon. He reminds her of her youth and everything that has changed in her life since she was eighteen.

I gave that text as a prompt to ChatGPT. And then, because ChatGPT doesn’t seem to understand what a narrator is, I added:

Write the same story but in the first person and from Maria’s point of view.

I could have added more to the prompt. I might have asked for a story about the value of hope, about the need for love and human connection, about stoicism, pragmatism and romanticism as a doomed ménage à trois. But that was how I, as a human, saw the story. I wanted to know what ChatGPT would see, so I could offer… let’s call it ‘constructive criticism’.

I asked ChatGPT for an inspiring and optimistic title, so allow me to present:

“Echoes of Resilience: A Beacon of Hope in Warsaw”

And let me stop you right there. I asked for a title for a story, not an academic paper, but that’s the least of my issues. I’ve read the story, and I have no idea where the echoes are, or what hope the protagonist provides. But those are inspiring and optimistic words, so I guess I got what I asked for.

My own title was a brief exhortation to love, even in the face of death. By itself it tells the reader nothing about the setting, but hopefully something about the theme.

Plot

ChatGPT’s story opens predictably, introducing setting and character.

In the dimly lit basement of a war-ravaged building in Warsaw, I toiled tirelessly to save lives. The walls around me bore the scars of battle, their plaster pockmarked by bullets, but they stood firm. My name is Maria, and I am a Polish woman in my late thirties. My face carries the weight of grief, a grief that was etched into my being when my husband and son perished during the early days of the German invasion. Their dreams, and my dreams for them, shattered like glass.

I’ve already said I sometimes choose to ignore the most fundamental writing advice — show, don’t tell — and so does ChatGPT here. I like to think I tell when showing would be clumsy and interrupt the story’s flow. ChatGPT manages to tell us who the narrator is in a way which is clumsy, and interrupts the story’s flow.

I chose never to name my narrator, and only allow her age to be inferred. Her husband is mentioned in passing once or twice, but her son isn’t introduced until almost the end of the story, one short paragraph before he and his father’s deaths are revealed. That was deliberate, because I wanted her strength to be demonstrated before it was cast into context, and for her need to be established before its cause was explained: showing before telling.

That the inside of her basement would be unlikely to have bullet holes is a minor quibble.

Here in the basement, I’ve created a sanctuary of sorts. I had been a nurse before the war, and now I use my skills to tend to the wounded who find their way to me. Medical supplies are scarce, and I ration them as though they were fragments of hope, doling out bandages, antiseptics, and painkillers sparingly.

I thought of making my protagonist a nurse, and perhaps she is, but in this case I chose to show, not tell: she nurses.

The latest addition to my makeshift clinic is a young boy named Stefan.

It seems uncharitable to nit-pick individual sentences, but not as uncharitable as it is to describe a dying youth as though he were an IV stand or a second-hand stretcher.

He lies on a stained mattress, his face contorted in pain. His eyes, the color of a summer sky, hold a distant gaze, as if they can see beyond the chaos and destruction. His legs have been amputated hastily to save his life, and I know he won’t survive for long.

She cut off his legs to save his life, and knows that he’ll die soon anyway. She’s a terrible nurse.

But I can’t let him go without offering solace in his final moments.

Reader, she can. And she will.

“Stefan,” I whisper, my voice barely more than a breath. “I’m here, my dear. You’re safe now.”

Stefan turns his head to look at me, and a fleeting smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “You’re an angel,” he mumbles, his voice feeble.

I smile back, my eyes filling with tears. “I’m just a woman trying to help.”

I have probably — in other, earlier stories — written dialogue as trite as this, as flatly pseudo-human as this. But I do try to have my characters speak with purpose: dual purpose, if possible, where both the listener and reader learn something from their words. This, though? This is fluff.

I wet a cloth with the little water I have and gently wipe his fevered brow. His gaze never leaves my face, and in those cerulean eyes, I see a reflection of my own youth. Stefan’s innocence and the tragedy that has befallen him transport me back to the days when I was eighteen, a lifetime ago.

It’s possible — but not creative— that Maria remembers her own youth simply because she has seen a tragic youth. I chose to give my narrator a need to remember: her memories are prompted by her actions, which are caused by the boy’s actions, which are the result of external action, as opposed to reminiscence being jammed into the story because it was mentioned in the prompt.

I begin to speak softly, the words flowing like a river of memories. “When I was your age, Stefan, the world was so different. My husband, Jan, and our son, Piotr, they were my world. We were happy, so very happy. But then the Germans came, and our lives shattered like glass.”

I’m not zealously opposed to repeating words or phrases through a story. That can be useful to establish mood or theme or other concepts I vaguely understand. But I am opposed to recycling similes (unlike real glass, which I do recycle when it shatters).

Stefan listens intently, his breaths growing shallower. I continue, my voice a soothing balm to his pain. “I remember the day they took Jan away. Piotr cried for hours, clutching his father’s photograph. I couldn’t bear to tell him that he’d never see his father again.”

I don’t know who took Jan away, or why, but as a reader I’m happy to roll with it. What I can’t easily accept is Maria’s confidence that recounting her own tragedy to a dying boy is soothing to him in some way.

A tear trickles down my cheek, and I brush it away with the back of my hand. I glance at Stefan, whose eyes are brimming with unshed tears.

Nice one, Maria. Stefan is dying, and you’re reducing him to tears over your pain; tears which he is manfully holding back, despite the pointless amputation you performed on his legs.

“Life was never the same after that,” I whisper. “Piotr and I struggled to survive, just as you are now. We scrounged for food, hiding in basements like this one, always one step away from death. And then one day, a bomb fell near us, and Piotr…”

As well as the Uprising itself, I researched the German invasion of Poland, and life in Warsaw between 1939 and 1944. ChatGPT might have done: it’s hard to tell because no timescale is given for Maria and Piotr’s struggle to survive. The siege of Warsaw lasted approximately a month, and 18,000 civilians died, so the circumstances she describes were certainly possible during that period. But she uses her struggles to illustrate the phrase ‘never the same after’, which implies five years rather than one month. It does paint a dramatic picture, though.

My voice falters, my gaze distant. Stefan reaches out a trembling hand, and I hold it, taking comfort in the warmth of his touch.

Okay, that’s not awful. Selfish, but not awful. Selfish and unrealistic, but… yeah, actually, it is awful. A similar thing happens in my story, but the dying boy’s hand is cold, and he takes comfort in her warmth.

“Piotr,” I continue, “he didn’t make it. I held him in my arms, just like I’m holding you now. He was only fifteen, Stefan. Just a boy. I promised him that I would survive, that I would remember him, that I would tell his story.”

“I’m sorry you’re dying, Stefan, but let me tell you about my pain.”

Stefan’s eyes well with tears, and he clings to my hand as if it were a lifeline. I can see the pain etched into his young face, the raw anguish that mirrors my own from years ago.

“My dear,” I whisper, “you remind me of Piotr, so full of life and dreams. I wish I could have saved him, just as I wish I could save you.”

“I see your fear, Stefan, but take comfort in the knowledge that there is no hope for you.”

Stefan’s breaths grow slower, and I know that his time is drawing near. I lean in closer, my lips brushing his forehead gently.

Bravo, ChatGPT! A human connection. A predictable one, but one I can’t criticise too harshly because my characters made a similar connection. Although in my story, the kiss had a purpose beyond conforming to expectations: it comforted both characters, and it told the reader something about the protagonist.

“You’re not alone, Stefan,” I say. “I’ll stay with you until the end. You won’t be forgotten.”

As the minutes tick away, I hold Stefan’s hand, and together we face the darkness that has descended upon our lives. In his final moments, Stefan’s gaze never wavers from my face, finding solace in my presence, just as I find solace in his youth and innocence.

I’m utterly baffled by that last clause: Maria has lost her family, but finds solace in watching a stranger die because he is young and innocent. I’m not sure a human could write those words for a character intended to be sympathetic, and I don’t wish to meet any human who would.

When Stefan’s breathing finally ceases, I close his lifeless eyes and offer a silent prayer for his soul. I wipe away my tears, knowing that I have fulfilled my promise to remember him. In the basement, amidst the rubble and despair, I have shared my story and received the gift of closure through the young man I have comforted in his final moments.

ChatGPT has artfully established its protagonist’s moral character throughout the story, and continues to hammer away at that point as we approach the end: Maria has benefitted from Stefan’s death, and repaid him by remembering him for several seconds after his passing.

As I look around at the wounded and broken, I realize that I am not just a caretaker of bodies but a keeper of stories. In the midst of war’s darkness, I have found a flicker of light, a connection to the past, and a glimmer of hope for the future. And I vow to carry on, to tend to the wounded, and to ensure that their stories, like Stefan’s, will be remembered and honored, even in the face of oblivion.

The AI has remembered that stories sometimes have themes, morals, and messages, so it tacks a few onto the end. In doing so, it turns Maria from a nurse into a mortician, and lets her find hope in the painful death of a stranger.

I appreciate the importance placed on story in this ending, but I do wonder how Maria will remember Stefan’s story, given that she doesn’t know it, having been too busy telling him hers. I gave my ‘Stefan’ very little story, because I wanted to tell the protagonist’s story, but he did tell what story he had to his nurse. I told the protagonist’s story to the reader, rather than have her torment a dying boy with it.

Point

I asked ChatGPT for a story, and it gave me one which accurately met the brief. There’s nothing in the story (apart from names) that sets it in a particular place or time, although that might be forgiven because boys dying in war is a timeless, global story. A great deal of the writing seemed trite and flat, and there was neither intrigue, nor depth of emotional connection: one character was a cypher, the other a sociopath.

My prompt didn’t rule out writing a deeply unsympathetic protagonist, but I’m not sure that’s what ChatGPT intended, or even if the AI can recognise that that is what it wrote: Maria is a monster written by a machine.

Some readers might think my protagonist’s actions are also monstrous, and perhaps they are, but I hope she — and I — are recognisably human.

The story I asked ChatGPT to ‘rewrite’ was:

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