5 ms·

What exactly is the use case for "longform writing by AI"? Profiting from mass-produced zero-effort novels?

gjstein 4y ago
Just as ChatGPT seems pretty capable at summarizing text, an AI with "unlimited memory" could potentially answer analytical questions about larger datasets and non-linear data (in the sense that prose is read from start-to-finish). The OP is most excited about this ability to remember to create more structured longford outputs with internal consistency (e.g., asking questions about a fantasy universe that respects the characters that exist elsewhere in the story or universe).
- erichocean 4y ago
  E.g. you can imagine implementing an AI D&D dungeon master this way. It could even trigger things like (AI-synthesized) music at the right time. Or you could build an AI girlfriend/conversation partner.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    I don't understand exactly how that would work. At some point, the generation would introduce new events and characters, new places or objects, and name them, but then when summarising, won't the names of some of them be lost, just because there's not enough space in the summary to name them all? The same goes for all sorts of detail, not necessarily named. At that point, what happens to the narrative about those forgotten characters, objects, etc? The main idea, of continuously feeding the model a summary of its generation (and its dialog with the user of course) sounds interesting, but it's still not a memory. At some point, the continuous summarisation will have to grow big enough that it again exceeds the system's buffer (its "short term memory"). Either that, or it will drop so much detail from the summary that it will lose the plot. So while this may result in longer generations, it doesn't look like it will really solve the problem of "long term memory", or long-distance dependency. It's a smart trick, but that's not enough.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - nl 4y ago
      I think once we have an LLM that can take books 6-12 of the Wheel of Time saga and turn them into a single book we'll be close enough for the size of the memory not to matter.
arrosenberg 4y ago
Could be interesting to use for random world-lore generation to write a story on top of.
aiappreciator 4y ago
At very minimum, better novels. Current text transformers are horrendous in writing long form stories (ie, longer than 1 page). Because they don't have a concept of long-term memory. It has to keep everything in its short term memory (the context window), which is at most 2k words right now. Everything else is discarded, so the AI is unable to keep track of past events. This AI probably tries to summarise past events into short summaries. Sort of like how humans don't remember details of past events (What did you eat last week), only tracking important or unusual events. This helps massively optimize the memory of the AI Novels are probably the grand challenge in text-AIs, because they require multiple things. 1. Long term memory 2. Multi-party state tracking (What happened to whom, how is relationship graph between multiple characters changing, what is happening in the background, or the world, despite not being mentioned in the text explicitly) 3. Multi-party theory of mind (The AI must infer the internal mental state of characters despite not being explicit in text) 4. Accurate understanding of human motivations/desires, which are the driving force behind stories. As such, AIs that can write long fictional stories is also capable of: 1. Deception (Plot twist/surprises) 2. Emotional manipulation (Pulling your heart strings) 3. Long term planning (The simulated characters need to plan long term, with an effect on the world-state) Needless to say, it will be extremely dangerous. But that AI will also master therapy, sales, supervising children, customer service etc, as it now has an strong understanding of human behaviour. Still, all of that is quite a few years away. In the meantime, AIs that can assist human fiction writers is very possible, humans do the long term tracking and comprehension, the AI can help fill in dialogue, polish up writing styles, describe scenery or objects etc. Novel writers are a great testing ground despite limited economic value, because novel writing AIs are risk-free and error-tolerant. Novel writers are generally also extremely excited about AIs, unlike artists.
- aprinsen 4y ago
  Why would we want an AI that writes novels though? Is this a "to see if we can" thing? Let's say this or some future AI system writes better novels than any human author at a fraction of the cost. Novel writing is solved. What will we have achieved? I wish I could opt out of this world you want to create, where if you achieve your vision, I will be utterly useless and obsolete.
nonethewiser 4y ago
I see zero problem with that. If great literary works can be produced with a click of a button we should do it. And if they’re not great then they’re not great - we’re already more than capable of producing not great novels.
- nmfisher 4y ago
  If they're universally bad though, they will flood the world with crap and make it very difficult to find the great (i.e. human-written) literary works.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    It might become a difference like with synthetic polyester fabrics and vs. wool and silk. Or organic food vs. processed food. People will pay more for the "real thing".
- BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
  > And if they’re not great then they’re not great You see no problem with flooding every market with junk products that cost nothing to produce so that non-junk products are crowded out and impossible to find? This is exactly the thing that everyone now hates Amazon for and why trying to find honest reviews of anything online is so horribly frustrating. Some barrier to entry is always better than no barrier to entry.
  - brucethemoose2 4y ago
    On the other hand, it could give nonprofit, noncommercial hosts an unprecedented advantage since there is less incentive to spam there.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    I found the Amazon Wheel of Time boring, as if it was produced by a machine or something. I assume it will be even worse once they start using AI for doing similar things. Language-model AI can simulate texts, but it cannot simulate how reading such texts make humans feel. Only a human writer can do that and only that makes texts truly entertaining.
a_bonobo 4y ago
I work in biology and plopping DNA into GPT-style models kind of works, but there are many long-distance interactions within genomes that are more distant than current GPTs can encode. In some plants there's linkage (~gets inherited together more often than expected) across tens of thousands of base-pairs (~letters), so having these long-distance models will be very useful!
ilyagr 4y ago
Fake investigative journalism "proving" whatever you want people to believe. Alternatively, a critical mass of such "journalism" convincingly arguing for contradicting theories, making people confused and apathetic on the topic of your choice. I'm afraid that, no matter what the engineers' original intention, if it works well enough, this is what it'll be remembered for.

Just as ChatGPT seems pretty capable at summarizing text, an AI with "unlimited memory" could potentially answer analytical questions about larger datasets and non-linear data (in the sense that prose is read from start-to-finish). The OP is most excited about this ability to remember to create more structured longford outputs with internal consistency (e.g., asking questions about a fantasy universe that respects the characters that exist elsewhere in the story or universe).

erichocean 4y ago
E.g. you can imagine implementing an AI D&D dungeon master this way. It could even trigger things like (AI-synthesized) music at the right time. Or you could build an AI girlfriend/conversation partner.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  I don't understand exactly how that would work. At some point, the generation would introduce new events and characters, new places or objects, and name them, but then when summarising, won't the names of some of them be lost, just because there's not enough space in the summary to name them all? The same goes for all sorts of detail, not necessarily named. At that point, what happens to the narrative about those forgotten characters, objects, etc? The main idea, of continuously feeding the model a summary of its generation (and its dialog with the user of course) sounds interesting, but it's still not a memory. At some point, the continuous summarisation will have to grow big enough that it again exceeds the system's buffer (its "short term memory"). Either that, or it will drop so much detail from the summary that it will lose the plot. So while this may result in longer generations, it doesn't look like it will really solve the problem of "long term memory", or long-distance dependency. It's a smart trick, but that's not enough.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nl 4y ago
    I think once we have an LLM that can take books 6-12 of the Wheel of Time saga and turn them into a single book we'll be close enough for the size of the memory not to matter.

arrosenberg 4y ago

Could be interesting to use for random world-lore generation to write a story on top of.

aiappreciator 4y ago

At very minimum, better novels. Current text transformers are horrendous in writing long form stories (ie, longer than 1 page). Because they don't have a concept of long-term memory. It has to keep everything in its short term memory (the context window), which is at most 2k words right now. Everything else is discarded, so the AI is unable to keep track of past events. This AI probably tries to summarise past events into short summaries. Sort of like how humans don't remember details of past events (What did you eat last week), only tracking important or unusual events. This helps massively optimize the memory of the AI Novels are probably the grand challenge in text-AIs, because they require multiple things. 1. Long term memory 2. Multi-party state tracking (What happened to whom, how is relationship graph between multiple characters changing, what is happening in the background, or the world, despite not being mentioned in the text explicitly) 3. Multi-party theory of mind (The AI must infer the internal mental state of characters despite not being explicit in text) 4. Accurate understanding of human motivations/desires, which are the driving force behind stories. As such, AIs that can write long fictional stories is also capable of: 1. Deception (Plot twist/surprises) 2. Emotional manipulation (Pulling your heart strings) 3. Long term planning (The simulated characters need to plan long term, with an effect on the world-state) Needless to say, it will be extremely dangerous. But that AI will also master therapy, sales, supervising children, customer service etc, as it now has an strong understanding of human behaviour. Still, all of that is quite a few years away. In the meantime, AIs that can assist human fiction writers is very possible, humans do the long term tracking and comprehension, the AI can help fill in dialogue, polish up writing styles, describe scenery or objects etc. Novel writers are a great testing ground despite limited economic value, because novel writing AIs are risk-free and error-tolerant. Novel writers are generally also extremely excited about AIs, unlike artists.

aprinsen 4y ago
Why would we want an AI that writes novels though? Is this a "to see if we can" thing? Let's say this or some future AI system writes better novels than any human author at a fraction of the cost. Novel writing is solved. What will we have achieved? I wish I could opt out of this world you want to create, where if you achieve your vision, I will be utterly useless and obsolete.

nonethewiser 4y ago

I see zero problem with that. If great literary works can be produced with a click of a button we should do it. And if they’re not great then they’re not great - we’re already more than capable of producing not great novels.

nmfisher 4y ago
If they're universally bad though, they will flood the world with crap and make it very difficult to find the great (i.e. human-written) literary works.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  It might become a difference like with synthetic polyester fabrics and vs. wool and silk. Or organic food vs. processed food. People will pay more for the "real thing".
BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
> And if they’re not great then they’re not great You see no problem with flooding every market with junk products that cost nothing to produce so that non-junk products are crowded out and impossible to find? This is exactly the thing that everyone now hates Amazon for and why trying to find honest reviews of anything online is so horribly frustrating. Some barrier to entry is always better than no barrier to entry.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  On the other hand, it could give nonprofit, noncommercial hosts an unprecedented advantage since there is less incentive to spam there.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  I found the Amazon Wheel of Time boring, as if it was produced by a machine or something. I assume it will be even worse once they start using AI for doing similar things. Language-model AI can simulate texts, but it cannot simulate how reading such texts make humans feel. Only a human writer can do that and only that makes texts truly entertaining.

a_bonobo 4y ago

I work in biology and plopping DNA into GPT-style models kind of works, but there are many long-distance interactions within genomes that are more distant than current GPTs can encode. In some plants there's linkage (~gets inherited together more often than expected) across tens of thousands of base-pairs (~letters), so having these long-distance models will be very useful!

ilyagr 4y ago

Fake investigative journalism "proving" whatever you want people to believe. Alternatively, a critical mass of such "journalism" convincingly arguing for contradicting theories, making people confused and apathetic on the topic of your choice. I'm afraid that, no matter what the engineers' original intention, if it works well enough, this is what it'll be remembered for.