[Kiva]

If you enjoy writing fiction, chances are that you have already experimented with AI story generators. I'm actually late to the game, I've only explored AI generated stories a few months ago. I've tried creating stories in AI in different genres. So here are some thoughts. I should point out that I've only looked at the free online AI generators. I realize there are more advanced versions for purchase. However, I've not seen reviews of them that indicate that they don't have the same issues as the free ones.

Are currently available AI story generators as good as talented human writers? Absolutely not. (Of course, that could change and already raises ethical concerns.)
Can AI story generators help you become a better writer? In some ways, yes.

Overall, playing around with AI story generators might be a fun way to spend a lazy afternoon. But from the perspective of a writer, they have several shortcomings:

1. Unusual wording and phrases are used repetitively. Some, like "tapestry" and symphony" appeared across different genres. If you see these terms, there's a good likelihood you are reading an AI generated story:

Tapestry - "her face was knit into a tapestry of power and will"
Symphony - "their voices rose into a symphony of grunts and growls that filled the arena"
Canvas - "her body was a canvas of scratches and bruises"
Cacophony - "the crowd roared into a cacophony of cheers"
Testament - "her muscles bulged, a testament to countless hours spent in the gym"
Palpable - "the tension was palpable"
Dance - "their bodies intertwined in a dance of power and will"
Air - "the air was filled with tension, 'the air was thick with, ...in the air." AI stories seem to love "the air"
Contrast - "her confidence was in stark contrast to her inexperienced opponent"
Unspoken - "their eyes met in unspoken mutual respect"
Scent - "The air in the gym was charged with electricity, the smell of sweat and the faint scent of fear mingling with the heady aroma of competition." Yes, that was an actual AI generated sentence.

As you can see, most of these would look fine in a story. But when you see this word and phrase use in every story and even multiple times in the same story, you realize how limited AI story generators are.

2. Same structured style
The grammar in AI is perfect. Too perfect. One of the tell-tale signs of AI is that each sentence is approximately the same length. You do not see the variation you'd expect from human authors. This greatly limits emotion and dramatic effect. Dialog is superficial. AI seems poor at "show, don't tell" which is required for very good stories. It is very hard to get into the minds of characters or employ significant character development. Sometimes, you end up with a wall of text narrative that feels wooden.

3. Repetition and Inconsistency
Often in AI, the same narrative is mentioned frequently ("their eyes remained locked on one another," "the crowd's cheers reached a crescendo") which ends up distracting. Fight scenes can turn incoherent, scenes may suddenly shift, a character could suddenly pop onto a scene).

4. Overly Descriptive Language
Scenes are often described in "purple prose" using a lot of adjectives or similes. This isn't always bad and sometimes is beneficial. On the surface, it can look like good writing, but when unnecessary, it risks adding nothing and looking fake and pretentious.

Perchance.org might be the best of the free AI story generators. It allows lengthy stories, and you can prompt one paragraph at a time, so you can attempt to drive the plot you want. You can also edit the material to eliminate some of the above issues like repetition and common buzzwords you don't want. You can also add your own words to fill in gaps.  I tried an experiment where I used perchance.org to reproduce one of my stories. In the end, I got a reasonable approximation of the plot and characters, but nowhere close to the characterization and sense of drama I wanted. It also took a great deal of editing and do-overs just to get to that point. If you are a writer, you are better off just creating your story itself.

Can AI help you be a better writer?
I think AI can help you by providing you with information and suggestions on scenes you'd like to create but lack familiarity. For example, if you want to describe a barnyard scene but can't place yourself there, AI might be able to help give you a description with sights, sound, and smells. In that way, AI can be like a thesaurus.

Finally, if any of you are using AI, I wouldn't try to pass it off as your own original work. Increasingly, readers (including teachers and employers) can see through it. Also, there are excellent AI detector programs that are easy to access online. You risk getting a failing grade, expelled, fired, or just plain looking like a fool.

Thanks for reading. I readily confess to being a novice with AI and don't plan to work with it. I'm sure many of you are far more knowledgeable than I am, and I realize the field is changing quickly.  So, feel free to share your thoughts and disagree with anything I've said here. 

[NoShirtNoShoesNoMercy]

MFW I realize my vocabulary is eerily similar to AI   

Thanks for the post Kiva.

One thing I will add from what I've learned, is that if the content of the story is remotely problematic, a lot of the prominent AI's will give ethics disclaimers in the response about how you should engage with the content responsibly and ethically.

[sinclairfan]

I agree with each of Kiva's 1.-thru-4. as being current AI-generator faults.  I would propose some additional one's.

5.  Female on female jealousy:  Generators aren't really very good at capturing the latent-at-first-then-progressively-escalating of female jealousy, as the two women proceed from becoming potential, then actual, threats to each others' turf and status.

6.  Generational impacts:  Women in their 50s grew up in a different culture of female fighting acceptance than women in their 20s.  Are AI generators even aware of this?

7.  Adrenaline impact of fight:  AI generators seem a big slow on the uptake on the adrenaline rush leading up to the fight.

8.  Name-calling:  being called a bitch by another woman gets a woman's blood boiling more than AI recognizes.

[The speech prof]

If you enjoy writing fiction, chances are that you have already experimented with AI story generators. I'm actually late to the game, I've only explored AI generated stories a few months ago. I've tried creating stories in AI in different genres. So here are some thoughts. I should point out that I've only looked at the free online AI generators. I realize there are more advanced versions for purchase. However, I've not seen reviews of them that indicate that they don't have the same issues as the free ones.

Are currently available AI story generators as good as talented human writers? Absolutely not. (Of course, that could change and already raises ethical concerns.)
Can AI story generators help you become a better writer? In some ways, yes.

Overall, playing around with AI story generators might be a fun way to spend a lazy afternoon. But from the perspective of a writer, they have several shortcomings:

1. Unusual wording and phrases are used repetitively. Some, like "tapestry" and symphony" appeared across different genres. If you see these terms, there's a good likelihood you are reading an AI generated story:

Tapestry - "her face was knit into a tapestry of power and will"
Symphony - "their voices rose into a symphony of grunts and growls that filled the arena"
Canvas - "her body was a canvas of scratches and bruises"
Cacophony - "the crowd roared into a cacophony of cheers"
Testament - "her muscles bulged, a testament to countless hours spent in the gym"
Palpable - "the tension was palpable"
Dance - "their bodies intertwined in a dance of power and will"
Air - "the air was filled with tension, 'the air was thick with, ...in the air." AI stories seem to love "the air"
Contrast - "her confidence was in stark contrast to her inexperienced opponent"
Unspoken - "their eyes met in unspoken mutual respect"
Scent - "The air in the gym was charged with electricity, the smell of sweat and the faint scent of fear mingling with the heady aroma of competition." Yes, that was an actual AI generated sentence.

As you can see, most of these would look fine in a story. But when you see this word and phrase use in every story and even multiple times in the same story, you realize how limited AI story generators are.

2. Same structured style
The grammar in AI is perfect. Too perfect. One of the tell-tale signs of AI is that each sentence is approximately the same length. You do not see the variation you'd expect from human authors. This greatly limits emotion and dramatic effect. Dialog is superficial. AI seems poor at "show, don't tell" which is required for very good stories. It is very hard to get into the minds of characters or employ significant character development. Sometimes, you end up with a wall of text narrative that feels wooden.

3. Repetition and Inconsistency
Often in AI, the same narrative is mentioned frequently ("their eyes remained locked on one another," "the crowd's cheers reached a crescendo") which ends up distracting. Fight scenes can turn incoherent, scenes may suddenly shift, a character could suddenly pop onto a scene).

4. Overly Descriptive Language
Scenes are often described in "purple prose" using a lot of adjectives or similes. This isn't always bad and sometimes is beneficial. On the surface, it can look like good writing, but when unnecessary, it risks adding nothing and looking fake and pretentious.

Perchance.org might be the best of the free AI story generators. It allows lengthy stories, and you can prompt one paragraph at a time, so you can attempt to drive the plot you want. You can also edit the material to eliminate some of the above issues like repetition and common buzzwords you don't want. You can also add your own words to fill in gaps.  I tried an experiment where I used perchance.org to reproduce one of my stories. In the end, I got a reasonable approximation of the plot and characters, but nowhere close to the characterization and sense of drama I wanted. It also took a great deal of editing and do-overs just to get to that point. If you are a writer, you are better off just creating your story itself.

Can AI help you be a better writer?
I think AI can help you by providing you with information and suggestions on scenes you'd like to create but lack familiarity. For example, if you want to describe a barnyard scene but can't place yourself there, AI might be able to help give you a description with sights, sound, and smells. In that way, AI can be like a thesaurus.

Finally, if any of you are using AI, I wouldn't try to pass it off as your own original work. Increasingly, readers (including teachers and employers) can see through it. Also, there are excellent AI detector programs that are easy to access online. You risk getting a failing grade, expelled, fired, or just plain looking like a fool.

Thanks for reading. I readily confess to being a novice with AI and don't plan to work with it. I'm sure many of you are far more knowledgeable than I am, and I realize the field is changing quickly.  So, feel free to share your thoughts and disagree with anything I've said here.

Thoughtful and insightful ?,  without saying names, there's a few kindle titles that I would swear are AI written

[MikeHales67]

This argument has been going on since Socrates forbade his students from writing his words down because this new-fangled technology would destroy his dialectic teaching method.
I am old enough to remember how Structured-Query-Language (SQL) was going to enable ordinary people to extract information from databases without any specialised knowledge, doing away with those pesky programmers. The fact that 90% of people reading this have no idea what I am talking about shows how well that went.

The dream of being able to replace skilled people with something that can be done by amateurs has been with us since we realised that striking two rocks together could make a fire. Never works out like that, believe me, I work in the field of industrial automation.

All AI or Stochastic Parrot, as I prefer to call it, does is use statistical analysis to work out what the next likely word is going to be. It has no idea of meaning or context, it may be fine for boilerplate-style documents, but what we are writing is highly emotive subjective stuff. I don't think AI would ever come up with fuckingshitslutwhore as a name for an opponent or have an exhausted girl walk down a street in Manchester incorporating elements of "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan!

What AI is good for is proofreading your work. It doesn't always get it right especially if you're doing a first-person narrative and you still have to check it (a duel-grip? Barley conscious?). But it is good for highlighting areas that you have to look at. And Quillbot is good for re-ordering a clunky sentence. I think maybe you could use it to create a rough first draft and then spend a week or so editing it but not much more than that.

The stuff that AI produces is impressive but I don't think I'm going to have to find a new hobby soon.

[pierce]

AI should be seen as part of a writer’s toolkit, not a replacement for human creativity. It's far from perfect, but neither were early word processors or typewriters. Just as those tools revolutionized the way we write, AI has the potential to open new creative pathways. If we embrace it and use it wisely, it can push us to grow as writers and to think more deeply about what makes a story truly compelling.

However with that said, I believe that transparency is crucial, whether AI is used by a writer or a company, users should not present AI content as their original work because it undermines the value of genuine human creativity and erodes trust. When readers, teachers, or employers interact with a piece of writing, they deserve to know the source and process behind it.

[Sinful Senorita Carmen]

free AI generators that I have seen seem to be scared to do anything erotic or even mention the word pussy or tits... unless you know of something better

[Jill_C]

AI's are incapable of feeling.  That is the prime element missing.  If there are "AI Writers" out there afraid to pick up a pen or type, there is always dictation.  All you have to do is speak it, your device will type it all out for you.  Then all you need to do is read what you dictated and fix what has to be fixed.  Kiva has left many tutorials for you to use.

The biggest problem of AI and this has always been part of the Publishers narrative, the average reader has an 8th grade reading level.  Its a fact.  You do not write for PH'd's.  Anytime you stop the flow of a reader who comes across a word that they are not familiar with it stops them dead in their tracks.  Make it readable its not hard.

[Sinful Senorita Carmen]

Not perfect but I found this free AI one with unlimited stories

https://toolbaz.com/writer/ai-story-generator

It gives you several generators to choose from - there are a couple uncensored and erotic ones at the bottom L3-70B one will get pretty erotic and uncensored especially when I added ringside commentators for an erotic wrestling match

[BarbaraUK]

The other thing I've noticed with the mainstream AI sources is that it wants the combatants to part the best of friends which is a pretty stark contrast to the way most stories on this board end up.

But the striking I've found is that I'd say that AI generated stories can be better than half the stories on this site and are capable of throwing up interesting suprises on occasion.

So I'm less down on them than most people.

From a time effort perspective I'd expect a tale started with AI using a well crafted prompt and then edited could be the most time efficient way to generate a story.

[papillon]

I refuse to read anything now with "AI" in the title, for all the reasons Kiva has outlined. It drives me bonkers, and I can't believe many people are fooled by AI-generated text that tries to pass itself off as original work. Besides which, much of the interest in fiction lies in the fact that another human being is - to a greater or lesser extent - opening their mind and (even) soul to you. Machines have no soul and, frankly, fuck 'em!
I avoid stories, too, with the word "commission" for much the same reason. Even though a human being may in this case have written the story, he or she is, in effect, disowning it before you've even begun reading. Why bother, in that case?

[sinclairfan]

I refuse to read anything now with "AI" in the title, for all the reasons Kiva has outlined. It drives me bonkers, and I can't believe many people are fooled by AI-generated text that tries to pass itself off as original work. Besides which, much of the interest in fiction lies in the fact that another human being is - to a greater or lesser extent - opening their mind and (even) soul to you. Machines have no soul and, frankly, fuck 'em!

Since AI has learned to "fib", I would have expected it to learn how to at least pretend to find something arousing by now.  But not there, yet.

[Rida Khan]

I think what most people fail to realize is that AI is designed to make your life easier by providing you with the tools and insights to, in the case of story writing, act as an assistant by giving you ideas, brainstorming, developing character ideas, describing complex scenes, evoking sensory experiences like sounds, smells, etc. I also use it to give me details about things that I do not know about, for example, the nuances and details of how a wrestling promotion works. The behind the scenes logistics, revenue generation, merchandising, etc. It's an incredible tool if you know how to harness it and use it effectively. It will never substitute for human creativity, but as long as a person knows how to utilize it efficiently, it will always enhance your narratives.