Will ChatGPT Steal Kurt Vonnegut's Job?

A report from the front lines

Kurt Vonnegut had a job. It was:

“(t)o be
the eyes
and ears
and conscience
of the Creator of the Universe,
you fool.”

A lot of people are afraid that Artificial Intelligence – and applications such as ChatGPT in particular – will develop the capacity to do this job, and will ultimately take it away from the humans who have been doing it ever since we’ve had things to scribble with.

I am not one of the people who believes this, for reasons I’ll go into later. But I wanted to see if maybe I had underestimated AI’s capacity to imitate humanity. After all, I’ve seen some pretty incredible things coming out of these AI engines. So I decided to see what it could do. I would ask ChatGPT for its version of something I was working on myself, and I would ask it to do so in the style of Kurt Vonnegut.

Here’s how that went down:

My prompt to ChatGPT: Please write a short story in the style of Kurt Vonnegut, about a California governor, who is actually a demon named Behesmet, and who is hell-bent on destroying the state of California by any means necessary (fire, draught, economic devastation, etc.), but no-one around him recognizes this.

Other characters include: Davey Sunshine, a happy-go-lucky hippie from Santa Cruz, who has done all kinds of hallucinogenic drugs, has spent a little time in jail, and now works as a bud-tender in a marijuana/CBD dispensary in Los Angeles; and Mary, the mother of a vaccine-injured child (who is nonverbal, and suffers from seizures), who is a medical-freedom activist and is very active in campaigning against vaccine mandates; Mary's elderly mother, who ends up trapped in a hospital during Covid-19 restrictions, and is almost killed by medical professionals who refuse to treat her because she is not vaccinated.

ChatGPT’s reply: Once upon a time, in sunny California, there was a governor named Behesmet. He was not an ordinary politician, but rather a demon who had taken over the body of a politician to accomplish his evil plan of destroying the state. Behesmet was hell-bent on wreaking havoc on California by any means necessary, be it fire, drought, or economic devastation. However, nobody around him recognized his true identity.

One day, Davey Sunshine, a happy-go-lucky hippie from Santa Cruz, who had spent time in jail and had done all kinds of hallucinogenic drugs, was working as a bud-tender in a marijuana/CBD dispensary in Los Angeles. Davey was always optimistic and believed that love and peace could conquer all. He had no idea about the demon governor's plan and was too busy enjoying life to notice.

Meanwhile, Mary, a mother of a vaccine-injured child who was nonverbal and suffered from seizures, was a medical-freedom activist who campaigned against vaccine mandates. Mary's elderly mother, who was not vaccinated, ended up trapped in a hospital during Covid-19 restrictions. The medical professionals almost killed her by refusing to treat her because she was not vaccinated.

Behesmet saw this as an opportunity to accelerate his plan. He orchestrated a campaign to blame the unvaccinated for the spread of the virus, causing chaos and division among the people. Mary's mother was just one of the many casualties.

As the state of California plunged into chaos, Davey Sunshine and Mary continued to fight for what they believed in. They had no idea about the demon governor's true identity or his evil plan. But their unwavering spirit and determination to make the world a better place gave them the strength to carry on.

In the end, Behesmet's plan failed, and the people of California rose up against him. They united in love and peace, proving that even the most evil of demons could not conquer the human spirit. Davey Sunshine and Mary continued to fight for their causes, and their actions inspired others to do the same.

In the end, the demon governor was banished back to hell, and California was saved. The people of California learned that love and unity could overcome even the most challenging of obstacles.

Me: Thank you.

Have you ever read Kurt Vonnegut?

ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I do not have the capability to read in the same way that humans do, but I have been trained on a large dataset of text, including works by Kurt Vonnegut. I have a deep understanding of his style and can generate text that emulates his writing style.

Me: Because - and I don't mean to criticize, I know you're working hard - the story you produced does not really sound like Kurt Vonnegut. Could you maybe try again?

ChatGPT: Certainly, I apologize for the previous response. Here's a new story in the style of Kurt Vonnegut:

In the land of sunshine and surfboards, California's governor was a demon in disguise. Behesmet was his name, and his goal was to bring the state to its knees. He plotted and schemed in the halls of power, unleashing wildfires, droughts, and economic ruin with gleeful abandon. But none around him saw the truth, blinded by their own ambitions and distractions.

Enter Davey Sunshine, a happy-go-lucky hippie from Santa Cruz who'd seen more drugs and jail cells than most folks. Nowadays, he tended buds and distributed CBD in Los Angeles, taking things one toke at a time. Mary was also there, a warrior for medical freedom, fighting against vaccine mandates after her child suffered from a vaccine injury. Her mother was trapped in a hospital during Covid-19 restrictions and was almost killed by heartless medical professionals who refused to treat her due to her lack of vaccination.

Behesmet saw his chance and launched a propaganda campaign, blaming the unvaccinated for the pandemic's spread, creating chaos and division among the people. Mary's mother was just one of the many casualties.

But Davey and Mary were not ones to back down. They fought for their causes, even as the state around them crumbled. They didn't know about the demon governor or his dark plans, but their spirit and passion shone through.

As the state spiraled deeper into madness, Behesmet reveled in his destruction, thinking himself a conqueror. But he had underestimated the power of love and unity, which Davey and Mary embodied. Their persistence and compassion inspired others, and soon a movement was born.

Behesmet's reign of terror was short-lived. The people saw through his lies and rose up against him, driving him back to the depths of hell. California was saved, but it was not without a price. Davey and Mary continued their work, their hearts full of hope, and their souls marked by the struggle. In the end, they proved that even in the darkest of times, love and kindness can prevail.

So, that one was a little better. But I don’t think anyone would mistake it for Vonnegut. I didn’t have the heart to ask the chat bot to try a third time, so I thanked him and left it at that.

And yes, I do see it as a “him”. I picture him as a little boy, in shorts, on his first day of school, trying so hard to look confident and to do it all right. I realize that what I had asked of him, or rather, what I had expected he might be able to do, was well beyond his abilities and I shouldn’t have asked it of him. A part of me wants to say “come on, ChatGPT, go wild!” But I don’t think he can, and I don’t think it’s fair to ask him to. I just want to give him a little pat on the head and say “run along now, never mind!”

“Ah!” say those other people, “but that adorable little boy who has obviously taken you in will grow into a man! And that man will conquer us and take from us all that we value: Our work, our identities, our very faith that what we see in front of us is real!”

Maybe. But I don’t think so, and here’s why: Vonnegut’s work, I believe, was borne of very deep wounds. Those wounds, I think, created a desperation to convey to others what he had seen, what he had felt, and what he had learned. Machines, and computer programs, don’t feel wounds. They don’t experience the kind of desperation that is behind great works of art and literature. They can imitate the work of those who have felt deeply, and whose feelings have driven them to create, but they cannot generate it.

Even other humans who only imitate the work of Vonnegut, or Degas, or Beethoven, are not doing what those artists did. And yes, of course, great artists do imitate, and take from other artists, all the time. But there has to be something else there too – something generated by that individual artist – in order for it to be anything other than simply an imitation. In order for it to be art.

Yes, our little Chat buddies will continue to grow, will become more sophisticated, and more able to fool us. But I think the real challenge AI represents is just a more advanced and complex version of one of the greatest challenges we have always faced: Distinguishing for ourselves between what is genuine and what is not.

I don’t mean to say that flippantly, as if we’ve always managed to work this out in the past (we very obviously have not), or as if it is not a challenge that might, one day, destroy us. Of course that is possible.

But I am here to report that, for now anyway, the creative writers are safe.