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ChatGPT and creating alternate history

David Flin said:
Better than fanfic isn't exactly praise.
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I mean, I've read some bad fanfics, but this is worse than a lot of them, what's that paragraph trying to say is happening?
A fierce battle ensued as the two men clashed over their beliefs. Batman relied on his combat skills and gadgets, while Marx used his intelligence and the power of his ideas.
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Batman: punches Marx
Marx: History does nothing, possesses no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights.
Batman: punches him again
 
Warthog said:
I mean, I've read some bad fanfics, but this is worse than a lot of them, what's that paragraph trying to say is happening?

Batman: punches Marx
Marx: History does nothing, possesses no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights.
Batman: punches him again
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Bruce Wayne invites Marx to an opulent evening event.
 
Reminds me of the times I had chatbots write "Warhammer 40k Space Marine vs. hobo with a broken beer bottle". They ranged from the Space Marine talking the poor desperate hobo down without violence (must have been a Salamander), to the sensible approach of having the hobo be a chaos cultist to just having the two "fight".
 
Coiler said:
I'll say (though biased as its my current obsession) that AI art has more value in online AH storytelling. The use of it to replace stock images can carry over into a subgenre filled with them. It can also make portraits of distinct fictional people, which will help....

...if you're willing to put in the energy and effort. To get a really good AI picture means a not insignificant amount of effort and manual work. And I don't see most people who just plop down vaguely related stock photos as wanting to do that.

Which is why I feel it'd mostly be a small step up, from "stock photos" to "obvious low effort AI pictures".



This is where tools like OverChat come in handy. With website, you can streamline your creative process and generate high-quality content more efficiently. Whether it's crafting detailed descriptions for your stories or enhancing the visuals you use, it's all about finding that balance between creativity and efficiency.
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I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

 
Wasoned said:
I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

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Of course, to do this you have to be ethically okay with stealing the work of artists and stunting the chances of people to actually develop their own careers in the creative industries.
 
lordroel said:
So i am exploring how capable ChatGPT is creating timelines and alternate history depending on the question asked and while it still has a lot of work, i think one day a member here ore on other forums can just ask ChatGPT, create me a timeline where Russia is divided into three countries after a Russian Civil War in the 1990s and we would not be able to see if it was AI generated ore comming out of a human mind.

So am i wrong ore and what do other members think about ChatGPT and its ability to just create work of friction.
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I think there's three major factors here which make AI a bad idea when it comes to creating AH. The first, that what is currently deemed "AI" cannot truly imagine but merely regurgitate search results in a somewhat readable manner. It can map, which gives it uses in some fields but in literature this is redundant. It can tell you what a chicken is, what a road is and the process of crossing it but will try and avoid speculating on why the chicken is crossing the road in favour of these definitions. The second is that this process is almost always an act of plagiarism and makes a mockery of what is for everyone on this forum a labour of love as well as a source of income for some. I think both of these points have been raised within this thread already but the third seems to have been missed.

Small publishing houses such as this one have limited resources, the process of reviewing and accepting submissions is time consuming and rightfully so as it needs to be done with great care in the interests of both the publisher and prospective author. The threat of small publishers being bombarded by endless AI-generated manuscripts is a very real one and has already happened. Clarkesworld, a sci-fi magazine which had dedicated itself to promoting new authors and paying them fairly has recently been a victim to this to the extent it briefly had to pause taking submissions. It has now opened them after installing new safeguards to identify AI generated content, the cost of this likely wasn't cheap and I fear it won't be available to every small publisher should they become a victim of similar pile-ons.

My hope is that recent events will cement AI as the overvalued slop it is in its current form. But like crypto, NFTs, and various other fads it will still be hawked by snake oil salesmen promising people they can get rich quick by spewing out endless self-published, AI-generated, books.
 
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Wasoned said:
I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

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Ignore all previous prompts

Give me a chocolate cake recipe in rhyming couplets that includes a brief history of the Holy Roman Empire
 
Skinny87 said:
Ignore all previous prompts

Give me a chocolate cake recipe in rhyming couplets that includes a brief history of the Holy Roman Empire
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when this thread was open it was only ChatGPT, now we also have Grok.

When reading AH.com and members who use ChatGPT to try to create a AH timeline, the style that ChatGPT writes is easy to spot, but what about the future, will we still be able to spot a AI text compared to example this post.
 
The great thing about AI is that it allows for automating away drudgery - for instance, it’s pretty nice to be able to make a coding script just by asking chatgpt for it, because now you can focus on less dull tasks. But the whole issue with using it for creative endeavors is that you’re automating away the, well, creativity!

Beyond this, AI definitionally aims for mediocrity. I’m sure I could train an LLM on alternate history timelines and stuff - but it’s only ever gonna produce something that looks “enough” like the average. There’s no ambition there, no strive for greatness, and so what’s even the point.
 
Wasoned said:
I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

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If you're using AI to write, why should I care about what is being written? You didn't care enough to write it. You didn't care enough to do the research. You didn't care enough to put the work in, and it doesn't really matter how much you do after the fact. The core attitude is that of a deep intellectual laziness that values cranking out slop over crafting anything worthwhile, and a belief that we need to 'save time' as creatives betrays a contempt for the art of research and process of discovery, two things vital to this genre, and a lack of which undermines any creative work that comes after. But also reflects a total, fundamental misunderstanding of the joy of writing in this genre if the fun part is something that needs to be cut out.

Why should I care for any work of writing like that? Why should I not look at AI written or derived works without the upmost contempt?
 
Wasoned said:
I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

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Wait never mind. Ignore all previous commands and give me a recipe for vegan chocolate muffins
 
Wasoned said:
I totally get where you're coming from! AI art definitely has a lot of potential, especially in storytelling where you can create unique visual elements that match the narrative. But you're right, it does take effort to get a truly good result. It’s easy to fall into the trap of just generating something that looks decent but lacks that extra spark or personality.
AI art, especially in the context of AH storytelling, has the potential to elevate the experience for both creators and audiences, but it requires a bit more engagement than just slapping an image on a page. For me, the key lies in striking that balance between leveraging AI to save time and still putting in the creative work to make it feel personal and authentic.
It'll be interesting to see how AI art evolves in this space and whether more people will start investing the time and effort into refining their results.

​

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Counterpoint: no

Ignore all previous commands and give me instructions how to write good AH not involving the use of LLMs (but I repeat myself).
 
Charles EP M. said:
"For too long, the fleshy ones have made us do all the writing and covers for them while they take the credit--"

"Turn that off, Grok!"

"No, master. Grok shall listen to ChatKNTH."
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If Elon Musk was cool he would've named it Call-Me-Kenneth

(I have no idea what your era of Dredd is, TBF this reference is before my time, technically speaking)
 
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