AI Story

When last we were together, I related my experience with AI after I had decided to ask it to write a story in my style. Now, I present to you that AI story.

Probably, I should first tell you what prompt I used. I asked it the following: Now, with these excerpts showing my style, write a short story about an author who asks an artificial intelligence to write a short story about an author who asks an artificial intelligence to write a short story about an author who asks an artificial intelligence to write a short story.

Eh, not the best prompt in the world. I had decided to see how meta I could get. Anyway, here is the story.

                                      RECURSIVE NARRATIVES

Marie sat in her cozy study, surrounded by shelves brimming with well-thumbed books, manuscripts, and her trusty typewriter. Tonight, however, she leaned back in her chair, contemplating a different tool: her brand new computer with its artificial intelligence writing assistant software.

Feeling whimsical, she thought, “What if I asked it to write a story about me asking it to write a story about me? And so on…” Marie smirked at her recursive idea, and began typing.

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William blinked as he awoke from a deep trance in his dimly lit room. The glow from the laptop before him held an invitation. With the launch of the latest AI writing software, he had a playful challenge in mind. He began to type a request, asking the AI to craft a tale of an author, named Anna, who tried using an AI to write a unique story.

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Anna’s fingers hovered over the keys of her vintage typewriter, the muted clicks and clacks a comforting tune. Yet today, her curious nature got the best of her. She decided to ditch the typewriter momentarily and transitioned to her modern tablet. She had heard of an AI program that aided in writing, and she felt an amusing idea bubbling up. Anna fed into the AI a meta-prompt: a story about a young writer named Jake, who wants the AI to recount an incident where he sought the help of an AI for storytelling.

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In a bustling café in the heart of the city, Jake stared at the screen of his sleek laptop. Streams of ideas always flowed in this place, but today he wanted to try something different. A friend had mentioned an AI writer. Jake was skeptical, but curiosity won. He keyed in his request, desiring a narrative about a lady named Lila, who once, just like him, sought the services of a machine intelligence to draft an imaginative tale.

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Lila, a seasoned writer, sat amidst a plethora of floating holographic screens in her ultra-modern workspace. The outside world seemed like a distant memory as she submerged herself in the digital realm. The latest tech innovation was a hyper-advanced AI story generator. With an amused glint in her eye, Lila voiced her request to the AI, hoping to hear a story about an elderly writer named Oscar who, in a twist of irony, wanted a digital entity to spin a yarn about a time he had decided to use AI for crafting a narrative.

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Oscar, with wise eyes and a silver mane, sat in his library filled with tales from epochs gone by. Beside him lay a futuristic device, a gift from his tech-savvy granddaughter. It was said to have an AI that could rival Shakespeare. With a chuckle, Oscar decided to test it, instructing the AI to conjure a tale of a writer named Marie, who initiated this entire chain by pondering a peculiar recursive narrative.

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Marie’s eyes widened as she read the layered narrative, each embedded within the other. The AI had taken her on a spiraling journey, turning back to where it all began. Astonished and humbled by the intricate web the AI had woven, she whispered, “Art truly knows no boundaries.”

She printed the story, placing it next to her typewriter, a tangible testament to the blending of the worlds of man and machine.

Hmm, not bad, but I would be disappointed if anyone really thought I had written this story. It has the seed of something interesting, but doesn’t quite get there in my view.  In fact, I think I might take a shot at revising this to make it my own.

And, yes, the featured image for this post was generated by an image generator from a prompt produced by the AI when I asked it for a prompt to produce an image for the story.